It makes no difference whether a person is a doctor or an
engineer, or anything else that is recognized as something important. It makes
no difference whether the person is a man or a woman. At ground level, everyone
is a human being, and most human beings will do things that other human beings
will gossip about.
“Thanks for doing everything you did for my patient” the guy
said. He was an engineer working for the civic body. “By the way, you stay at
***?”
I agreed that I did stay at the place he mentioned.
“You know Madam **** stays nearby?”
He was talking about a specialist in our hospital. I agreed
that I had heard so, but not seen her myself anytime.
“I was there the other day” he said. “I was parking my car,
when I saw this driver in the uniform of a driver of the civic body. He was the
Boss’ driver. He said, ‘Sahib is gone up there to Madam’s house’ and pointed to
an adjacent building. So I asked, ‘so what?’ Then he said, ‘So nothing, I am
just saying Sahib is gone to Madam’s house.’ Then he kept looking at me.” He
sniggered.
“He was trying to gossip with you” I said mildly, and kept
quiet. I had no desire to gossip on that or any other issue.
“Well, thanks again, doctor” he said and went away. As he
was going away, I remembered what one of our woman staff members had said about
this specialist doctor and the Boss in front of a number of staff members in
our staff room - “I heard her say ‘the air conditioner in Sir’s bedroom is so
good you know!’ It was so … um,,, so …vulgar.” There was a smile on her lips
and a wicked glint in her eyes as she said this.
“Huh?” I had said and left it at that.
I wonder if the gossipmongers gossip because they are inferior
to those that they gossip about and by demeaning them they prove to themselves
that they are actually superior to their subjects.
