What's in a name - Mumbai or Bombay ?

chim

Just intrigued - what do locals call the city, by the newish Mumbai, or historic Bombay - I know when I went to Ho Chi Min City a few years ago, mosr people still called it Saigon

SHIMLA

The old-timers call it Bombay, the Govt. calls it Mumbai; and the youngsters just don't care !

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eater

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHIMLA The old-timers call it Bombay, the Govt. calls it Mumbai; and the youngsters just don't care !

All airline luggage IDs seem to recognise the city as Bombay (BOM) not Mumbai (MUM) ? For now anyway......

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Merchant

BOM is the airport code--it will never change, regardless of what the city is called. Airport codes, like stock symbols, sometimes make sense, sometimes not. Newark, New Jersey, is EWR.

skinnylizard

well i dont care either but to me its Bombay coz thts where i was born. Mumbai is just an aberration.

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iyou

Someone from Bombay could tell us the story of how the bus and electric company known as BEST, or Bombay Electric Supply & Transport company, changed their name to Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport company without having to repaint any of their buses. I mean, how lucky is it that "Brihan" means "greater"?

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SHIMLA

Quite right ! Brihanmumbai does mean Greater Bombay(Mumbai).

greenchutney

well..the same way a 150 year old institution (a prestigious bombay engineering and textile college) called Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI) changed its name to Veermata Jijabhai Technical Institute.

personally..all this was jingoism, political positioning and waste of money for a group of useless political groups..sigh!

there is lot of concern in the local populations when there is mass influx of folks from other regions of the country. there is kannadiga insecurity, tamil nationalism, maharastrian supremacists..every region and linguistic group as something......so all this renaming..installing statues gives a small sense of stability i guess to these islands of locals......some of us forget we are all indians...its one country...!

yeah..shivaji was a great king..deserves his spot but renaming anything and everything after him..what does that do?..the same for with rajiv, indira, nehru, anna or ntr...

AvidTrekker

As I recall, the Gujaraatiis and Maraathiis called it Mumbai in their mother tongue conversations. So much so that a suburbite would say "am going to mumbai" in Gujaraatii when one really meant "downtown" [Churchgate etc]

Today the same word has become "going to town"

Also words like 'burbies and townies exist in the newer lingo.

This is coz the newer generation speaks more of [or entirely] English.

The oldest vernacular language newspaper in India is Mumbai Samaachaar in Gujaraatii which is 175+ years old. [it could be the OLDEST Indian newsp, but am not sure...]

Even today, we say "Mumbai" in Gujaraatii. Not coz of the "new" name. Coz we always said it.

The current trend is for people to speak in English. We suffer from an inferiority complex in general. Most of us believe that "eng speaking=smart". Hence, "mumbai" became "town".

Now, today's generation really believes that the Old name is a useless dead dodo exercise.... and that "mumbai" was in use only in 600 AD.

It was actively in use even 20 years ago. Alongwith the Anglo-Portuguese "Bombay" in English language conversations.

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skinnylizard

here is my problem with the whole English - New Generation analogy. We are taught English in schools, we grow up speaking English as our language as we do with other languages. Its not done at the cost of our own language, if you ever have a doubt just go out and look at what kind of movies we watch

i think too much is made of names and of English(western) and 'indian culture' it is funny how little you learn of the reality of British Rule in India other than the overtly one side political diatribe fed to us by the Indian Schooling system.

the Shiv Sena changed the name to Mumbai as they did with the Victoria Terminus, the airport and probably anything else they could change it to. It wasnt a public consensus or a huge demand or outcry for it to change. im willing to be many things but not a particpant in political stunts.

one of my fav films Trainspotting has this little bit which can be surmised as
" i dont mind the English, they are wankers, we on the other hand are colonised by wankers, we couldnt even find a decent country to be colonised by"

we fought for our independence right, look what it got us.

appu

No offence, but that sounds so elitist!

I grew up in Mumbai too. Don't know where you grew up, but it was always Mumbai when speaking the local languages (Mumbai argot, Marathi, Gujarati). Only when I was speaking English did I call it Bombay. Even today when I speak English I call it Bombay out of habit, and when I speak Marathi or Gujarati or Mumbaiya I refer to it as Mumbai. Like most Mumbaikars I see no problem with that, certainly not enough to call the place name as the locals pronounce it, an "aberration".

Hope you realize its how Mumbai has always been pronounced locally, the Brits for whatever reason re-named it to Bombay for their convinience. Just like they renamed Kalyan as Calyaun, Pune as Poona, and Varanasi as Benares. Going back to the original intent and spelling of the place name is not an "aberration", its a reflection of reality.

Furthermore it is polite to make an effort to pronouce proper nouns as the locals would pronouce it. Bombay has **ALWAYS** been pronounced as Mumbai locally. It would be insulting to me if someone delibrately mispronounced my name, just because they had some agenda or pet peeve. Likewise just because you may not agree with what the Shiv Sena did elsewhere does not mean you would insult the 10s of lakhs of Mumbaikars by calling it an "aberration".

There is CERTAINLY no popular movement to rename it back to its Brit misnomer Bombay as far as I know, so it seems the locals are just fine with the rename. Why do you think its not good?

skinnylizard

its my city as well. its also a free country. when i was born it was Bombay and it was Bombay when i was in school. Only when a bunch of fundamentalists came to power did it become Mumbai.
you should also take a trip around the country save for the odd state everywhere you go its Bombay.

appu

Exactly! The people who were voted in renamed it to how the locals pronounce it. Subsquent governments did not rename it back to its original Brit misnomer - probably based on public opinion.

You think its an "aberration". I think thats an elitist opinion.

Like you said its a free country...

skinnylizard

precisely. you can call it what you want. i got no problem with it. as long as no one is making me call it what they want.

Periscope

I think the important point is that places often have different names in different languages. Thus Rome is Roma in Italian and Germany is Deutschland in German. Would it be OK for the Italian government to force English-speakers to drop Rome. Or the German government force English-speakers to drop Germany? Of course not.

No government has jurisdiction over the entire English language and that includes the government of Maharashtra. They may change the offical name to Mumbai but Bombay is still a correct English name for the city as per tradition and usage. Note that AFAIK the Bombay High Court and Bombay Stock Exchange have still kept their old names.

Incidentally I don't think Bombay is a misnomer for Mumbai. I think it is the Anglicised version of the Portuguese name: Bom Bahia which means
"good bay".