Sports, Bollywood, UP polls, cocktails: What trended on Google in 2022

Call it the Covid effect if you will but people in 2022 were consumed with a passion, a burning desire for change and transformation. To become part of a renaissance, a rebirth. If you thumb through Google’s annual list of top-trending searches last year, change seems to be the key word that drew people like a magnet – change was the beacon, the light towards which people gravitated to hoping for a miraculous transformation.

Probably, after a forced isolation where people had nothing but themselves to turn to during the pandemic in 2021, they probably wanted to emerge cleansed, shedding the old skin with its anxieties, fear and warts and all and morphing into a new person.

Leaving Covid behind, people in 2022 fervently googled on how to change themselves, they wanted above all to place a bet on themselves rather than another. It was about obsessive I –  can I change myself, can I change careers, can I change my outlook, can I be original, and spontaneous? How can I learn a new passion, to start over with a new beginning?

2022 was all about going in search of the holy grail: the complete makeover.

The words that were celebrated last year were the ones that the late Queen Elizabeth had said to British Parliament in 2002 about her ‘learning’ of life after six decades as a royal. Those lines seemed to resonate with people: “Change is a constant; managing it has become an expanding discipline. The way we embrace it defines our future.”

Also read: Top 10 domestic and foreign destinations Indians travelled to in 2022

How can I evolve into a better human being is what drove people in 2022 if you go by their searches on Google last year. The mantra was ‘never give up on yourself’, anything is possible, never short-change yourself for life is to be lived. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, it is meant to be flaunted in Instagram reels!

India searches: Pragmatic, prosaic and porn

In India, however, the searches were less esoteric – people were largely focussed on searching for cricket games, football tournaments and the Commonwealth Games. (How come this sport loving nation is not producing enough world-class sportspersons though? Point to ponder) Even as the top searches had to be do with Indian Premier League, movies – popular cinema ruled as Brahmastra and KGF-Chapter 2 were the most searched films – though the former had mixed reactions from audiences. But, word had gotten around that it was a different kind of Hindi film with mind-boggling special effects. That got Indians excited about a desi Avatar!

Indians were not obsessed with change so much it seems. And, were not obsessing on how they can become a better version of themselves. Instead, they were grappling with more mundane and practical “how to’s?” Like for example, how to download vaccination certificate or how to link voter id with Aadhar card or how to file income tax returns online etc. But, Indians have a penchant for porn it seems as a top search involved ‘how to drink and make Pornstar Martini’.

Also read: Faultlines 2022: Top 10 cartoons that made you laugh, and think

This martini, per se does not have to do with porn, since it is a passion-fruit-flavoured cocktail made with vanilla-flavoured vodka, Passoã, passion fruit juice, and lime juice. It was named by the late mixologist Douglas Ankrah who gave that name to the cocktail apparently because he thought that only a pornstar could have this drink. But, Indians were fascinated on how to make this cocktail and it was a top search in India last year. Interestingly, the searches were largely in the north-east states of Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and wait, J&K as well! You need a sociologist to understand this!

Though, ridden with guilt, porn addicts seem to also have searched for porn addiction books as well and the more fearful, about pornography laws. And, hereby hangs a tale.

How to make banana bread and play Wordle

There’s more innocuous searches Indians involved themselves in related to how to make banana bread and other fun pastimes like how to play the Wordle (the word game that became a rage) and how to write Hindi text over image (is it the bhakts at work here?)

In searches related to wanting to learn more about a topic, Indians besides wanting to know what is the Agneepath scheme (a top search on Google), wanted to understand more about the metaverse (popular for its seemingly endless potential), surrogacy and also myostitis.

Myostitis was probably a top search in India because actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu of Family Man and Telugu film Pushpa’s O antava fame, was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease myositis referring to it as a “dark time” in her life. It is supposed to be a rare type of autoimmune disease that inflames and weakens muscle fibers.

News events: Article 370, Har Ghar Tiranga and Paneer Pasanda

Jammu and Kashmir also played on the minds of Indians this year as they wanted to know more about article 370. Jammu and Kashmir was administered by India as a state from 1952 to October 31, 2019, and Article 370 had conferred on it the power to have a separate constitution, a state flag, and autonomy of internal administration until the Central government made it “inoperative”.

Interestingly, one of the top searches under news events on the Internet in India was the UP elections. Gujarat elections did not figure, but the rest of the news events that Indians looked for were on the Russia Ukraine war, (predictable) and the demise of Bollywood personalities like Lata Mangeshkar, KK, Bappi Lahiri etc. Queen Elizabeth and Shane Warne’s deaths too figured as key interests for Indians, it seems.

‘Har Ghar Tiranga’, a government campaign to raise more fervour about the Indian flag also seemed to be one of the top ten searched items on Google last year.

When it came to food, the recipe of a hot dish that was searched was the national favourite, ‘Paneer pasanda’. A luxuriously rich and flavourful dish with stuffed paneer pieces plunged in exquisitely flavoured savory gravy prepared with a mélange of spices, onions, and tomatoes, this one led the pack. Others were the Modak (Lord Ganesha’s favourite), chicken soup and malai kofta. Indians were keen to learn about how to make the cocktail, ‘Sex on the Beach’.

This cocktail, made from vodka, peach snapes, orange juice and cranberry juice, was predominantly searched in Goa and Puducherry. It was also searched most in the week starting June 12th, when monsoons hits the western coast.

What could be the reason? But one thing is clear, besides sports, movies, Bollywood, and politics, Indians are drawn to cocktails with sexy names! And, they are not a whit worried about adding on the calories.