It's going to be Bengaluru.

Yeah. From November 2006, you will call it "Bengaluru". So many people are unhappy, saying, with startlingly unbridled rhetoric, that the Bangalore brand has been compromised, that this is an utter waste of time and money and that it is a bloody big deal, waaah.

Let me give you my side of the picture.

Phooey.

Nothing changes with name changes. Kengal Hanumanthaiah Road is still double road to me. Malleswaram 18th Cross is called Chitrashilpi Venkatappa Road. My office was there for SEVEN years, and I didn't know - heck, you know how I found out? When Hutch started displaying the area on my mobile - that's when I found this name and consequently, the board.

I still call them Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras sometimes. (arranged in increasing order of "hatred of old name" according to me) I doesn't change me - Heck, I've called it Mumbai before it was Mumbai, and I will even (shudder) use the word "Dilli" instead of a more colonial "Delhi".

What happens due to a name change? Nothing. Other than money being eaten up by bureaucrats to change everything - but this is a coup for Bangalore, in the sense that only English boards will change :) Remember in Mumbai, they didn't want to change the "BEST" name for public transport, so out came the wonderful "Brihanmumbai" suddenly. Wonderful.

So this money is better spent otherwise. Which government money is not? I say rip the entire system apart. We don't need to spend crores on MP's telephone bills, or on building a second vidhan soudha (and may I add, blocking one of my favourite roads in the city). We don't need to build "gates" all around Bangalore. We definitely do not need the phenomenal waste of a "grade separator" they have built near Rajajinagar entrance - that place needed a dairy circle style separator, not that ridiculous half witted approach they have. And of course the flyover at Bannerghatta road/ring road intersection isn't a lifesaver either.

Not that I'm justifying the name change, saying so what, the entire system is bad. What I'm saying is, if the government will be busy doing this name change, perhaps...just perhaps, it will take all their time and they won't think of stupid and idiotic plans of how to further destroy our already defaced, congested, polluted and pothole-mired city. Maybe it's time they ignored us - so we can actually fix this place.

Get ready.