Love -- The Great Leveller

This post is a sort of reply to the crass comments, pictures and posts that flooded the social networking sites before and after the wedding of the famous Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. Well, I don't care much about celebrities marrying or giving birth to children but the various posts, comments and pictures before and after their wedding prompted me to write this post.

For the ones who are in the dark, this is Mr. Khan's second wedding and there is an age-gap of about ten years between the couple. Many enlightened souls post pictures where Kareena is congratulating Saif on his  first wedding and he responding with a "Thank-you Beta" (beta is child in Hindi). This was quite insensitive as  it pokes fun on the wide age gap between the two. I ask, "So what?" When people can accept that Harrison Ford has married someone who is at least twenty-seven years younger than him, it is difficult to accept that Saif has married someone who is just ten years younger than him. Perhaps, Ford being a Western actor escapes the crude comments and remarks unlike Saif and Kareena who dwell on home turf! Well, don't people know that love is completely oblivious of age and other such meaningless things?

I happened to read a post two days ago, which is supposed to be a humourous take on the couple's wedding but to me it came across as very insensitive and unrefined. I am refraining to provide a link to the post as I don't think it's worthwhile to do so. The writer will not mind me providing a link to that post, but I do mind.

I can quote a dozen celebrities who have wide age gaps between them. I also came across comments on Facebook which admonished Saif for leaving his first wife. But what is your problem, I ask? I know that divorce is still a taboo in India but that does not make all divorcees 'bad.' The personal lives of celebrities have become knitted along with the non-celebrities' lives and hence as a community we become the moral police of their lives. Who are we to comment on them? Okay, I agree that gossip is a juicy fruit and not many can avoid it but to the extent of posting distasteful pictures and comments. No.

In fact, Saif has done something what our parents' generation has done -- marrying someone who is much younger. My mom and dad have a thirteen year age gap! I find that strange to think as I wonder how they related to one another. My friend says that her parents have an age gap of fifteen years. They got along well and my friend's father did not call his young wife 'child' or anything like that. If men were much older than the women they married, then it belongs to a custom which is commonplace in India (and also outside India), then why such hue and cry about Saif and Kareena!

All said and done, I wish them all the best with years of joy, togetherness and contentment.

So, do you think that age and love are connected?

Image: Internet

Gossip . . .

Only after meeting Dr. Graham McFarlane in Queen's University, Belfast, I realised that no matter how much we raise our brows when we hear the word 'gossip,' we all do it eventually. Dr. McFarlane's doctoral research was on gossip. What a nice topic to research upon!!

Everyone irrespective of age and class, gossip. Perhaps the only exceptions are children who are quite innocent to do so. Gossip is not harmful or negative; talking about a person in their absence is gossip. We do it all the time. Earlier I always associated gossip-mongers with people who have lots of time on themselves and so idle talk their time away but NO. A stray remark about someone's hairdo or harmless talk about the food-habits of X is also gossip. 

I remember as kids, we would be fascinated when my aunts and uncles would gather together after dinner and start talking about our relatives and friends. For them it was just an exchange of information (of course with their two bits to it) but technically they were gossiping.

I think the majority of the human race would be quite incomplete without their daily dosage of gossip. One must remember that gossip requires a dash of creativity and thus is prone to a bit of exaggeration. Gossip also should be distinguished from rumours and  back-biting, both which have negative connotations. 


Research reveals that gossip is healthy as it fulfills the need for talking out what is within us; Many conversations comprise of 15% gossip. But what makes talking about others interesting? I have not conducted any research but from my own experience, I can say that there is a certain amount of thrill involved while doing so. If one is talking about someone in the next room, then the whole talk is peppered with side glances to be alert if the person is approaching. And believe me, this involves a lot of multi-tasking: Soft tones, not referring to the person by name, being alert and so on.


Many social anthropologists have conducted many researches on this topic and they are quite interesting to read. One worthwhile observation is many people when charged with gossip bluntly deny the fact claiming that they are quite busy to be gossiping but incidentally the truth is something else. Every individual gossips. 


So did you hear . . .


Photo courtesy: Internet