When Eavesdropping Turns Into a Boomerang

My office colleagues often remind me how every word coming out of a Bengali is differentiated, and also how a Bengali is supposed to be an ‘intellectual’. When I retort to them, they blurt out, implying to say something like this, ‘C’mon man! Bengalis read a lot of books, you guys have the intellectual blood in you, bro!” Okay. So be it. I was quite content with this acquired intellectual label, till my neighbour taught about the perks of being an eavesdropper.

I was somehow apprehensive with the very thought of it. Like seriously? How on earth do people actually do that? This certainly reminds of a character called ‘Scudamour’ in J.M Barrie’s novel ‘My brother Henry’. So, this fellow Scudamour had this great and weird habit of sneaking into any acquaintance’s residence and randomly eavesdrop. I am not really sure if Scudamour already was savvy with Instagram filters, as his eavesdropping expeditions would talk something else the next day. He would simply paint the canvas with the colours of his preference and cook up any story, and his stories were always liked by his peers.

Source: My Blog

So, here’s my bit on eavesdropping. This takes me to my early newsroom days while I was an intern with a national news channel. Our job needed us to be glued to the television screen and intimate our boss if we came across anything news worthy. We kept a note of all recent happenings, until that Friday. Me and my co-intern suddenly had this craving for the sumptuous egg rolls on Camac Street, and both of us were dying to grab a bite. The worst part of being an intern is that you require permission for everything and from everyone. This time we had to seek permission from the Bureau Chief and both of us were kind of apprehensive. Finally, we decided to eavesdrop into his chamber, where we could hear him listening to Bryan Adams. ‘Okay maybe, now we could show up, he seems to be in a good mood.’ Okay, one, two, three…PHRRR… we could hear a sound that resembled thunder. Then again, after about 15 seconds, PHHHRRRR, much louder this time to clear our doubts. My co-intern couldn’t help chuckling, and repeating, “Did he actually f**t? Ha ha! Like seriously?”

And that was the be-all and end-all of my eavesdropping expeditions. Presently, I am trying hard to convince my neighbour that eavesdropping ain’t really a good thing!