Sanskar Gujarati News:
Many of you who travel a lot or read about India know that in the recent years the names of many big cities have changed. I was reading an article in the Gujarati Newspaper Sandesh the other day about this. The British brought with them many wonderful things however failed to appreciate the richness of the land they came to. One of my students whose family is from Baroda asked me what is the Gujarati name for Baroda because that doesn’t sound Gujarati:)
We had the following discussion in our class on why is Bombay now Mumbai and Baroda back to Vadodara?
The history:
Ancient India was a very rich culture and the britishers took over this country in 1747 and ruled for over 200 years. Many small kingdoms were destroyed and the infrastructure all ruined. The cities and towns were renamed from their original names as the Englishman could not pronounce them correctly. All the signs were changed and the towns got their fancy English names.
In 2009 the Indian government looking back wanted to step away from the shadows of the britishers.
One of the things they decided to do was rename the cities back to their original names.
So.. Bombay became Mumbai Baroda became Vadodara Ahmedabad became Karnavati Madras became Chennai
Although we may not like everything the British brought to India or took away from India we can never shake off their influence and changing the names of the towns back to their original names may bring peace but it can not erase the history. In reality, we have also learned and adopted some wonderful things from the English as well.
Let’s get rid of what was negative and did not serve us and hold on to the positive and generous things both the cultures have blessed us with!
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