The most Annoying Indian Expressions

It is in the nature of most human statements and all onions that if you keep peeling them you will be left with no matter. Words come together and seem to imply a common truth but when probed deeper they usually lead to nothing. Like, ‘India lives in the villages’, ‘Evergreen hero, Dev Anand’, ‘Indian brain’, ‘Indomitable spirit of Mumbai’, ‘Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties’, ‘Synergy’ and ‘Paradigm Shift’. The power of nonsense, however, is immense. It is, in fact, a relentless cultural force that is far more influential than sense.
Atrocious clichés and meaningless alliterations, like Ram Rajya, have erected whole worlds that do not exist, and ideas that are, in reality, not ideas. For example, what does ‘digital divide’ mean? It is catchy and so its implication has caught on. But the distinction between the rich and the poor
is an ancient phenomenon which is least meaningfully expressed through ownership of computers. In fact, the expression ‘rich-poor divide’ itself is meaningless because nobody is rich unless there are the poor, and no one is poor unless there are the rich. The divide is the very definition. Yet, so powerful is nonsense that the very idea of digital-divide has made the Indian government foolishly spend crores on procuring computers for starving farmers.
In the list below are more such annoying expressions free India has used excessively. Some of them do not make sense. Some used to make sense. Some do explain an idea but they have been used so much by all kinds of people that they have lost their meaning.
Anti-incumbency factor
Usually used by psephologists when they want to say, ‘we don’t understand these bloody illiterate voters’.
Alternative cinema
People who use words like ‘metaphor’ and chase prospective producers away, eventually find some petty cash and make low-budget films on ‘issues’. These films are called Alternative cinema. Also called meaningful cinema. Also called meaningless cinema. Different from Parallel Cinema. In that, around siesta time on Doordarshan, people speaking in Oriya used to show how to boil water.
Indomitable spirit of Mumbai
The habit of people in the financial capital taking the trains a day after a terrorist strike or biblical floods. The expression is usually used by people who do not take the trains.
Lashkar-e-Taiba
An organisation that provides wallet compatible ID cards to its members so that Indian police can identify them minutes after a terrorist attack, and declare on national television who exactly was behind, “the dastardly act”.
Indian culture
Used chiefly by Indian males who have not read enough to know that other nations too have culture. The expression is always invoked to address the modernity of women.
Indian brain
An illusionary organ claimed by Indians mistaking the success of IITians as a consequence of a common national intelligence. This is used in the context of other illusionary concepts like “IT boom” and “Software Superpower”.
“I am in search of my identity”
A ritualistic quote of creative people when they have just become famous. Usually delivered from the other end of the alimentary canal.
Maiden bowls him over
No idea what it means.
Woman-on-top
A headline found on glossy paper. It is used to signify a triumph of women. Like when they, “storm the male bastion”. Woman-on-top is interchangeable with “Girl-Power” and is often followed by one or two exclamation marks.
“I was misquoted”
A statement of a celebrity in reaction to his or her quote in a newspaper after parents and friends took offence.
“Off-the-record”
“I may be lying”
Land of Kamasutra
A reference to India. Through this expression, writers illogically argue that since one man, centuries ago, recorded the various positions in which elastic couples can make love, this country was once inherently liberal. It is interchangeable with ‘Land of Khajuraho’.
Paradigm shift
An expression used by MBA graduates when they want to say that they do not know what they are talking about. It is often accompanied by ‘synergy’ and ‘leverage’.
“Rekha is an enigma”
Rekha is not giving interviews.

And more…
A I Abhi-ash, Austerity drive, Anti-communal forces, ‘Astrology is a science, you know’, ‘Ancient Indians knew the distance between the Sun and…blah blah’
B I Bandobast, Big B, Breaking News, Bollywood takes the West by storm, Bowled a googly, Bra-panty
C I Caste no bar, Cricket is a religion, Cutting edge
E I Encounter, Evergreen Hero Dev Anand, Endless cycles of life, Everything is maya F I Foreign hand, Fast-unto-death, Foreign coach, Fair girl from good family seeks… G I Give-me-a-missed call, God is One, Gandhigiri, Gen-X
H I Heavy to very heavy rains are predicted, ‘Hinduism is not a religion, it is a way of life’, Horn OK Please, Homely girl
I I Indian heritage, IT boom, Item girl, Innocent divorcee ‘I don’t believe in God but I believe in a force’ Institution of marriage, ‘I’ll intimate you’
J I Just friends, ‘Juggernaut is from Jagannath’
M I Masterblaster, Middle-middle class, ‘Money is not everything’, Movers and Shekhar N I Naya paisa, Nirvana, Nothing matters
O I Only time will tell
P I Publicity stunt, Partnership-breaker (Agarkar), Paramour, …People, including women and children, Past life, Pin-drop silence, Pre-marital sex
R I Running around trees, Regional superpower, Red , Rebirth, Rain sequence, Reliable sources
S I Secularism, Software Superpower, Southern siren, Sporting wicket, Starlet
T I Tinseltown, ‘This film is different’, Time-pass, Thunder thighs, Ton-dulkar, Truth wins in the end
V I Vegetarian joke, VIP, VVIP
W I We are all one, Wheatish complexion, ‘What is your good name?’ We are not a nation of snake charmers, ‘What strikes you about him is his humility’