Name-dropping

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There is no question about it, Bengalis in India are justified in wanting to stop calling their state West Bengal. Paschimbanga was the new consensus name, trumping alternatives such as Bangla, Bongodesh and our personal favourite, Bongo Bhumi. Why be forced to twist your tongue around 'Oishte' Bengal.

One way out, of course, would have been to simply 'Bengalify' the spelling and declare the birth of Oishte Bangaal, in the same way that Simla became Shimla and, somewhat earlier, Cawnpore became Kanpur. Local pronunciation prompted Asom, Puducherry and Odisha to become the new names of Assam, Pondicherry and Orissa respectively. Or, perhaps, these were merely reversions to their original names. After all, these were the names that were changed to suit the pucca British tongues that could not get around delicious Southasian sounds like pur, baad, uru and ganj, the most common suffixes denoting place names. So the process of reclaiming these fruity resonances has been gradual but steady, in many cases accompanied by chest-thumping nationalism and sub-nationalism – devotion to the motherland and local culture of course being equated with the volume of resources poured into the paperwork and signboard-painting that accompanies each change.

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Himal Southasian
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