A quick Google search will tell you why a Mumbai chowk was recently named after J Dey, which is more than can be said of most other roads
A square in Powai was named J Dey Chowk this week, in memory of this newspaper's late journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, who was gunned down near the spot five years ago. It is possibly the first and only time I have been happy about the BMC naming or renaming anything in my city. It was pressure from the media that made them do it, of course, presumably because naming the square after Dey would mean not being able to name it after some corporator's relative or film star's grandparent."
I fail to understand why roads need to be named after people we have never heard of, people who have absolutely nothing to do with the locality in question, or people who are actually related to people who may have done something of some significance that no one remembers anymore. It would help if there were commemorative plaques explaining why a street was named after someone, but that may take a few decades, considering the BMC and PWD have yet to perfect the art of putting up basic street signs that actually stay up for more than a few months.
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The D-Mart Chowk at Powai has been named after mid-day crime editor J Dey (inset), who was gunned down near the spot five years ago. Pic/Sameer Markande
It is a bit of a mystery how a road or square in our city gets a new name. It's not as if there's a poll that allows us common, literate folk to vote for or against carefully prepared options. And even if there were a poll, it would take a few years for the BMC to finalise the process of conducting it. The cost of conducting it would also mysteriously rise by a few crores every other year.
There could also be problems with the names suggested, if none of them happen to be related to members of the municipal corporation. There may be protests by political parties anxious to create unnecessary controversies instead of actually doing something useful. It could also interfere with the working of the BMC, as minor issues like the fixing of potholes would have to take a backseat to the more pressing business of renaming. So, all things considered, maybe a poll wouldn't work.
I decided to spend a few hours trying to dig up information about some of the illustrious folk whose names have replaced some of the perfectly acceptable original names of our city roads. I found that good old Wood House Road, for instance, was now called N Parjekar Marg. Naturally, I expected Google to inform me about the illustrious
Mr or Mrs Parjekar.
All it yielded, however, was its latitude and longitude. Nine search pages in, I continued to be clueless. There was absolutely no information about who this mysterious yet presumably important person was. Was he or she a freedom fighter? The founder of a now obscure political party? Forgotten inventor of the Misal Pav? No one seemed to know, except for the mysterious men and women who had decided to rename the street.
Things didn't get any clearer when I looked up Ramchandra K Patkar, whose name now adorned what was once Waterfield Road. A website called IndianKanoon.org listed a case from 1911 filed under 'Mahadev Ramchandra Patkar vs Mahadaji Moreshvar Pendulkar' about rights of occupancy in a Khoti village. Did this mean Mr Patkar was a lawyer? It didn't say. How was he connected to Waterfield Road? No one knew. Did he change the face of history in that delightful part of Bombay? Your guess is as good as mine.
And so it went. Raosaheb SK Bole, KM Sharma, Keshavrao Khadye, Amrit Keshav Naik. These names had replaced Portuguese Road, Lohar Street, Clark Road and Bastian Road. I had absolutely nothing against these people, of course, because they probably were important and deserved respect for a reason. My only quibble was this: If they were important, how come we were never taught about them? Why was there no mention of them or their achievements by the BMC?
Why were their names thrust upon the rest of us without a reason? I could blame my own ignorance and limited education, obviously, for not knowing who they were, but I would bet a large amount of money that people actually living on these streets didn't know much about them either. And that, to my mind, was strange.
I'm glad about the honour accorded to my late colleague J Dey, who deserves it. I only wish I could say the same about the many other strangers honoured across the city for reasons few of us are familiar with.
When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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