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Katrina is Google’s most searched Bollywood name

Katrina Kaif

BANGALORE: No one can be sure how many of India’s Internet users — estimated to number 50 million — keyed in a query at the world’s largest search engine, Google. If global trends are a guide, an overwhelming percentage; but what they looked for in their ‘cyber khoj’ (search) during these last 12 months is an interesting – and revealing – barometer of public taste, preoccupation and concern.

The leading search engine last week unveiled statistics of the most popular key words that originated from its India-based users.

Google’s own social networking site, Orkut; e-mail service, Gmail; and video portal, YouTube, are, not surprisingly, among the top searched terms — presumably users too lazy to go directly to these sites. Interestingly, people did a Google search to quickly reach rival offerings Yahoo and Yahoo Mail.

When it comes to subject categories, the top Bollywood searches reveal the snowballing popularity of actress Katrina Kaif, by far the most-searched name this year. Google engineers told The Hindu that Katrina has a huge following in Pakistan as well, which outnumbers Indian searches. The actress has pushed long-time favourite Aishwarya Rai to the second place – maybe the price one pays in the public’s fickle fancy for getting married!

Among sports personalities, Sania Mirza rules – outnumbering cricket stars Sachin Tendulkar and M.S. Dhoni. Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly do not make the top ten this year.

Hindi cinema has always swept the top film title searches, and 2008 is no exception with Jodha Akbar in lead position and another eight titles in the top ten. A surprise southern entrant at no. 2 is the Tamil film and Kamal Hassan’s opus, Dasavatharam.

Goa and Kerala head the list of holiday destinations searched – which shows that Indian preferences mirrored the international popularity of these two States. When it comes to politicians, Mahatma Gandhi is a perennial number one – outdistancing popular interest in contemporary names like Raj Thackeray and Barack Obama. Three generations of Gandhis – Indira, Sonia and Rahul – find a place in the top ten in politics for 2008.

And in an era of affordable budget flying, good old Indian Railways holds it own: The Indian rail site was the most popular government website, beating hardy annuals like CBSE results and Income Tax.

Did all these seekers of information find what they were looking for? That is a separate story!

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