In 3 Idiots (2009), the engineering student Farhan Qureshi, played by R. Madhavan, states a rule about friendship. The film is in Hindi. In English the line is quoted as: “It feels bad when a friend fails, but it feels even worse when he comes first.”
Neighbor’s Envy, Owner’s Pride
In the 1980s the television maker Onida advertised with the slogan “Neighbour’s envy. Owner’s pride.” Its mascot was a devil, designed by the artist Gopi Kukde for the agency Avenues. The campaign made Onida a household name, ThePrint wrote. The company retired the devil in 2009 and brought him back in 2018.
The Padma Bhushan Snub
On January 2, 2015, the badminton player Saina Nehwal learned that the sports ministry had not recommended her for the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian honors. She was told that a rule required her to wait five years. “I felt bad about it,” she told PTI. Three days later she said: “I just wanted to know why my name was not recommended for the Padma Bhushan.”
On January 5 the ministry decided to recommend her. In March 2016 she received the award from President Pranab Mukherjee. “It is a great moment for me,” she said.
Tears on the BBC
In May 2000 Kapil Dev, the captain who had won the 1983 World Cup for India, gave an interview to Karan Thapar on BBC World. His former teammate Manoj Prabhakar had made match-fixing allegations against him. When Thapar asked about the allegations, Kapil “broke down and wept bitterly,” ESPNcricinfo recalled a year later.
He was later cleared. Looking back, he said: “It can’t erase the pain and anguish I went through those days.”
Honorary Captain
India’s armed forces grant honorary ranks, such as Honorary Lieutenant and Honorary Captain, to serving and retired personnel. “The Honorary Commission is specially granted on Independence Day and Republic Day every year,” Republic World reported.
In August 2025 the government conferred 14,001 honorary ranks. A report by Hindusthan Samachar described them as “not merely ceremonial titles.”
I Feel Humiliated
In August 2021 dissident ministers of the Punjab government went to Delhi “to air their grievances against Capt Amarinder Singh,” the Tribune reported. Dozens of Congress MLAs then wrote to the party leadership. Reports give 40 or more than 50.
The party leadership called a meeting of the Congress MLAs for September 18, 2021. That day Amarinder Singh resigned as chief minister. Outside the governor’s residence he said: “I feel humiliated.”
The Vocabulary of Izzat
Izzat. The Rekhta dictionary gives “honour, respect, esteem, dignity, reputation, good name.”
Be-izzat. Without izzat. Rekhta gives “without honour or dignity, disgraced, contemptible, dishonoured.”
Izzat utaarna. To take off someone’s izzat. Rekhta gives in Hindi apmanit karna, to insult, and tiraskrit karna, to treat with contempt.
Felicitated
In Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy, Manish Sisodia, “felicitated 91 teachers of government and private schools,” Udayavani reported. “Each awarded teacher received a cheque of Rs 25,000, besides a citation, medal and shawl.”
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries mark the verb felicitate “(especially Indian English).” Their example sentence: “The winners were felicitated by the Chief Minister himself.”
What Will People Say
Log kya kahenge? What will people say? A WION editor wrote in 2025 that this one line “is enough to make people do things they don’t want to do.”
Naak kat gayi. The nose was cut off. Disgrace.
Saat pusht ki naak katna. The nose of seven generations is cut off. In the Rekhta dictionary: the honor of the whole family is lost.
Sharma Ji’s Son
Sharma ji ka beta, Sharma ji’s son, is the neighbor’s model child. Indian parents hold him up to their own children. As Scroll put it, they “go on and on” about him.
The phrase has become an internet joke. A writer in Tweak India notes that it “has long symbolised middle-class respectability.”