Laundan

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When I first visited Calcutta a month after joining IIT KGP, I was thrilled. It was as if a large portion of Indian History we read in school and college was brought alive; and kicking. Calcutta was still proudly called Cal (not Kol). When it loomed ahead on the curve on the railway track nearing it, the celebrated cantilever bridge with its name glorified as the title of a Madhubala movie was still called Howrah Bridge. And we walked all the way to Writers Building, Dalhousie Square, Dharmatala Street, Theatre Road, Esplanade, Park Street, Dum Dum Airport, College Street, and a host of other historic sites. One by one, most of these names were dropped and replaced by what we felt were rank pretenders.

Yesterday, I happened to Google for Calcutta Metro Stations List; and found many names changed meanwhile. And found Tollygunge that we knew for its Movieland is now Mahanayak Uttam Kumar, Kalighat is going to be Shahid Bhagat Singh, Bhowanipur is Netaji Bhavan, Garia Bazar is Kavi Nazrul, Naktala is Gitanjali, Maidan is going to become Gostho Pal.

RKN will agree with me that name changes of historic places comes under vandalism. Perhaps my favorite journalist Sunanda K Datta-Ray might also feel uneasy. I don't know about others. There is no doubt that kids about to be born will happily take to the new names, but it is a moot point if history can be changed by name-changing. Most of these name changes came during the reign of the Left Front. Perhaps they followed their idol, China, which changed its capital from Peking to Beijing. I don't know what the future holds under the new rule...even West Bengal is under threat...

When my Father fondly wanted to show me his city of study, Madras, he used to take me for walks along what he proudly called Mount Road. When I visited it again to look after him in the orthopedic ward of Stanley Hospital for six weeks, perhaps it was only the hospital that retained its name. Madras became Chennai and Mount Road turned into Anna Salai. RKN who spent his youth walking along it is perhaps grimacing.

That India remained India is a matter of happiness to me, although the subtitle Bharat is queer...I don't know if any other country has a subtitle to its name. Countries did change their names after they became free. Burma is happy with her name but changed its historic capital from Rangoon to Yangon. What we read as Siam turned into Thailand, Cambodia into Kampuchia, East Indies with the famous islands Java, Sumatra, Borneo were shared between what became Indonesia, Malaysia, and maybe Brunei. Joe Conrad must be turning in his grave...his novels are still haunting nevertheless; we had his Victory as a non-detailed text in our B Sc (Hons) and I simply loved its lyrical names and places.

And although Mark Twain almost calls Cecil Rhodes (despite his lucrative scholarships) a rogue, Rhodesia, the country named after him, split itself into Zambia and Zimbabwe, Bechuanaland turned into Botswana, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged (uniquely perhaps) into Tanzania...

Last night I asked Parashuram what London would be called a few decades hence and he replied: "Laundan"

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