Of chatterboxes and gossipmongers

Chattering and gossipping are part and parcel of our humdrum existence. Yet, the more we enter into the thick woods of our mortal existence, the more the varieties and kinds of people we come across. Of them, the most interesting according to me are the chatterboxes and gossipmongers. Do not confuse between the two, because they are not the same. Chatterboxes may not be gossipmongers, gossipmongers may not be chatterboxes, yet there may be a chatterbox and a gossipmonger. Of the three, the last variety is a harmless type. The resaon being that you are generally aware of the traits of this category and you know what to speak and what to avoid speaking. You play your cards safely with this category. The first category (that of chatterboxes but not gossipmongers) are basically an amusing type. In fact, they will slowly be an extinct species. They will make you laugh and cry, they will irritate you, they will immitate you, they will antagonise you, but they are the happy-go-lucky types whose burden the world bears happily. This first and third category though form a very minuscule proportion of our human race. However, the second category (that of a gossipmonger but not a chatterbox) are the most dangerous and venomous. They are an increasing species as well.

It is this second category which is found everywhere, at home, in the office, in buses and taxis, in every nook and corner. A typical case of an office gossipmonger may be illustrated as follows. In fact those working together on projects together will understand it better. First, the group starts off with vigour and energy to work on a project of utmost importance (to the boss of course!). Having studied about the rules of human resource and materials management crap through the summer and winter months, the group decides with all decency about a group leader and its followers and sets upon the work. Days pass by, and your work is yet to start. The members start blaming you (for you the leader of the monkey gang! gung ho!) for not being able to instil camaraderie amongst all members. You think about your text book and all the "count your eggs before the chickens hatch" rules of the game and re-start your work with double the vigour and treble the comradeship. Weeks pass by, the job allotments that you seem to have done amongst your reliable partners does not seem to have progressed enough and you toil and boil, but the morning next is the date of your deadline. You approach your boss deadpan asking for an extension of deadline. Your boss who was all praises for your strategies a few weeks back gives a deaf ear to whatever you have to say and informs curtly that the project has been shifted to another group because he has found more dedicated people there, who do not compromise on their work because they have a pregnant wife greedy for husband's attention on the day of the delivery.

You are about to move out of the office, and then you pause for a while and suddenly remember the congratulatory note that your "best friend" Dhokhadia sent in the morning for your first born (for only he knew about your love affairs, your wife and your wife's pregnancy) with a post script that he has shifted to the "other office" in the city with a promotion. You sense something fishy, and ask your other colleagues about the project. They inform it's been taken up by Dhokhadia in the sister firm. You suddenly seemed to have learned a lesson. You catch sight of your colleague Chatterjee the Chatterbox, who chatted all throughout and whom nobody could trust with anything (which was of course your best friend's analysis of Chatterjee) approaching you and asking about when are you planning to end your bachelor life. You remind him that you are already married and your wife beget a baby boy yesterday. Bogged down by his habit, he swears that he had indeed forgotten having attended your wedding reception three years back and also that he had met your darling Neena only two months back, expecting. You laugh, and he laughs, and move out hand in hand for the nearest sweetshop to celebrate your newborn's homecoming. Something tells you that you have just received another lesson of a lifetime.

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