I’ve been blogging for more than five years now, and over the years, I’ve discovered a lot of things that make me want to continue. One is the enthusiasm and support of readers. Another is the vast amount of knowledge I’ve gained, simply by blogging and watching so much cinema—a lot of which I’d probably never have seen otherwise.
And, there’s the laughter one gets out of logging into my blog’s dashboard and checking out the day’s stats. WordPress has a fairly comprehensive statistics page, with detailed information on stuff like how many views my blog got, which have been the most popular pages and the most popular posts, who comments the most on my blog—and, the icing on the cake—the web searches that bring visitors to Dusted Off. Most of these are fairly innocuous: o p nayyar songs list, madhubalasongs, humraaz, and so on. Fairly predictable search terms to arrive at Dusted Off.
Occasionally, however, there are absolute gems, stuff that makes me laugh. For instance, on November 10, 2013, according to my stats page, someone arrived at Dusted Off using the search term song tum mere paas aa naa shaky video.
Does that make you wonder what this person was looking for? It certainly puzzled me. Perhaps they were searching for a song named Tum mere paas aa na saki (which, I must admit, doesn’t ring any bells). Or were they looking for a shaky video of a song named Tum mere paas aana? (and why would anybody want a shaky video of a song?)
Anyway, I figured it was time to share some of these treats. Here they are. Enjoy!
birds singing bollywood songs – really? Rara avis, indeed.
song dump dump diga diga mukesh – I have my doubts about whether those were the lyrics of this song.
very very very sad ghazal that make you cry 100% – Ah, now songs have to come with guarantees of making you cry. And what happens if you aren’t reduced to tears? Your money back?
original photos of mumtaz and shah Jahan – I saw only the ‘original photos of mumtaz’ bit first, and was thinking Mere Sanam and Aadmi aur Insaan. Then the second bit hit, and I realised. Really? Original photos of Shahjahan and his queen? Was the camera invented back then? Dear searcher: if you managed to get them, do let me know too.
my favourite bird owl in hindi – Huh? One ulloo, calling to another? I honestly don’t know what this person was looking for; a Hindi translation for ‘owl’?
why mirza ghalib gamble to get money – Why, indeed. Perhaps he didn’t like working? Perhaps – as now – literature wasn’t a paying profession? Or was he merely bored?
how to shanti a goat pooja – I give up. Completely.
top 100 hindi scilent song – I’m guessing that’s a typo, and this person meant ‘silent’, not ‘scilent’. In which case, this is a tall order. Silent songs? And that too the ‘top 100’?
http://www.what name call for your love;dilrupa or mahal? – ‘dilruba’ might be a good idea, if a tad old-fashioned. Mahal? Probably not, unless she (or he) is exceptionally large and opulent.
wild actor premnath – wild? Interesting. I wonder which Premnath films this person’s seen.
hindi drikning song – ‘drikning’? Perhaps you should’ve conducted this search before you began hitting the bottle.
hindi dance songs for drunkers – A lot of people seem to arrive at my blog looking for drinking (or drikning, whatever) songs. I’m not certain about this one—would one really be able to dance much after drinking (and I mean dance well)?
http://www.prem patar kase lihave.com – I hope something helped! (though I can’t imagine what)
bambai ka howrah bridge – this is going to take a hell of a lot of searching.
suggest some pain ful hindi ghazals – I can’t think of any ghazals which I find painful, but I can think of a lot of songs—many of them from the 1980s and 90s—which fall squarely into that bracket. I wouldn’t inflict them on my worst enemy.
liquor kumar song – I confess to being utterly baffled.
white men nude in the jungle – and here I was, thinking my blog wasn’t X-rated. What did they find, though?
aunty back in blouse – more along the same lines. I’m assuming this person first went to look for aunty not in blouse. But what brought them to my blog?
Dustedoff 
how to shanti a goat pooja sounds interesting!
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For most of the others, I can more or less figure out what the person might have meant, even if the search term used was ungrammatical, misspelled, or just plain ignorant (bambai ka howrah bridge). The how to shanti a goat pooja completely stumps me. I can’t imagine what this was all about!
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Perhaps the searcher was looking for how to get shanti even after pooj-ing (worship) a goat.
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Hehe! I wonder. :-)
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Maybe he is looking for ways to find shanti after performing a pooja where he sacrificed a goat, trying to escape from any “goat-hatthi dosha” if there is any such
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:-D Convoluted explanation!
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Madhulika, the first few search terms were only making me smile. But then I came rp how to shanti a goat pooja and broke into a real laughter. And then I found white men nude in the jungle and had to just let go. ROFL, indeed. Great collection and wonderful blog post! Give us more. :D
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And I’m sorry for commenting while laughing. I made a typo in the first comment. …then I came to how to shanti…
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Yes, I’ll certainly give you more. :-D These appear fairly frequently – this lot was all picked up over the past couple of months.
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Total ROFL stuff.
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:-D Yes, really!
