India......Anglicized.... and back

City name change is a common occurrence in India. And not only in India, the names of cities have danced, oscillated, born, killed over the whims and fancies of the party ruling there.

Bombay to Mumbai ...... not so bad. Even songs have been written, Ganpat Daru La
At least there is no way of pronouncing mumbai, other than the correct one. But people still love the old name, as is apparent from the fact that after the name change from Bombay to Mumbai, The Times of India, began publishing a "Mumbai edition." The edition's feature section is still called the Bombay Times . At least they have spared the STOCKS it's still BSE.

Calcutta to Kolkata ...... Well as far as my experience goes this city has experienced a name change only on paper. From the mouth of ( the not so familiar with Bengal or Bengali ) people it comes out as Kaulkatta. I remember everybody could suddenly see a lot of K's around themselves. Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Kolakta Tramways, K this, K that. A person who is generally glued to the television ( Zee, Star Plus, Sahara one, Sony and likes) from 1 PM to 5 PM could easily figure out the Ekta Kapporization of Calcutta.

Madras to Chennai ..... I dont know any Tamil, but even then , this I feel has been the worst of changes. The word "Madras" itself commanded certain respect. My grandmother still uses "mudrasss" in her conversation.

It is not that Indians don't like Indian names. Our fathers did not name us as Canning ( a street in Kaulkutta) . The problem is a city is renamed by the local politicians, and the renamed name might cause a lot of problems to people not belonging to that region.

Take Kerala for example. Only after going there did i realize that "Kozhikode" is actually pronounced as "Korrrikode".

Renaming of cities takes place all round the globe.Wiki List

Take the example of 'Tabora' capital city of some region in Tanzania. After German colonization it was named 'Weidmannsheil'. After the German left it was quietly named back to 'Tabora'

But one may also argue that it would take one generation to get used to the new names and after that things would pretty be normal. A child born now would not care whether Chennai was Madras previously. To him Madras would sound like a fairy world name.

Future possibilities :)

Ahmedabad - > Karnavati
Lucknow - > Lakshman Puri
Delhi - > Indraprashtha
Delhi - > Dilli

POLITICS ........POLITICS

One just cant stop wondering about politics. Its everywhere in India. In offices,homes,schools,vedas and uh..of course The Parliament. The subtle difference is that people in Parliament have Politics as their " prime business" whereas for others it is "side business".

Recently there had been a spate of news, unearthing, digging out cases 6 to 7 years back. There were many of them. And to add to the already generated hype, the media clung to it for a whole week, till the issues became boring.

1) Whether the Nuclear test ( the second) was a failure or success.
Again that old "Cong-BJP" war. If the test was a success then the scientist who claimed otherwise should die with shame. One should simply think of national interests while issuing such comments.

2) Swine Flu
Wow, The deaths were tracked like anything, with an hourly city by city basis. It is good that they are doing this but if only they can do this with existing diseases like "malaria", "dengue","typhoid" etc etc ..... so many lives can be saved. Just because it became a global phenomenon
did our Indian Media deemed it necessary to cover it.

3) Gujarat Case
I dont know the details but it went on for quite some time, round the clock.



Interestingly other major issues were kept at bay like

1) Drought in Bihar ( almost nobody knows about it)
Its as if everybody has taken for granted that there will be some drought or the other.

2) ISRO ( Well I dont think any other technical government entity has progressed as ISRO has done and it is only through sheer hard work).

3) Commonwealth Games
What is the status of preparation? We don't know
What all are they going to build? We don't know
Why are newly made bridges collapsing? We don't know ( this actually nobody knows)

4) Kasab
What's going on with Kasab? Is he still in jail or scot free?
When is he going to be released? ( Obviously he cannot be convicted,Indian Judiciary could not find strong evidence against him. He needed to kill many more people to be charged with some kind of felony)

Ethnic Vice... Balika Vadhu

Right now the most watched soap on air is "Rakhi Sawant ka Swayamvar" ( which is so good a matter of discussion that it calls for a new post) but I want to concentrate on the soap that had one month back rocked the charts ( on the small screen).
Initially the high pitched voice and the seemingly unnatural feminine aggression and dominance of Dadi sa was a treat, not because of bland potrayal of the Haryana Rajasthan ethnic culture but because it was something different from the regular boring "kicch kicch". The same effect was seen for SAB's Left Right Left. I was myself an ardent viewer but a weak script of around a month was enough to draw myself out of its clutches.

