"That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet...." wrote Shakespeare many hundred years back. And, several hundred years later, a rose may still smell as sweet regardless of its name..
But hey, whaddaya mean, what's in a name? There's a lot that hinges on that - take mine, for instance. It's "Satheesh Kumar" with that egregious "EE" and a rather unnecessary, superfluous Kumar tagged on at the end. And I'm not even going to tell you what that mysterious "K.V" stands for in my full name. Suffice it to say it has nothing whatever to do with my late, great father. Every time someone writes my name by the more commonly accepted "Satish" I take offence. (It is entirely another matter that I sign off as "Sats"!) Why, I even joined a new school solely on the strength of the fact that the clerk, on hearing my name, wrote it correctly with that double EE - that she was quite good looking also helped, but you get the point, don't you?
Which also explains my strange obsessive fascination with reading the "Change of Name" columns in the daily Indian Express. And I have had reasons to smile over that, often enough.
Why stick with people who change their own names (or their children's?) - as a country, we are all too familiar with the stories of how
Some changes have been accepted easily, I guess - more people now speak of Mumbai and Bombay seems to have quietly slipped into the Arabian Sea.
Some changes may, perhaps, take a longer time - I daresay it will be several more years before we give up Bangalore for Bengaluru.
Some changes may never be a reality - I'm quite sure Mount Road will remain precisely that, regardless of the Anna's or the Thambi's who may come and go along that wonderfully long serpentine highway of Chenaied Madras....
But tell me, I am totally befuddled, confused, amazed and all those other synonyms - WHY do I see OFFICIAL "Tender Advertisements" in newspapers issued by GOVERNMENT Departments belonging to "Orissa" as well as to "Odisha"? I mean, it IS official, isn't it? This change of name? From "Orissa" to "Odisha"?
Then why?
But hey, whaddaya mean, what's in a name? There's a lot that hinges on that - take mine, for instance. It's "Satheesh Kumar" with that egregious "EE" and a rather unnecessary, superfluous Kumar tagged on at the end. And I'm not even going to tell you what that mysterious "K.V" stands for in my full name. Suffice it to say it has nothing whatever to do with my late, great father. Every time someone writes my name by the more commonly accepted "Satish" I take offence. (It is entirely another matter that I sign off as "Sats"!) Why, I even joined a new school solely on the strength of the fact that the clerk, on hearing my name, wrote it correctly with that double EE - that she was quite good looking also helped, but you get the point, don't you?
Which also explains my strange obsessive fascination with reading the "Change of Name" columns in the daily Indian Express. And I have had reasons to smile over that, often enough.
Why stick with people who change their own names (or their children's?) - as a country, we are all too familiar with the stories of how
- Connaught Place became Rajiv Chowk (though, I think people still call it CP and poor Rajiv came to nought)
- Mount Road in Madras became Anna Salai in Madras and later, in turn, became Anna Salai in Chennai
- VT (Victoria Terminus) station became CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) in Bombay which became Mumbai
Some changes have been accepted easily, I guess - more people now speak of Mumbai and Bombay seems to have quietly slipped into the Arabian Sea.
Some changes may, perhaps, take a longer time - I daresay it will be several more years before we give up Bangalore for Bengaluru.
Some changes may never be a reality - I'm quite sure Mount Road will remain precisely that, regardless of the Anna's or the Thambi's who may come and go along that wonderfully long serpentine highway of Chenaied Madras....
But tell me, I am totally befuddled, confused, amazed and all those other synonyms - WHY do I see OFFICIAL "Tender Advertisements" in newspapers issued by GOVERNMENT Departments belonging to "Orissa" as well as to "Odisha"? I mean, it IS official, isn't it? This change of name? From "Orissa" to "Odisha"?
Then why?
No comments:
Post a Comment