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These are hilarious. “How to shanti a goat pooja” would be a great indie band name, actually. And I think someone was confusing Bollywood history with real history with that Mumtaz/Jahan search. Also–the “white men nude in the jungle” thing has to be because of your review of “The Naked Jungle.” I know from experience that one has to be very careful when one Google searches that film.
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I’m pretty sure the white men nude in the jungle must have led the searcher to The Naked Jungle, but I’m wondering what they were looking for in the first place. Something fairly raunchy, I guess.
And I love the idea of How to shanti a goat pooja as an indie band! Brilliant. :-)
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Like other commenters, I found How to shanti a goat pooja absolutely hilarious and completely lost it by the time I got to bambai ka howrah bridge. Yes, I have laughed my head off at the search phrases that lead readers to my blog as well, but trust you to make a post out of it, and add to my general hilarity with your comments on them!
(p.s.) If you get your hands on the ‘original photos’ of Mumtaz and Shahjehan, please do let me have a copy!
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I can’t take credit for making a post out of the comments, Anu – I happened to mention some of these to pacifist a couple of months back, and she suggested I compile these into a post.
I shall keep this up, I think. Wouldn’t want my readers to miss out on these!
(and for you, too: if you come across any photos of Shahjahan and Mumtaz, do share!)
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Amazing, amazing!
http://www.prem patar kase lihave.com
didn’t know you had a manual for writing love letters on your blog!
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LOL! They must have ended up at my review of Prem Patra, but would have been rather disappointed, I fear.
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“how to shanti a goat pooja’ in Giggle leads to your review of Pooja ke Phool. There! :D
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Yes, I know that all these search terms would have led to some post or the other on my blog – that’s why they appear in the stats – but I’m wondering what this person was actually searching for.
BTW, the typo in your comment really puzzled me. I actually thought you meant http://www.giggle.com, and couldn’t imagine what connection there could be between my blog and a baby store! :-D
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HA! HA! HA! Just cannot stop laughing, sorry I am not able to type, because I am busy laughing my heart out. Thanks for this entertainment.
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Hehe. Glad you enjoyed this, Shilpi!
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ROFL…………”song dump dump diga diga mukesh “,”how to shanti a goat pooja”,”name call for your love;dilrupa or mahal”,”very very very sad ghazal that make you cry 100%” had me in splits :). “liquor kumar song” looks like an allusion to Rajkumar as he starred in a few songs such as “Choo Lene Do Nazuk Hoton Ko”from Kajal.”bambai ka howrah bridge ” looks like a fusion between Bambai Ka Babu and Howrah Bridge(Ashok Kumar,Madhubala)…………….
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coolone160, I think you might have a point there about the liquor kumar song being an allusion to Raj Kumar. Talking of which, here’s another song with him playing the inebriated singer, Yeh zulf agar khulke:
But seriously, in many of the cases here, I can’t help wondering what the person was actually searching for.
As far as the bambai ka howrah bridge is concerned, I have reached the conclusion that this was just somebody with a very low level of general knowledge. They probably ended up at a list page which had a song each from Howrah Bridge and Bambai ka Babu (or Ae dil hai mushkil).
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:)
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Ayyo Raama! Brilliant stuff Madhu!! LOL
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:-D I’m sure your blog stats would have some fairly entertaining stuff too, Karthik.
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This is hilarious! I am so glad you decided to share the search terms. how to shanti a goat pooja is an absolute gem! :D
bambai ka howrah bridge – Maybe s/he thought Howrah Bridge was a franchise, with a ‘Bambai’ outlet? You know, like Kentucky Fried Chicken that is not confined to Kentucky, or like Delhi Public School that has branches in Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, etc.
song tum mere paas aa naa shaky video – Sounds like my father trying to recall a song through words that are fairly descriptive, but far from the lyricist’s words! The other day, he wanted to know “the Johnny Walker wedding song” – turned out he wanted Mera yaar bana hai dulha from Chaudhvin Ka Chaand where Johnny Walker was not getting married.
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Bollyviewer, you’re a genius, my girl! :-D That explanation for the Bambai ka Howrah Bridge could just be it. After all, Gurgaon ka Oh! Calcutta is absolutely correct, no?
That anecdote about your father trying to recall a Johnny Walker wedding song is a cute one! There’s another one I can think of which is picturised on Johnny Walker, and is all about not getting married – Hum-tum jise kehta hai shaadi, from Kaagaz ke Phool.
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Brilliant idea for a post. I was chuckling a lot and was also scratching my head trying to figure out what the person was searching for. “Liquor Kumar” and “…..shaky video” was hilarious.
I started blogging 8 months ago. Most of my posts are on Hindi film music composers from the 1950s and 60s, Ilayaraja and Kalyanji-Anandji. I found the following searches intriguing – not sure what they were searching for.
1) according hindi expression musical instrument sound suhaana it is door-ans
2) lata sings like no other what a beautuful song with comments
and most puzzling of all
3) Ilayaraja tamil song without lips touching
I have heard Ilayaraja sing an innovative song using just 3 notes, but did not hear anything without lips touching!!!