The thing i like most abt "Balika Vadhu" is that it has shown immense maturity. Problems that have plagued those regions for centuries and are doing so even now have finally been communicated to everybody in a very different fashion handling the matter with equality. Its not that "widow remarriage" should be practised and why shouldnt anyone allow it. They have shown why these evils persist , what happens to those who stand up against it , what can be the possible solution.

The happy part is the youth in this serial has taken the bold step. And yeah watch out for the adages at the end of the serial. They arre really meaningful.

Advertising

The most effective ad till day has been that of Siemens. The tag line "Therefore siemens" was just amazing. But what I noticed was the line at the end "Issued in public interest on World Environment Day". Is this kind of effective broadcasting limited only on one day. Should not these kind of advertisements be aired throughout the year. If a particular company keeps on making new effective ads not only its interests are being promoted but also that which is fro the general good.
For a mention the new Intel ad was brilliant especially the one with Ajay Bhatt co founder of USB. Rellay an inspiring ad. :)

At last... Knight Riders

Simply speaking the win came as a bolt from the blue. Judging by the past last over finishes, the knight riders had never been lucky and even this one it was by chance that the ball cleared the in field. The happiest man would no doubt be Brendon McCullum.
Any other captain in his stead would have his self confidence shattered to pieces by the continuous dismal performance of his team. But not this man.. He has come out strong learning from his mistakes and we see the results in the last game against Chennai super kings.
Everybody should take a leaf out of his way of holding the team together and leading from the front single handedly. In the last game i however found the commentary very biased in the favour of the chennai super kings. It is a thing the IPL guys should take care of.

Terror Aftermath

In the recent times our country. in fact the whole world has been grappling with one of the worst cases of terrorism..a case in which the target is the innocent, secular common man. and after his death there is no body to mourn except his close relatives. Just put yourself in the place of one his close relatives and instantaneously you will feel a hot surge of anger as to " WHY? ...why him?  why anybody as a matter of fact?"Right now we might be more concerned about the fall of AIG, Lehman and the ever erratic Sensex but in order to tackle these problems we ourselves have to be vigilant. It is not that we have to work like policemen but we should not do any activity(discussion writeups) that further harms the thin thread of harmony that exists somewhere.
The world is already slipping into an era where majority of the social interaction occurs through the internet. With these kind of blasts people will recede more and more to their respective homes and the only persons they will be able to talk comfortably are their friends and relatives. A cloud of ambiguity and doubt has covered the whole of the subcontinent.

To Study or not?

Nowadays an eerie inquisitiveness has crept inside me. Should I study at all? How will this subject help me in future? Am i going to gain anything from this shit? These are small questions that arise in everybody's mind and normally are considered as foolish trivial thoughts. 

But they are not so on the eve of the exam at 2 in the morning. During this time they become one of the deciding factors of the fate of my performance. Sometimes my answer is "No , not of any use" I switch on my monitor and ..............Results :  Av- by a huge amount.

Sometimes though the answer is "Yes they are of use and i should do ____ proud by studying this subject...blah blah". I go back to studying.......night-out......results Av- but by a small amount.

Now I am in a state that no incentive whatsoever remains for me to open my book and mindlessly gobble information. The learning mechanism has rusted( thanks to 2nd year ) and hopes for a bright future has in turn given way to "Abe jo hoga dekha jaayega".

I am seriously confused how far will this attitude take me but for some reason or so i cannot remove it from my system.