In India, a Name Is Rarely Just a Name
The names of India’s major cities have been falling off the map. In 1995, Bombay (an Anglicization of the Portuguese name “Bombaim”) became Mumbai. In 1996, Madras became Chennai. Over the next two decades, virtually every major city in India — from Cochin (now Kochi) to Bangalore (now Bengaluru) to Calcutta (now Kolkata) — was renamed. Some of the changes, as in the case of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram as of 1991) were meaningful and represented a return to an older name that British rule had mangled. Others, as in the case of Calcutta, were as bizarre as the French decreeing that everyone must now refer to Paris as “Paree.”… Seguir leyendo »