Somehow the very concept of renaming a place makes me go, "Urghhhh. Not again! Not this place too!"
The first ever name changes I remember happening during my lifetime were those of Bombay and Madras. There were obviously very valid reasons for these name changes. For one, Bombay was a scary place for foreign investors to come and establish themselves with its possible association with weapons of mass destruction. Madras had its own set of problems. Anywhere outside South India, Madrasi was a derogatory term and Chennaite sounded more hip and fashionable. The politicians thought 'let us bring about a change in this world' and whooosh, we had two brand new cities - Mumbai and Chennai.
Not to be left behind was Calcutta. After all it's also one of the Metropolitan Cities and the Communists' pride would be affected if they didn't follow suit in their homeland. And Calcutta became Kolkata.
As if these were not enough, very recently Bangalore became Bengalooru (you'll have to roll your tounge to pronounce the 'r' in Bengalooru correctly), Mysore became Mysuru. Hosur won't become Hosuru - unfortunately it managed to edge over the Karnataka border into Tamil Nadu during the second (lingual) Indian partition. These name changes make me confused about how to call some items. For one, what do I call a 'Mysore pak' as? (No no, don't think on those lines...)
Back home in Madras, the roads were renamed after famous politicians and popular figures. Mount Road became Anna Salai, Beach Road became Kamarajar Salai, Ponamallee High Road became Periar EVR Salai, Chamiers Road became Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar Road, Nungambakkam High Road became Mahatma Gandhi Salai (yet another MG Road in another city), Lloyds Road became Avvai Shanmugam Salai, Royapettah High Road became Thiru Vi Ka Salai, LB Road became Dr.Muthulakshmi Salai... The list goes on. Imagine my problem if someone asks me the route from Nungambakkam to my home. I would start at explaining at 8.00 PM - "Start from Mahatma Gandhi Salai, go straight down the Avvai Shanmugam Salai, second right will bring you to Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar Salai, and blah blah blah.. There you are, at my home." I look at my watch, it's 8.30 PM. The other person would have dropped dead on the spot.
As if names after dead politicians are not enough, we have the likes of KK Nagar and JJ Nagar named after still very much alive persons. God knows what will happen in another fifty years when additional hundreds of politicians would have ruled the roost. We'll need to start naming each and every house after the politicians, his/her kith & kin, sons & daughters, and (not to be left out) their housemaids and servants.
One thing which the politicians forgot is that 'Old habits die hard'. Kochi remains Cochin, Vadodara remains Baroda, Tiruvananthapuram remains Trivandrum, Puducherry remains Pondicherry, Thoothukudi remains Tuticorin. We still have IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, the Madras Christian College, Madras Music Academy... We still have 'The ET Madras Plus'. We still use Mount Road, Chamiers Road, LB Road, Ponamallee High Road, Royapettah High Road, Nugambakkam High Road, Beach Road... Rajiv Chowk in Delhi (or is it Dilli?) still remains Connaught Place. These politicians and leaders who want to rise to quick fame can never ever change these.
Of course, no one calls a Chennai resident as Chennaite (I still am a Madrasi, and am proud of it).
I take comfort at the mixed history of this renaming bug that bit our leaders, to safely still live in my own IIM Indore Campus in my own F-Block instead of in some Prabhandh Shikar in some Nishchith block. So when some of my poor non-Hindi speaking buddies ask me where I live, I don't have to give a (roughly translated) answer that will come to mean the 'management on a mountain top' campus and get little giggles. Thank God for saving me from this complicated way of explaining things!
The effect of renaming would ultimately be this much...
Before:
After:
Some interesting links:
What's in a name? from The Hindu dated August 05, 2001
The Politics of Name Changes in India from web page of a Ph.D student at UC Berkeley
List of renamed Indian public places from Wikipedia
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Of Renaming Places
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10 comments:
Name change is a very good employment generation scheme for all the painters and other associated personnel.
But name changes are a pain while not changing much. For example, Madras is the same sad place even after it became Chennai :D
@ Sreeram,
so ur website is now posing a new look.. It looks good da.. Just wanted to know how is your amazon widget on the left side - "Books I 'm currently residing" is performing...
