"What's in a name?" someone had once famously proclaimed. Clearly a lot. Especially if you happen to be a Bombayite or a Bombaywallah…oops, Mumbaikar. And to be in sync with changing times, will hell break lose if you call yourself an Elphinstonian instead of a Prabhadevian? Get the drift, right?

We're back in the grips of the name-changing game. Memories of the circus that preceded the renaming of the city in the 1990s come to mind. Once again, our gods in the BMC building have kept aside the city's potholed roads, traffic logjams, stretched train and road transport facilities, blocked nullahs, and other pressing civic issues to invest good money and effort into this exercise. We have been witnessing the renaming of most of the city's colonial reminders with railway stations bearing the brunt of the onslaught at the moment. All of this, of course, at the cost of public money. From letterheads to nameplates, road and rail signage, we can't imagine the expenditure allocation. It might possibly not end with railway stations. To borrow a few names from a post by a city-loving friend, of the eventualities: Girijaghar ka dwar (Churchgate), Fort (Kila) and Colaba Causeway (Kolabhat ki Pakki Sadak) could well be next on the long list. A few weeks back, a local corporator had gone a step further, and suggested renaming the Gateway of India to Bharat Dwar. We have a simple question to ask – Doesn't it translate to India Gate in New Delhi?