So Gurgaon has been re-named Gurugram, guru here being Dron-acharya, tutor to the Pandava princes in the epic Mahabharata. This is not quite a renaming as it is Sanskritisation or Indian gentrification. The local Haryanvi way of saying the 'village of the tutor' has been now polished to suit the taste of polished city dewellers. India triumphs over Bharat! The 'bhodrolok' (gentry) rejects the lingo of the 'chotlok' (lowly), as they say in Bengali.

A much respected art scholar, anxious to prove his secular credentials, tweeted how this 'guru' (his quotes, not mine) was responsible for taking away the right thumb of Ekalavya, a tribal youth, to ensure the caste privileges of his royal students. Suddenly, the renaming was being given a caste turn. The move from Gurgaon to Gurugram was no longer seen as gentrification (which it is), but as Brahminification (which it is not, as it always was the guru's village for the local residents). This mocking of epic heroes and religious icons for their many imperfections — and there are many if one chooses to be judgmental — is an increasingly widespread behaviour to prove superiority of 'rational thought' and to establish 'secular credentials'.