Bengaluru or Bengalooru

First page article on the Times of India (10 October 2006), Bangalore will be known as Bengaluru from the 1st of November 2006. Really? Isn't that going to be a little weird? I was living in a city that now has a word in the Oxford dictonary on its name (say "Bangalored"), and now I am going to live in a city whose name not many have quite heard and definitely a lot are going to find difficult to spell. (Is Oxford notified? Will it now be Bengalurued?) By the way, there is a high level team sitting to decide the English spelling for the new name of Bangalore. It could either be Bengaluru or Bengalooru and the tilt is towards the latter as it emphasizes the native vovel more accurately. Really? I am sorry, but my small mind could never think this way.

Shakespear once said, "Whats in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet." Yeah, right. Tell that to our dear politicians and they will tell you the indepth impact of a name. (And, rightfully so, 'coz I can't quite disagree with them). A name is definitely quite powerful, but why loose the power the name of 'Bangalore' has already acquired? Simply because someone somewhere felt a little guilt? Not really. In my humble opinion, this is purely politics. Purely power based play. (Mind you, IMHO only)

How much is the government going to spend in changing the name boards across the millions of places in the city? Starting from the railway station to the address boards of their offices? Who will pay for this repainting? My tax money I know. Is this justified use of this money, I wonder. Secondly, if they could spend the same money in getting people educated enough to be comfortable with the present name of Bengaluru, won't it also help these people in relating to the so called 'Global Village'? Seems not. Seems that changing the name of a city, from its anglicised version to its native version has more merit than repairing the roads.

I guess there was a charm in the name, "Bangalore". When you came here, you moved to an aspirational city, like Bombay was. But once the name changes, I am sure the charm will be a little hurt. 'Coz now, you are still living in a city that sounds like any other city in the state and hence not really a great address to have (over any other address). But I am no one to moot this decision. I am sure that the majority of the state is with this decision (they elected the representatives, right?), and who am I to differ from the might. Might is Right, so I have changed my stance. I now will call Bangalore, Bengaluru / Bengalooru (as the case may be). Mind you, I am proud of this city, no matter what it is called, but I just can't figure why changing the name is so important, when there is so much more to be done. Maybe, now we won't expect our roads to be better, maybe we will say that the roads in Bengaluru were forever meant to be this way. We change the name to match the present face of the city, rather than trying to change the face of the city to really add value to the name.

Send our dear advisors to Singapore and get their name changed to Singapooru (Ok, pun intended. I am just postulating that the populace there, consisting of a large portion of Tamilians, will really welcome this revival of culture and tradition).

Well, my frustration is a little less now, and on a level headed note, does changing the name of the city really affect anything? I know it is going to cost a lot to just humor ourselves that our culture is coming back, but is that the truth? The decay of our culture (or in my view, the globalization of our ways of living) is merely an inevitable consequence of our will to grow. And, grow we should. We should make changes that matter and add loads of value to our lives, justifying the cost incurred, rather than change something that is not really going to add value in any real way. What adds value is the cities ability to deliver. What it is called, doesn't really matter. (Case in point, do you think any chinese town is named in easy English?) When they din't change the name of their city and yet managed to become the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, should we not be looking at improving our standing in the global scene based on our abilities rather than changing our names?

Are we even interested in beign Global? We are shutting our pubs down, we are delaying projects like the international airport, we have almost killed the night life in Bengaluru, we are difficult with our biggest software companies, we have insecurities about call center culture invading the Indian way of life. Can we get real? Are we here to make India the best country in the world? Or are we interested merely in being an individualistic society that will become a case study for the others? (I remember a program in which the management guru, C.K. Prahlad said that India is chaos, but there is order in that chaos, and that is our power. To be able to be productive even in the worst of situations. Aceepted.) We are way different from the world and I am proud of that. But I would love it when India capitalizes this difference to lead the rest of the world (as we had long in the past), rather than harp on our being different as our achievement.

IMHO, Ego is good to have, when it floats over a layer of unquestionable quality.

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