For the ambitious journalist, the cocktail party offers multiple uses: a) to be seen or noticed; b) to get sozzled; c) to ascertain which editor is being hired/sacked; d) to chat up an attractive and willing 'face'. However, above all these rare pleasures, the real business of a journalist at a cocktail party is to studiously collect information. Indeed, the success or failure of the above-mentioned can be measured by the amount of dope it releases.
Information, naturally, comes in various shapes, you can get it at a press conference or through a telephone call. No, I'm concerned about stuff available exclusively at cocktail parties. It's called 'gossip', and these days it's a commodity which is in very short supply.
When the other lot were in power, gossip if not plentiful, was adequate. We had a Prime Minister with friends like Chandraswami who in turn had scrumptious friends like Pamela Bordes (that PV himself had a glad eye which was not exactly a state secret). Then there was the Lady at 10 Janpath surrounded by hordes of bright and beautiful people. We had Captain SS, Jagdish Tytler plus friend Kiran Chowdhury, the handsome Madhavrao Scindia, the combustible Mani Shankar Aiyar, and in the minor league V.C. Shukla and Kalpnath Rai. With such a dazzling cast cocktail parties in the capital were guaranteed to ensure that dirt was democratically spread around.
Currently we have the 13-party United Front, which I hasten to add is competent in many aspects, but when it comes to gossip its yield is zilch. Deve Gowda, S.R. Bommai, R.V. Paswan, Mulayam Singh, S. Yadav, occasionally provide politically hot copy but their gossip-potential is non-existent.
What a pity then that the two individuals in the United Front who singly and jointly could have enlivened cocktail party chatter find themselves expelled. I refer to R.K. Hegde and Ms Maneka Gandhi.