Saturday, October 24, 2009

naam, name...

Odissa is now Odisha and Oriya is Odia (cabinet approved, pending Parliament approval).

Last 10 years have been eventful with politicians insisting that its important to go back to the roots and change names to original ones. Maybe this all was spurred by Bombay being renamed to Mumbai, followed to Madras (to Chennai) and Calcutta (to Kolkota). Bangalore also joined these big cities and rechristened itself Bengaluru.

One of the cities which can soon join the above could be Ahmedabad. It could very well be called Karnavati in future.

Renaming doesn't just end at cities, but extends to crosses, roads, buildings. Hence VT (Victoria Terminus) becomes CST (Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus), Connaught Place turns to Rajiv Chowk and so on. The fact there was no Railways when Shivaji ruled and no Rajiv when Lutyens designed the Connaught Place is, of course, immaterial.

I do give the impression that I am against renaming these relics of the past. But that's not the concern, the concern is who decides whats right in these cases. Somehow I feel, despite the fact that politicians are elected democratically, they are not exactly the best people to decide on name changes. And what if some people want the name to be changed, while some are against it. The obvious answer would be to let the elected representatives decide...

1 comment:

  1. It's all about dirty politics and playing with the emotions of the poor people who go and cast their votes and increase their vote bank, the one sitting at homes don't worry much about renaming the relics of the past.

    ReplyDelete

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