To those of us not performing the Haj, the holiday brings in some needed time to do nothing. Though we hate to admit it, most of us hardly do a thing yearlong. Apart from kissing, which is a hallmark activity of Eid time, most of us engage in gossip — vicious and otherwise. Gossip, as one of my friends succinctly put it, is nothing more than history. Actually, it was the other way around. I should have been angry since one of my majors is history, but I found the statement true, succinct, and humbling.
Writers gossip under the benevolent umbrella of print, be it literature, politics, or simply an airing out of our idiocies to the world. Others have to do with means that are more private.
In 1664 Madame de Sevigne wrote her friend saying, “I can feel a desire to gossip coming over me, I don’t want to give in to it; narrative style should always be brief.” Unfortunately, the majority of us is not that sophisticated or even conscious of what we do. The venerable Madame is very well aware of the proverbial saying that a good tale, ill told, is marred in the telling.
Today, we search for a release from our pressure-cooker world. Some go to the gym, a few read books, a sizable majority watches television (sports or gossip in the form of news or celebrity shows), and the rest or all engage in gossip. There are a few major themes this year making the rounds. The newspaper being thin, the shops closed, and politics, in spite of everything, being on the backburner for a day or two, I thought I might entertain you with a few rumors fashionable today.
Our minister of labor, an accomplished novelist and poet, is putting together another plan to set the unemployed into rhyming couplets and the expat masses of workers into a Shakespearian sonnet. Seeing that everything else has failed, people are saying that this new tactic might actually work.
Jeddah is abuzz with the news that the airport will finally be fixed and the journey from aircraft to terminal will actually take less than the flight from JFK. A few years back the biggest rumor making the rounds was about a fisherman who caught a fish that had human legs. This year we are told that someone found a government executive who did not turn his job and his department into a family business. They say he will be put on show on the fourth day of the Eid in the final act of the Russian circus visiting town.
Another vicious rumor making the rounds concerns Australian sheep. The Australians, in their zealous fight against terrorism, are injecting their sheep with hormones in the shape of pork dribble. The idea is that if you eat it and break into a rash, then you are certainly “wanted.”
A demented and professional gossip is going around Jeddah telling people that we are next on the tsunami hit list. According to him, the Red Sea will finally turn blue and rise to embrace the Mediterranean (which is called White Sea in Arabic) and the two will merge into normal azure shades. You would think Sinai would be the target according to this scenario, but our gossip is adamant.
