‘500 WORDS ON CLICHES?’ I thought, as I glanced through my crumpled up Press Application form. That’s impossible. But then, Sachin Tendulkar’s squeaky voice in that Adidas ad started ringing through my head- ‘Impossible is Nothing!’ and so our journey through clichés begins.
Human beings, historically, have always felt the need to associate what they’re reading or hearing to something familiar. A cliché gives the reader an opportunity to do so. It brings an air of familiarity or recognition to a bunch of words. Using a cliché is primarily viewed in a negative sense which is not always correct. Sometimes, a cliché adds to the overall value of the article/story as it can enhance the reader’s experience.
Right now, you’re probably confused and want to know what exactly a cliché is?
Well, in simple language- a cliché is a bunch of words, an idea or a form of expression that has been grossly overused to such an extent that it has lost its original meaning, value or novelty. A cliché may not necessarily be true. It may be just a stereotype or a myth. For example, casting the ‘terrorist’ in movies as a Middle-Eastern bearded guy is cliché. The line ‘As many Chins as a Chinese phone book’ is a cliché. So you get what I mean, it differs. The word cliché can be used as both a noun as well as an adjective.
Sometimes in literature, when one great author/poet writes something, pretenders tend to copy his idea and over a period of time, it becomes a cliché. As Salvador Dali so blatantly put it, ‘The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was obviously an idiot.’
Aside from literature, we encounter numerous clichés in our everyday lives. In college, for example, when you meet a person for the first time, the human brain consciously or unconsciously categorizes that person according to certain preconceived notions they have. It could be anything from the way someone dresses, to the way they speak or even something a trivial as their spectacles or a pair of slippers. All clichés
I was in class the other day, wearing my favorite three-fourth shorts after entering late and occupying a seat in one of the last benches. I was busy on my phone as the teacher wasn’t doing anything of real importance. Suddenly, she walks up to me- the ‘back-bencher’ and stands me up and asks me a question, with a smug expression on her face, fully expecting the ‘back bencher’ to go “I don’t know and I don’t care” and giving her a valid excuse for throwing me out of class. Unfortunately, I knew the answer. Perfectly. And even went on to correct several mistakes she made that day while teaching us Banking and Insurance. Shocking, right? A ‘back-bencher’ who is good at studies. Isn’t that the most typical thing ever in college?
Clichés teach us something quite important in life. No matter how often something is repeated, it doesn’t alter the truth. The truth stands firm, always evident. There you go, another cliché! *sighs*
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