Plainspeak: What’s in a name?

However, happily, at least in Maharashtra, such confusion is unlikely in future because the Maharashtra Government has ordained that henceforth, no two memorials would be named after anyone. That is a welcome move because, like Munna Bhai had found, there were too many memorials to Mahatma Gandhi, and others without the people imbibing his principles of honesty and courage without which the country has slid in moral values.

Simultaneously, the Union Civil Aviation ministry has floated a proposal that henceforth all airports should be identified by the names of the cities and towns they serve. By that norm, Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad would have been Hyderabad Airport, like its smaller incarnation in Begumpet, before it became NT Rama Rao Airport. In fact, the dispute about renaming Shamshabad airport after NTR is known to us all.
The rationale offered is that Indian Railways has its stations named after the places where they are located. That is a simple and brilliant way of letting people know where to alight, especially those who are first time travellers to their destinations. However, it is not a fact that all stations have identity markers which are the names of the places. I can give at least one example. It is Nanded in Maharashtra.
Nanded’s railway station is actually “Huzur Saheb Nanded”. That is because one of the Sikh Gurus, Guru Gobind Singh had visited the town at the start of the 18thcentury, and had left behind his langer, and later a gurudwara was built in the place. It is a place of reverence to the community and even others of other faiths. But buying a ticket on IRCTC website can be a task unless you know it; mere ‘Nanded’ wouldn’t do.
However, renaming does not change the way people refer to places. In common parlance, in Mumbai, Mahatma Gandhi Road’s one part forever would remain Marine Lines. The Shubhash Chandra Bose Road the iconic Marine Drive, and whatever the official name, if any, for the bund along a side of Hussainsagar Lake, it would remain Tank Bund, no more, no less.
Some names are ingrained in the tribal memory of the people, and a tag to it would not change it. How many actually ask the rickshaw to take them to ‘Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road’ in New Delhi and how many instead direct the driver to Tughlak Road would, if found out, explain the futility of changing names of places. My bet is in popular use, it remains Tughlak Road. Not because Tughlak was greater or Kalam was lesser, but usage is all.