Secret widely spoken about…

It spreads like wildfire or even faster when you try to conceal. It seems many can maintain anything but secrecy. Every family, office, or society has some ‘top secrets’ widely spoken about! Interestingly, anyone sharing ‘highly confidential’ matters doesn’t always have ill-intentions or loves gossiping; it seems a natural human tendency to speak out what is supposed to be hidden! The more you keep it under the wraps, greater the curiosity. After all, it’s never too easy to keep things to yourself.

It’s a common experience in joint families where everybody talks about everybody else. Most of the times, it looks as if people are just waiting for a possible opportunity to target someone and make it a ‘hot’ topic of discussion. Of course, one thing needs to be mentioned that there is never any ill will here. Rest assured, they will all join hands and fight any adversity as one man. No matter how single-handedly one can handle things, it has to be a group activity in a joint family. You will get help even if you don’t need it and be subject to criticism for taking it!! At times, such ‘goodwill’ may become too much but you can’t help. If a joint family member is willing to guard one’s privacy, the person had it! People will be adequately inquisitive and finally say, “He likes his privacy and so we don’t get into his issues.” Well, learn to live with it and you start enjoying the nose-pokers!

Hailing from a joint family, it’s my own experience. All my telephonic talks with my mom are hardly about ‘us’ and more about ‘others.’ She is keen on keeping me posted of everything that she knows! Sometimes I enjoy and sometimes, when I say let’s not discuss people and their affairs, she gets angry. According to her, there is nothing wrong in discussing people you live with. Agreed, but what when you are living with 50 of them?

Sometimes, I tell her something with a kind request of not disclosing it. She promises so but I know ‘some people’ would surely be in the loop. When I was writing my book, I had put such a request to her. My phone started ringing the very next day with many revealing they had heard I was writing a book!! When I confronted mom, she said she hadn’t told anybody except the family, more than 50 people now you know.

Such gossips aren’t unheard of in offices or social circles as well. Ahead of an important event, be it office appraisals, transfers, union budget, or board exam results, rumours and speculations start doing rounds.

No grudge and no complaints, of course, as people doing it are often innocent. They never talk for the sake of revealing secrets; they just love to discuss people and unknowingly utter what they aren’t supposed to.

And beware of people who stress, “I don’t tell anybody anything’’ or  ‘‘I never like to talk about one family to the other.” When you hear such sentence, know it’s the other way round for certain.

It’s true that you may not have anything to hide but you need not be an open book always. Those who guard their own privacy often allow it to others.

All said and done, such little leaking secrets bring some spice to otherwise boring life. Usually, such secrets are like skirts; covering the essential and open enough to arouse curiosity!

-KanChan