So which Indian state/city will want to change its name next?

Bombay became Mumbai, Madras morphed into Chennai, Calcutta changed to Kolkata, Bangalore attained notoriety as a verb and then under pressure changed its name to Bengaluru – and as of last week, if the decision-makers of the state of Kerala will have their way, it’ll get a letter added to its name and be henceforth known as Keralam, because, you know, that’s what it is referred to as in Malayalam. Never you mind that no REC Calicut alumnus would refer to his Alma mater as REC Kozhikode – millions have given up their lives trying to get that pronunciation right.

Bengaluru actually expands to “bendha kaaLooru”, which translates to “boiled/baked bean town”. Not the nicest attribute to be known by, I know, but a little trivia never hurt anyone. But how *not* referring to it as Bangalore takes away the after-effects of indulging in one too many cup of beans, I’ll never know. I have seen people make elaborate plans for events with ‘Bangalore’ in their brochures and printed matter and then fall over their own feet trying to get it changed to ‘Bengaluru’ at the nth minute, because, you know, some higher power pointed out the faux pas. I don’t think they’d have thought of the tonnes of paper that might go into the bin in the bargain, but hey, that’s the official name, right? Bengaluru-ed sounds like the worst nightmare for a doctor who specialises in gastrointestinal disorders, if you ask me.

Karan Johar had to apologise to the gatekeepers of all things Maharashtrian for referring to Mumbai as Bombay in one of his films, I forget which. Nobody seems to question his recidivism with Manhattan being painted in glorious tangerines and fuchsias in his movies, not to mention his heroines being swathed in yards of siren red with generously painted red lips. But did anyone haul up Mani Ratnam for letting his movie from over a decade ago still be called *gasp* Bombay? What cheek.  Or did anyone chastise Mohd. Rafi and Johnny Walker for having the gall to sing about life in *double gasp* Bombay? What a blight such movies are on Bollywood.

If every state or city or bordered area were to start getting territorial, then what about the identity we’ve tried to carve over the years after our independence? If anyone deserves the right to rename a city, it’s those who’ve the power to keep its spirit alive in their words, songs and art, in my opinion, and not those who have been given the right to abuse that power. I don’t see anyone calling for New Delhi to be changed to Dilli in textbooks, do you? Will Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra take this upon himself, please?

Try asking these very activists who stand for cultural/linguistic/regional authenticity to choose their ambassador from these two choices for Brand India, um, Bharat -  Manoj “Bharat” Kumar and Freida “I love me some Dev Patel” Pinto. Guess who they’ll choose?

Having said all that, I’m surprised there’s been no noteworthy crusade to rechristen India as Bharat so far – after all, don’t we end all our jingoistic sentiments on public discussion boards with Mera Bharat Mahaan?

It’d beat “Jai Ho” hollow. Any day.