Random has a baby

I am riveted to news of Will and Kate’s baby (married) and Rob and Kirsten’s baby (not married). The parents-to-be are not married, not the baby! Well, the baby too is not married, and not yet born actually. Or may never be. It’s just a maybe. A maybe of product of a maybe couple I’ll never meet. But it’s delicious news anyway!

‘Neha and Karthik split!’ shouts the newspaper headline, and I make a bee-line once more to dig out each juicy detail. Including who they are. I haven’t got a clue, but there’s something about gossip hard-wired into the female brain.

And the newspaper supplement thrives on our need to know. Hey, a need to know is supposed to be a great thing. Columbus needed to know what was on the other side of the ocean. Newton needed to know why the apple bonked his head. I need to know why Arbit is having a nose job! I don’t need to know so much who Arbit is, unless she’s having Random’s baby.

Of course, if we women love gossip about random strangers in another corner of the world, how much more would we drool over those we know! Who’s having a baby? Who’s running off with whom? Tell me, and I won’t tell a soul, I promise.

When I slogged in advertising over how to get my brand noticed by everybody, I should really have called a girlfriend somewhere late at night, ‘Hey, let me tell you something no one knows!’ And by break of dawn, Random, Arbit, Will and Kate and their maybe baby would have known about my brand!