When I was a child growing up in a Mauritian household, gossip was something to be savoured. I learned that the reward for bad behaviour was widespread circulation of your misdeeds. I attended many bull sessions where my family cut our calamity-prone familiars down to size. We gossiped in kitchens, waiting on slow-cooking rougailles, over carrom tables and spirited games of dominoes, and in the now-shuttered Blue Bay Café—to my knowledge, the only Mauritian restaurant in Toronto.
But I did not regard this behaviour as a guilty pleasure until I was a teenager, after I began to understand that a penchant for scandal and rumour was frowned upon in broader society—that nosiness, strictly speaking, was not proper. Within a short time of this realization, I swore to commit myself to a life of minding my own business.
In my twenties, though, I was ushered into a group of inseparable student writers, cinephiles, and amateur musicians. I rediscovered the gift of the gab and the spark of malicious energy it rode in on—only this time, instead of the new direction someone’s comb-over was facing or the distant Mauritian relation who might have accidentally married their second cousin, we pored over the details of grad students sleeping with their supervisors and the student groups peddling drugs to their attention-starved members.
While the subject matter could not be more different, it was evident to me that the root of my enjoyment was the same in both cases: an unshakable sense of camaraderie, delighting in the misfortune of others, and gratitude at being brought into a circle where privileged information could roam the corners of a room freely.
I was able to differentiate between types of gossip through this association: the kind that aims to bring a rival low, that tries to set the record straight about some unfairly maligned individual, or that is akin to a secret stock tip and meant to benefit a shrewd listener. Every subject was fair game, and the potential for explosive repercussions was disruptive and alluring at the same time.
Whatever form our gossiping took, it always brought me to a place of spiritual ease. Maybe it was because it cultivated an us-versus-them mentality in our minds—the gossiper on one hand, untouched by consequence, and the one who is gossiped about on the other—or perhaps it was because it led to an emptying of the mind.
Was this the Zen clarity Buddhist monks spoke of and which I had read so much about in Jack Kerouac novels and Timothy Leary manuals? In my new-found social circle, engrossed by tales of imprudence or pompous entitlement, I lost all of my social anxiety about how I was coming across to others, and the agonies of the day seemed to recede into the distance. I was present only for the narrative unfolding before me.
I have asked myself countless times if this was the same appeal that watching predictable movies, practising meditation, or paying for aromatherapy held for other people. Was it really so bad that I gained a little bit of peace at someone else’s expense? Did I really care if the details of a personal mishap in my life brought someone else a moment of calm in the same way?
Even to this day, when I have had a particularly vexing day at work, or if I am struggling with an unruly piece of writing, the first question I will ask my intimates is if they have heard anything that might be gossip worthy—something that will really put hair on my chest.
It’s not clear to me whether gossip jettisons whatever is taking up room in my head, or if the latter is pretty vacant to begin with, all to better receive a scrap of news. What I know is that the cost of gossiping seems pretty negligible—the price of admission is your pride and the realization that scruples only get you a lifetime of breaking butterflies on a wheel.
