From Chandni Chowk to Sachin??

Remember Bombay & Madras? Of course you do. Good old Bangalore & Pondicherry? Remember Orissa? (Chances are you won’t but still I had to ask.) Now, remember West Bengal? Ah yes yes. Now in the same context remember Chandni Chowk?

Renaming cities, towns & states has become the favourite pastime of our nation. Now just changing the name to something more regional is okay. I can take Odisha & even Poschim Bongo (I can’t promise a straight face while saying it aloud though). I can even cajole my tongue to pronounce Bengaluru & Puducherry and with much practise I shall be able to say it fluently. But naming Chandni Chowk as SachinTendulkar Chowk? Marna hai kya?

Chandni Chowk 

Imagine K3G had been made after the renaming, would Kajol-SRK dialogues carry the same lovey-dovey feeling with Sachin Tendulkar Chowk thrown in? What would that Akshay Kumar movie be named? Sachin Tendulkar Chowk to China? 

Now look am not anti-Sachin or anything. I can patiently wait for the man to get his 100 too. Trying to give him a Bharat Ratna is one thing & naming the famous Chowk after him is preposterous (ah finally a chance to use that word)! It gives me an uncanny feeling that India is walking backwards. Remember how they used to name roads & lanes after famous British colonels? The scarier the man, the more assured was the christening of a road after him. First they stuck with the caste thingy even after 60+ years of independence (last heard Lokpal bill too allowed reservations) & now they have started naming places after cricket players.

Cricket is a game (see I didn’t use the word just or bring up the ongoing test match where the Aussies are making mince-meat of us) & Sachin is a star player of the Indian team. Yes you are a huge…HUGE fan of him. Yes I see what you meant to do-encourage the good man & tell him that all is not lost & he still is a favourite of all Indians. So go send a petition to name a stadium or a trophy after him if you will. But please leave the Chowk alone people! As if defacing historical monuments wasn’t enough they are now hell-bent on renaming a world heritage site-preposterous I tell you. I bet many won’t even know why it’s called Chandni Chowk in the first place! (I didn’t know either...hail Wikipedia :P )

Thank God for people with sense like Justice Katju!

P.S: Incidentally I came across this interesting fact: Chandni Chowk was originally called Shahjanabad after the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who’d established it.