Clichés aren't old hat

Twelfth grade English lectures were one of the high points of my otherwise humdrum school life. For one thing, English-Core was the easiest subject by a fair distance, at least for the scant few with the poor sense to opt for biology. For another, our classes were handled by a certain Miss Pretty. Miss Pretty, sadly, didn’t live up to her name, which, FYI, was due to her obsession with that annoying American usage whereby it is considered hip to replace ‘very’ with ‘pretty’ wherever possible and hipper(?) if you say it with a fake accent.

Argh, digressions. So where was I? Yes, Miss Pretty wasn’t pretty. Nor was she attractive by any stretch of imagination. But for the thousands of starved eyes that inhabited DAV Boys’ Gopalapuram, she was all that. And more. She was our answer to Rockford’s Nandita Das, the cute Chink from that Korean movie or the bikini clad lady from the Van Halen song. DAV Boys had more than its share of weirdos, each odder than the next, but if there was something that they shared despite all their bizarreness, it was a crush on Miss Pretty. The Bulk, of course, was an exception.

What made her classes all the more enjoyable, for me, was the rare distinction of Teacher’s Pet. She had her flaws too, like her annoying habit of referring to me as ‘Bella’. That apart, there were few who’d refute my position as her favourite student in 12A. The reasons weren’t too far to seek either. Miss Pretty and I shared a love for clichés, however tiresome everyone else found them. Long hours were spent in class with us firing clichés at each other, as I gradually took over as the apple of her eye.

My love for clichés, as the last line would have demonstrated, persists to this very day. It's all well and good to come up with new stuff, but I, for one, would rather take a riff on the familiar. Besides, expressions become clichés because they work and people like them, buy them and therefore writers use them. They don't become clichés because writers are lazy and it's easier to repeat the same thing over and over than to think up something different. On second thought, writers do use them because they are lazy, but that’s not the point. Love them or hate them, there is no denying the fact that every other day, we encounter a situation perfectly described by the very clichés we love to hate.

One of my personal favourites has always been, ‘so near, yet so far’, perhaps owing to the frequency with which I come across situations apt for its usage. Like how I made it all the way to London but could not take the 6-hour train to Manchester. I visited Emirates and Wembley, but that only made Old Trafford seem all the more elusive. Or the time I topped just about every subject only to be denied the Bulk’s magical tally of 493 by a dismal 84% in Hindi. All that notwithstanding, yesterday would go down as the cruelest instance of ‘so near, yet so far’.

Even as I type, The Dubai International Film Festival is on, with the likes of Salma Hayek, Kim Kardashian and Yvonne Strahovsky within striking distance of yours truly. As you would expect, I was there with the Timid Twins, hoping and praying for the 500-dirham entry pass to magically appear on our palms. A hundred yards ahead of us, a blonde strode elegantly on the red carpet. “Nicole Kidman”, informed the security guard, before rushing to get a closer glimpse himself, leaving us at the mercy of his Terrier. The blonde was safely inside by the time the Twins stopped cursing each other for not bringing along a pair of binoculars. “If only we could teleport,” exclaimed one. “Or get hold of Hiro Nakamura”, chipped in the other. The conversation went on for a while; my only contribution, though, was, “so near, yet so far”.