Calling all names

It sounds suspiciously like Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “Juta Abishkaar (The Invention of the Shoe)”. Ministers and noblemen running helter-skelter to contrive a means of protecting the king’s feet from dust and soil,coming up with absurdities like carpeting the earth. That flutter and flurry can be observed among Mamata Banerjee’s ministers and opposition MLAs putting their heads together,running to linguists and littérateurs,losing sleep over what name becomes West Bengal best. The “West” in Bengal condemned the state to the bottom of alphabetically arranged tables,eliciting yawns from other states whenever Bengal took the pulpit. A way out of this tail-ending misery must be found,decreed the chief minister,and a way is being found.

Except,this road has been travelled by the Marxists,when they changed the name of Calcutta but couldn’t go the whole hog of retiring the geographical marker that had apparently sunk Bengal’s name and fame. After all,if “East” Bengal no longer exists,why should “West” Bengal? One reason the “West” is still extant is history. Bengal was once one,and bigger. Now it’s divided by an international border. The other is culture: that border is also a rough cultural divide. But then,jettisoning the burden of history is not necessarily the denial of history.

Of the names on the table,“Paschimbanga” is a literal translation of the current name; “Bangabhumi” has a poetic fervour denied to the prosaic “Bangapradesh”; “Gaur Banga” harks back to ancient Bengal; “Banga” and “Bangla” are minimalist. However,“Paundrabardhan” is a temporal and spatial misfit — one Paundra king apparently fought at Kurukshetra; their capital,Paundranagar,is Bangladesh’s oldest urban ruins at Mahasthangarh. Besides,Paundra comprised mostly Pabna,Bogra and Rajshahi — all big names on the map of the other Bengal.