Sudden name change is an expensive inconvenience.

A fierce debate has broken out over the renaming of Gurgaon, a town southwest of Delhi, as Gurugram, by the state government of Haryana. A Fulbright scholar has written a scholarly article expressing her disapproval. She has no problem in renaming Bombay as Mumbai, Madras as Chennai and Calcutta as Kolkata, because these were reminiscent of the brutal British occupation of India but she has a problem with honoring Dronacharya, who was a teacher in martial arts in Mahabharata. She accuses him of caste prejudice because he demanded the thumb of a lower caste man as payment for teaching him archery. But was it caste that motivated Dronacharya to make such a savage demand or was it fear that a man so adept at archery may tilt the balance in favor of the Kauravas in the war that was sure to follow? In today's anti-Hindu animus prevailing in India who needs logical thinking. Another writer feels that those who are opposed to the name change are shallow elites who prefer names, such as Casa Bella and Palm Springs, in silly imitation of California. He feels that there is no harm in using a name that local people will find easier to pronounce. Others have resorted to mockery by punning on gaon, as in " gaon with the wind ", and on gram, as another name for chickpeas and as a unit of weight. Since India has many languages some of the new names are difficult to pronounce for non-native speakers. For instance, Trivandrum is far easier to pronounce than Thiruvananthapuram, Baroda is easier than Vadodara and Ooty is definitely simpler than Udhagamandalam. Another mocks the preference for brands by those who work in MNCs. Sometimes renaming can be senseless. Renaming Uttaranchal, which sounds much sweeter, as Uttarakhand was stupid because all vehicle number plates start with the letters 'UK', which is giving free advertising to the United Kingdom. In all this cacophony no one is focusing on the cost of changing a name. Changing a name of a place suddenly on a whim means that all the businesses will have to change their stationery or waste time in updating their web addresses and people will have to print new business cards, discarding their old ones. If the Haryana government had warned that the name would be changed next year it would have given everyone time to use up their old stationery and saved an awful lot of money. But then Indian politicians see themselves as our masters and believe that winning an election gives them the right to bully citizens at will. Thus Delhi Chief Minister has again imposed car restrictions on us even though a study by IIT Delhi shows that the previous abuse did not improve air quality. Politicians in Tamil Nadu are promising a ban on alcohol even though there are many examples that prohibition results in increased crime. Politicians in India are a curse. We pay.