Maybe the first rumor was way back in the Stone Ages when a caveman's mother saw her husband's mate ( well this was before the institution of marriage, remember? ) looking at another hairy and 'handsome' ( yes, back then people actually did want hair on their body!) caveman, and spread the first rumor about,well, adultery. Yeah well, it could have actually happened. Yes back then in the Stone Ages a rumor was born in the pointing and grunting language of the stone people!
As man evolved rumors also evolved with man. The earliest instances of rumors I have read about was in the Mughal era. In this really nice book I am reading. Shah Jahan's (yes its that dude who built the Taj for his dead wife, only) younger daughter Roshanara spreads a pretty disgusting rumor that her sister, Jahanara is sleeping with their dad, after her mum passed away! But yeah later in the book the little bitch gets what she deserves! But yeah think of it the atmosphere back then was PERFECTO for making and spreading rumors about well, heated moments of passion!
You are a princess, young and bored, forced to stay with women all day, despite the fact that there are soo many hot dudes around you, I mean you can 'hear' them, hear about them, but you cannot see them! wow! So what do you do? All have time to do is sit around the whole day bitching about your elder sister. Yes, that skank, fathers favorite, everyone loves her! Jealous as you are, you just pop a few coins to a few eunuchs ( who are by the way pretty good at keeping their trap shut! more out of fear than anything else, I am sure) and ask them to stalk your sister who is obviously prettier and has more clout than you, when that does not work you resort to paying the eunuchs more and SPREADING what can be termed as the most DISGUSTING rumor of the Mughal Era.
As the society evolved rumor became more and more sophisticated and slowly there emerged a species of rumor called well, we all know it, GOSSIP! Just a minor difference, gossip is generally exaggerated truth, and rumors are generally make belief. People slowly starting making a living out of well spreading gossip and rumor how else do you explain shows like TMZ? or channels like ZOOM and ZING? These days anyone with access to an internet connection can start a rumor.
The recent rumor about Facebook shutting down in March sent the world wide web into a frenzy, I am sure when THAT does happen, all the stock markets in the world will CRASH! All hail Zuckerberg. You can read about it here! I found whole websites dedicated to analyzing rumors about Iphones ( welcome to the era of the muchly suppressed NERD!)!
I guess rumors about gadgets is the new 'in thing', and rumors about filmstars are passe, yeah just like animal prints ( are they? not if you look around in our college! more on that later.). Movie stars these days are as public as you can get! Case in point : Koffee with Karan. They spread rumors about themselves, leaving common people like us to get all excited about, yeah well the IPHONE revolution ( Geek revolution is well and truly on!). Don't believe me? Google 'rumor'.
I am stuck within this 50 acres of land with 600 other supremely bored young adults like myself. The line here between gossip and rumor here is probably the thinnest in the world. What you see is what you spread, well not really. Everything has to be analysed and debated upon in the halls of living, in the mess, in the acad block ( I refuse to call it Halls of learning), in Cool Palace, Hans and Sweet Dreamland. The tales of a drunken friday night at Geoffreys are generally well documented for the whole college to know byMonday morning ( burrp! actually Saturday evening)! True Story. Ask. well, anyone.
Who's seeing whom, who went with whom to Pushkar, which is the latest catfight,who beat up who where? who 'likes' whom? who's a bitch and whos a snitch and my recent favorite, who's wearing what?? Which teacher is doing what to which teacher (lol!) , the list is endless. You make two of us sit in the mess, give us a cup of hot steaming coffee and we'll give you loadsa rumors ( or Gossip, or wadeva!). It generally starts with "You'll never believe what I heard/saw" or "Oh my God! Guess what happened?" and ends with "too much no?" or "I never thought that chick/dude was capable of doing THAT!". Ask anyone here they'' all say it's true. Tried and tested.
So next time you hear a rumor, think twice, examine it and dissect it and try to get to the actual truth behind it all. Or maybe not. Just hear it and LEAVE IT BE.
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