What’s in a name?

Its been 70 years since the British left India but it is only this year in February that Delhi got rid of its last major road named by the British after one of their own. Dalhousie road near Rashtrapati Bhawan being the one getting this honour.

These lines of an article in Hindustan times today about names of Delhi roads left me thinking about how times have really changed over the last fifty odd years of my life, most of it spent in Delhi. So many names I grew up on have since vanished and replaced by the names of our own heroes- a task that should have been done anyway sooner or later.

As a child growing up in Gole market, a very central locality of New Delhi, I have heard so many roads and avenues named after the British. Curzon Road, Baird Road, Minto Road, Dalhousie Road. Also the single story houses of the colony spread around a large central garden called squares were named likewise after British generals and governors- Clive square, Havelock square, Outram square and so on. Having lived in these squares one was accustomed to hearing these names very often. In close proximity were Wellingdon hospital and Lady Harding Hopsital, Lady Irwin School and College and several such landmarks named after the British. These squares were brought down when Gole market went under reconstruction which happened a long time back - may be quarter of a century or more. The names of hospitals were changed to take away the British stamping way back may be around the same time. The names of schools and colleges however still remain unchanged. A foreign sounding name perhaps lends more value to the educational institutions or may be they were under not so much public glare and pressure.

Names of roads were also changed from time to time- Curzon road to Kasturba Gandhi marg, Baird road to Bangla Sahib marg, Minto road to Vivekananda marg, Allenby road to Dr. Bishambar Das marg, Ratendone road to Amrita Shergil marg, Reading road to Mandir marg, Cornwallis road to Subramania Bharti marg -to name a few. However the last remaining major road also got renamed in February this year namely Dalhousie road to Dara Shikoh marg completing the mission of Indianising our roads and doing away with the colonial stamping and rightly so.

However as a child I still remember my father saying such and such lives on Baird road, this one lives in Clive square, that one’s office is on Havelock road. As a young child of 7-8 you do not attach value to the name as to who is the person after whom the road or the place is named, what is their origin, are they Indians, did they do good for India and so on. These names become a part of your growing up since every now and then you have heard these names, travelled on them, identified them by these names and called them so, lived in one of the squares so named or were born in hospital named Wellingdon. With all the names that I grew up on gone,  I sometimes feel a disconnect with the city. The colony I grew up in no longer exists, the roads I travelled on have changed their names, the hospital I was born in is called by some other name.

The house being the most intimate affected me the most when it no longer existed. The single story houses spread around a large central garden, each called a square was the place I spent most of my childhood.  The entire colony was made up of several such squares. The houses were row  and so in close proximity to each other, neighbourhood ties were strong and the entire square was one big large family. Families were well connected, each knew what was happening in other families, people offered and accepted help without thinking twice, children played together studied together and fought with each other. It was community living where every single member was important. I once visited Gole market to see what has become of the houses. In place of open squares, I saw multi-storeyed houses- building after building. My heart sank, my knees gave way and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was both a shock and a disappointment. From the outside they appeared to be tiny flats, much removed from the open and vast expanse of the squares where my childhood was spent sleeping under the stars and playing under the trees. I thanked god for what I got without asking and felt asphyxiated seeing the little windows in the flats going several storeys high, much above my neck could bend backwards, a lost heritage.

I can only savour those moments in my memories and often make myself believe that that world, that house, those roads that I grew up on still exist.