New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- Inflation used to be a word we associated with onions, petrol and cooking gas. Today, it has followed us into the multiplex, the concert arena, the cafe and even the office pantry. Two new terms have entered the economic vocabulary to describe this shift: funflation and treatflation. Together, they capture a quiet but powerful change in how we spend, live and save.

Funflation refers to the steep rise in the cost of experiences, particularly entertainment. Concert tickets, live sports, theme parks and weekend getaways have become dramatically more expensive in recent years. When international artists tour India, tickets that rival a month's household grocery bill sell out within minutes, with travel and hotel costs s...