Naming and renaming

A few days ago, while chatting with a friend of mine, we were talking about one of the modern gimmicks of regional politics-that of renaming places. Thinking about it at leisure, I realised that it is an issue that is far more complicated than I initially thought.
Some of my views are biased by my perspective, of course, but it’s my blog after all, so I get to air them. Nevertheless, am sure you will find that my opinions do merit some thought.
I have so much to say that I am at a loss for words:)and finding it difficult to organize my thoughts.

Perhaps I can begin by first telling you what, in my opinion, should never ever be advanced as a defence for renaming anything important. My room mate Harsha is from Bangalore or Bengaluru (ugh!).When the change was made, we were arguing about it and I said “Bangalore” sounds so much better. He countered by saying that its just because I am used to “Bangalore” and that with time I would get used to “Bengaluru” as well. To me that is an asinine argument, for over time we get used to anything anyway-one of the greatest blessings and tragedies of the human race. If you ever heard the nicknames that are bestowed on people in engineering college hostels ( I unfortunately can’t cite examples because most are unprintable:) you would know what I mean. You don’t have a choice-you just accept whatever people call you, and by the end even abuses appear to be dulcet sounding. So suppose, I decide to rename Bangalore as say “Son of a bitch” or better still “Bang-Galore” or “ Bang- Lore” ( Sorry, but I just had to do this:), am sure people a hundred years from now will be used to it. That is no reason for renaming the city. But I didn’t tell Harsha this and hurt his sentiments:)

That also brings me to the dichotomy that is central to the issue-that between regionalism and history. Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Calicut are Anglicised versions of their regional names, is a common refrain. But this argument too is specious in my view. For, how do you decide what is native to the region? How do you know that “Kolkata” is untainted by any foreign influence? Maybe it was called something else earlier just like Bengal was called Gauda in the past. I imagine some tribal chieftain named Kalikata from former Burma might have spent the night at a village here and seduced the village belle in a barn and gone on, naming the village after him. Not hard to imagine, is it? (The idea, not the nocturnal action, you perverts!! :)

Thus my point is that history is written all the while, and names keep changing .So you cannot retrace its evolution all the way. Besides, even if the names are Anglicised, so what? Are we trying to deny our past? As it is, everything about Calcutta, its drainage, the Howrah Bridge, the trams are contributions of the British rule anyway. When written in English, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay seem perfectly acceptable to me. It was always spelt Kolkata in Bengali anyway.
The economics of a name change I shall not go into, for that is obvious to all.

A name is about association. Some names immediately invoke a picture in your mind. In Assam an Englishman ordered “Dig boy, dig”. And so he did and struck gold or black gold rather. That place is named Digboi, site of India’s first oil refinery. Now think for a moment. Wouldn’t this wonderful association be lost if say, the town were to be renamed Gopinathnagar or something like that after Assam’s first chief minister?

Sometimes a name has an appeal by its very quirky nature. Dumdum airport in Calcutta is an example. While Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport is so impersonal, Dumdum brings back images of my first flight. I am from Calcutta and love the city, and it must be obvious to you by now, that I hate Kolkata. To me, another wonderful aspect of the city that has been lost is the names of streets. Calcutta had a road named after practically every Viceroy of India. Dalhousie Square, Canning Street, Elgin Road, Bentick Street, Ripon street, Minto park, Curzon park and so on. Every time I pass by them, the events of their reign cross my mind, at least whatever I can remember of class 9 and 10 history :)While I understand renaming the main thoroughfares after Indian freedom fighters, maybe the side streets could have been left alone, for people still refer to them by their old names anyway. Calcutta’s only boulevard, Southern Avenue goes right beside the Lake, and is also called Meghnad Saha Sarani.The name makes me wince and cabbies will stare blankly at you too. Same goes for Gariahat as Leelavati Sarani.

I must add that some names just sound better, my personal idiosyncrasy, if you like. So I
do think Udhagamandalam sounds better than Ootacamund (Ooty for you) though Calicut I prefer to Kozhikode.About Kanyakumari am confused. Though Kanyakumari sounds better to me (maybe because of allusions to kanya and kumari :) Cape Camorin is more informative as the southern most point of the Indian mainland, like the Cape of Good Hope.

It’s just the sheer lyrical beauty or musicality of some names I suppose. So if I had my way, I would prefer aerodrome to airport. In nursery that’s what I was taught and the only aeroplanes I knew then were toys. And I hate American airplanes-it’s always aeroplanes for me. Thank God they still call it aerodynamics, or am sure many students of air dynamics would have changed their majors:) In Rudraprayag at the confluence of Alaknanda and Mandakini, I was bowled over by Alaknanda, not so by Mandakini.

Do I sound like a petulant child when I say this? My blog is the only place where I can say such things, some of which I have held onto since childhood.
That’s all I have to say about this. I hope you found this post entertaining. But I will leave you with a final thought-what if Delhi was renamed Indraprastha? :)

Finally, my dear readers, am sure you must have such quirky preferences too-some names that you like, some that you hate-anything irrational or illogical:) If so please share them with me, I am keen to hear it.