East is west and up is really down

My friend named his restaurant Chourangi It would be in Leicester Square one of Londons most desirable districts probably the only fine dining restaurant in this choice location It would serve the cuisine of Calcutta fare unheard of in London loosely adapted from the menu of his bestselling chain of Oh Calcutta restaurants in India Since the Brits have a thing about Bengal it was already creating a bit of a buzzBut youve got the spelling wrong I told Anjan Chatterjee the owner Ive lived in Calcutta for years and the street is spelled ChowringheeHe gave me a Bengali look The Brits misspelt itThe British spelt everything wrong Its just how their tongues are Just because they pronounce Cholmondeley as Chumley and Cockburn as Coburn Thiruvananthapuram became Trivandrum Mumbai Bombay Chennai Madras Kanpur Cawnpore Quilon Kollam and Bengaluru BangaloreThey made my grandfather a Chatterjee said Anjan He was ChattopadhyayAnjans revenge is opening Chourangi correctly spelled this time in the heart of LondonBut he got me thinking about places names and how thoroughly weve been hornswoggledWhat after all is so Indian about the West Indies other than at a stretch V S NaipaulWhy isnt Africa called West IndiaWho decided where east and west lie After all Dubai is neither to our east nor is it the middle of anything but we call it the Middle EastThe problem starts because if you walk west long enough you reach east The Brits started their walk in London so to them India was east and nothing was easter Thailand Vietnam Burma and their ilk became the Far East Japan was nobodys pet and Australia was just a place for white prisoners and kangaroos so it was left out of the net The Dutch East Indies were well Dutch and it was simply not done to be rude to fellow colonisersIn each country they looted the looters also vandalised names of local places leaving behind a disaster area of geographically and phonetically mismatched nomenclature the colonial equivalent of urinating on your hosts sofaTheres more and its equally arbitrary Some geographer or astronomer decided that he would call his half of the planet north Its true there are two magnetic poles north and south but deciding which to call north is arbitrary Since most rich countries happen to be in the northern hemisphere north ended up meaning wealthy and south became synonymous with bottom of the barrel When something goes south its not goodEven more arbitrary is pointing your finger towards the sky and calling it up If every human being on the planet simultaneously pointed at the sky and said Up that would be 74 billion fingers pointing in completely different directions Up and down mean nothing when youre standing on a round planetSo up isnt really up north might easily be south and the Middle East is actually West Something while the Far East is possibly the near WestThe gravest error of them all in my opinion is the misrepresentation of sizes On a world map one country stands out as large as the entire African continent mdash GreenlandSomething not quite right here because Greenlands area is 2166 million square kms while Africa is 15 times larger Why do they look about the same size on the wall mapAnother arbitrary approximation There is simply no known way to spread a sphere into a flat rectangle One method is to wrap a rectangular sheet around the sphere like a cylinder The earth is sliced horizontally and each point on each slice is projected to the cylinder Since the northern slices are smaller each of their points results in a larger point on the cylinder Northern countries end up looking largerSo how many Indias do we have The colonialists mdash Britain Denmark Spain France Germany mdash knew that India and China were countries with much loot for the taking in minerals spices opium and other things India being large was their reference point for east but the smaller countries and island nations beyond just became the East Indies or even further the Far East The Dutch took over some islands and called them the Dutch East IndiesThe problem with India and the Indies was that they were too darn distant Christopher Columbus thought hed find a shortcut by travelling west not realising that a hulking continent called America sat in the middle He never made it to the north American mainland even after four expeditions not getting beyond some islands in the Bahamas and Panama This didnt stop him from deciding that hed reached the West Indies The Native Americans became Red IndiansIn brief India is everywhere even in Indiana which means Land of the Indians Its a good day for the bhaktsHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcom Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday 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