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Banglore to Bengalooru - huh!

Where will Mr. Gates be going now? Bangalore is finally been deleted from official Indian map. The image shown on the right is taken from wikipedia and that too shows the new name Bengalooru (this is the correct spelling. Not Bengaluru).

But see this, while I write this post even the spell check here is asking me to change the name Bengalooru to Bangalore as it this poor guys is not being run by the sweet Indian politicians!

Strange things are happening to our cities in the last two decades. Our cities are booming. Making a great leap towards a 'great ' future. Or at least our media reports say so.

Ironically our cities are going back to their original ' Indian ' or ' local 'names from their ' Anglicized ' names. Bombay said good-bye to its stylish name and went back to its local name Mumbai, more than a decade back. Calcutta became Kolkata and Madras became Chennai.

A great sense of fulfillment and satisfaction for the pro- Kannada organizations and personalities, who fought for it. Is it going to serve any other purpose? Certainly not.

Its good to love your culture but not to "please" mix that with politics too.

Please do write your comments to this post if you care even a little for India!

This entry was posted by Salman Siddiqui, on Wednesday, November 15, 2006. You can leave your response.

“Banglore to Bengalooru - huh!”

1.  Anonymous Says:
   12/05/2006 3:11 AM  

   As far as I'm considered everyone referred to it as "Bengalooru" when they spoke in Kannada or any other language except for English. I see lot of people making fun or riducling the name change! Why did'nt they do it when Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were changed? Or, am I not aware of such act when those names were changed? Bangalore or Bengalooru does'nt make any difference to me personally.

2.  Harsha G S Says:
   12/05/2006 8:50 AM  

   Bengalooru is correct. We dont want some fancy western names , we want our own kannada name..

3.  nareshov Says:
   12/05/2006 2:47 PM  

   This comment has been removed by the author.

4.  nareshov Says:
   12/05/2006 2:50 PM  

   Yo,
   
   > The image shown on the right is taken from wikipedia and that too shows the new name Bengalooru (this is the correct spelling. Not Bengaluru).
   
   It is not Bengaluru: notice the accent mark on top of the first 'u'.
   The spelling on wikipedia usess the accented first 'u' to aid pronunciation. You would understand if you knew how Bengalooru is pronounced.
   
   Spell check softwares don't update themselves automatically.
   
   > Is it going to serve any other purpose? Certainly not.
   
   Really? Probably no point explaining then.
   
   Given that all Indians except Hindi speaking populace pronounce it the right way (= Bengalooru) I don't see the problem in spelling it the way it's pronounced by people who live in this country.
   
   It's not just Indians who're de-anglicizing names of cities. China did that a long time ago (Peking is Beijing now), Saigon is Ho Chi Minh City now.
   
   Notice the difference between Bombay->Mumbai, Madras->Chennai and Bangalore->Bengalooru : it's just a spelling change NOT a name change.
   
   To a majority of people who have something to do with Bengalooru this makes no difference except for a mere change in English spelling because they've been caling it Bengalooru all along.