@Sajeev
Yes and no to your two statements. I do agree that name change is a huge money spinoff. However it can happen only very rarely in the lifetime of a city. [Unless ofcourse if we have a modern day Tughlaq in our midsts]
The change of name from Madras to Chennai has infact led to something good happening for the city. After 1996, Chennai established itself even more strongly as the auto hub in India - Ford, Hyundai, BMW and likes set up plants in and around Chennai. Chennai is slowly becoming anonther IT hub in South India, as Tamil Nadu moves towards achieving its dream of emerging the leader in IT/ITES sectors by 2010. These advances would have happened even without the name change, but somehow looking at the city's timeline suggests otherwise.
BTW Hyderabad also tried something on those lines, coming up with 'Cyberabad' to attract IT. But the politicians seem to have forgotten that mere name change is not sufficient to attract investors. Ultimately, even this change of name was not all that successful.
@Robin
Thanks da. This change happened quite some time back. Well, I just included the Amazon link because I was planning to anyway have the Books column, and adding this link involved very little additional pain. However, Amazon ads need even better click-through rate than Google Ad Sense as the percentage of people looking at it would be comparatively very less. It doesn't seem to be working much for me, though the concept (of Amazon Associates) as such is nice. Perhaps I should promote my blog in some sites, and include separate posts on the books. But right now, I am not inclined to try it. :)
Personally, I am not very comfortable with the idea placing ads in my site as it acts as a distraction to the readers. And I don't want them to pay a 'price' for the free content. Tried it once, and was dissatisfied with it.
PS: Do click one of the book links and purchase it online :D
@ Sreeram,
Just a query... In Google adsense, you are not supposed to ask anybody to click the ads on your web page... Is it the same case with amazon or you can ask people?..
Also has seen this amazon widget for quite some time but this was the first time i noticed the Google reader widget on your page.. It is quite cool..
Well well we seem to have touched a rather raw nerve here. Exposing the insecurities of the residents of the other IT hub of India doesn't seem to require much effort.
@Sreeram, there was no name change was attempted for Hyderabad. It is only a certain area which has been called Cyberabad, more like an addition to the twin-cities to make them a triplet :D
And I am not disputing the fact that Chennai is an auto and IT hub. It is just a sad place to be :D
@Robin
I don't remember seeing any clause saying that we should not to ask people to click a link in Amazon Terms & Conditions, though I must admit that I didn't read it completely. Another thing is that the Books column is NOT an Amazon widget. It's just a collection of links with pics I maintain from my own photo sharing site [I use photobucket whenever required]. I manually add the Amazon link whenever I add a book. Quite a tedious process, and I'm getting bored of it.
The main difference is that the Amazon widget will display relevant books on its own, while my Books column contains only the books I want to put. So, I retain control over what is displayed in my page. :)
@Sajeev
All posts to be taken only with a sense of light-hearted banter. I do agree that Hyderabad has relatively better infrastructure in certain areas, and a slightly better climate [if u leave out the summer part] than Chennai. Having been in both the places, I must say that I was quite happy during my short stay in Hyd. The main problem with Hyd is that IT lost quite a bit of steam once Chandrababu Naidu went out of power. However I didn't find anyone using Cyberabad, except in the administrative and political circles. The places still go with their original names of Kondapur, Madhapur, Gachibowli and the likes. :)
Madras is always Madras, no matter whoever changes it or calls it otherwise.
Changes are so much irritating and make life more difficult . I always say Madras as I'm used to from childhood but people around me frown as I've uttered some obscene word.
Well, If you don't like british names or anything done by british then, why do you still celebrate Jan 1st as New year? We have seperate Tamil New Year right? Why don't you destroy the high courts, railway tracks constructed by british & reconstruct from the start? Sounds stupid right... Same way, It sounds stupid to change from Madras to Chennai when both co-existed without any problem. Now , only Chennai exists . where's my magnificent Madras? My DOB Certificate lists it as Madras. A'm I born in a city which does not exist? These changes promote regionalism & not nationalism… which will ultimately result in a separate Country ThamizlNadu(Once known as the State of Madras).
Don't know where will it End?
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