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Hehe! Thanks for sharing – I can’t imagine what the people who came to your blog with those search terms were looking for. Especially that Ilayaraja one. What on earth?!
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Oh goodness. Search terms are are hilarious. I choked on my water when I saw “very very very sad ghazal that make you cry 100%, ” “white men nude in the jungle” and “aunty back in blouse” oh, Internet you are an endless source of entertainment.
some of my funny weird ones from my own blog stats are “midgets in cages,” “royal queen getting fan and eating man,” “why are my teeth ugly,” “men gone wild,” “Dharminder soooo haawt” and the weirdest most WTF? search term is “if I drag my ass along beach will I get crabs?” (Yeah, I don’t get it either, why would anyone search this, and even more bizarre why does it somehow lead to my blog!)
It really makes you wonder what goes through people’s heads…
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ROTFL!! Good lord, your list of search terms is even more hilarious than mine. Especially the ass-beach-crab one. What on earth??!
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I understand the teeth one (I had some ugly teeth related captions in one post) but I was besides myself with laughter when I saw the ass-beach-crab one and the midgets in cages those are bizarre. My bf and I think that the beach one is a joke, it has to be, because it makes absolutely zero sense (trust me the beach is literally in my backyard and we spend a big chunk of our time there. And while we don’t drag ourselves along the sand we do sit on it for prolonged periods of time and we have yet to get ‘crabs’ from it). But We’re still trying to figure out how led to my blog. I’ll never understand Google’s mysterious search algorithms.
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Yes, that beach one, now that I think of it, is probably a joke. Or somebody terrified of sitting down on the sand and getting pinched. Or… maybe the ‘ass’ they meant was a donkey?
Google does move in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. :-D
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Hahaha Thanks DO (though I nearly missed reading it, being tooooo preoccupied :-)
The How to shanti a goat pooja wins as the most outlandish phrase for a google search as most seem to have voted for it.
I tried to decode it and wondered whether it was someone interested in Indian ‘mystique’ and was looking for the rituals of kali pooja. Perhaps someone told him that kali is made quiet (shanti) by this sacrifice. OK perhaps it was best to let it remain hilarious on its own without analysing it.
my favourite bird owl in hindi actually when I’m looking for meaning of some word in another language I write the same way without the ‘my favourite’. Of course it led to your 10 favourite bird songs, which included my ‘ulloo’ song from ‘Tere Bin Laden’ :-)
These were fun.
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Yes, your explanation for the owl one sounds right – I usually search that way too, but minus that my favourite prefix – that was what cracked me up. :-)
Hmmm… that explanation for how to shanti a goat pooja sounds plausible. Or – wait, here I am with another suggestion – what if this person was planning to sacrifice a goat for a pooja and wanted to know how to quieten the goat and stop it panicking?
Sigh. Yes, I guess these are probably best left unanalysed!
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Very entertaining post DO, I love that drikning one, of course the goat pooja, and the Howrah bridge in Bombay – probably you get a lot of people who hit the search button before they’ve completely checked the content of the command line… Thanks for the fun anyway!
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I guess a lot of people are probably not even very fluent in English, so are searching as best as they can… that would account for the ‘how to shanti a goat pooja. And most probably don’t realise that their search terms can be seen by someone who gets a lot of laughs out of them! :-)
Thanks for commenting, Yves.
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These search terms were very funny but it was your take on these that had me in splits :) :)
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Thank you! :-) But seriously, these search terms are so loony, it’s hard to resist the temptation to pass some snide remarks about them.
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Madhuji, you may be sitting on a gold mine. Why stop with a blog post. You must have enough material by now to fill in a volume a la ‘Pullet Surprises’ (by Amsel Greene, 1969). Google began making search suggestions in 2010. And that has given rise to an entire new genre of humour: searches for ‘miserable failure’ leading to President Bush (since taken down by Google), or typing ‘Is Sarah Palin retired’ in YouTube being greeted with a prompt rejoinder ‘Did you mean “Is Sarah Palin Retarded”’.
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Canasyaji, I’m reading about ‘Pullet Surprises’ after years! I remember having laughed my head off at a Reader’s Digest article about that, many many years ago. Delightful. :-)
I hadn’t known about the two Google searches you speak of. But oh, so singularly appropriate! I’m thinking Google India could do some interesting things for our politicians here too… plenty of scope.
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Hilarious :)
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I came to the site looking for” raj kapoor singing to a daru bottle “.
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Ah. Ruk jaa o jaanewaali ruk jaa? :-)
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Exactly :-) But I think I have read your comments in memsaabstory.
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Yup. I used to comment on Greta’s blog quite frequently when it was active.
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hahahaa..I was actually going to do a post on similar lines soon.. maybe I still will…
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Do! Would like to see. :-)
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Actually I guess the owl one was for some essay that the Hindi teacher, of the kid searching for it, gave him/her as an assignment to write about his/her favorite bird. But what brought him/her here?
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I do have a post on songs that feature birds in the lyrics – and by species name, too, not just generic ‘panchhi, chidiya, etc – so that may have been the thing.
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i will say only this “old is gold”.
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