Anyone asking to be guided to Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Market in South Mumbai is likely to meet with blank stares, shrugs or curious looks. If they were to try ‘Crawford Market’ instead, directions to the heaving 144-year-old bazaar would be supplied in a heartbeat. Official documents and hoardings might accommodate the new names of city streets and landmarks but often, it takes more than mere diktats to find a place in collective imagination.
Recently, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) – defined by some as Mumbai’s most prolific renaming entity – ruffled several feathers when one of its councillors introduced a motion to change the name of Malabar Hill to Ramnagari. The corporator, Dilip Lande of the Maharashtra Nirman Sena, asked for the change on two grounds – the existing name had a strong colonial association, and that a legend that Lord Rama had stopped there on his way to find Sita.
Full report here Business Standard
