Monday, December 12, 2005

Bangalore to change name to reflect state of its infrastructure

Chief Minister Dharam Singh of the state of Karnatak in India has announced that soon, its capital city Bangalore would be reverting back to its pre-colonial name "Bengaluru". This name change is designed to make Bangalore residents aware of and take pride in that period of the city's history during which the state of its infrastructure closely resembled current conditions of squalidity.

In a press statement, the Chief Minister mentioned that the name "Bangalore" was too Westernized and would give potential foreign visitors a disproportionately optimistic expectation from the city's civic amenities such as roads, electric supply and air quality. Hence, in order to suitably lower visitors' expectations and prepare them for Bangalore's pothole-ridden roads, untreated sewage and horrendous traffic snarls, it would henceforth be known by it's ancient 16th century name to reflect city conditions commensurate with those that existed during that period of its history.

Bangalore will now join other major Indian metropolitan areas like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, previously known as Bombay, Madras and Calcutta respectively, before each of these city's names was set back a few hundred years in order to properly calibrate it with the city's developmental status.

Some government insiders claim that this name change would accomplish a dual objective. Many software companies based in Bangalore have frequently complained about the city's crumbling infrastructure. Now, with Bangalore being wiped off the map, this would permanently take care of that complaint. If there were no "Bangalore" in existence as such, there would be no "Bangalore infrastructure" to be taken care of.

Controversy still remains about whether the new name should be spelt "Bengaluru" or "Bengalooru". Polls suggest that Bangaloreans are evenly divided, about as evenly as they are on either not giving a "flying fuck" or not giving a "rat's ass" about the issue.

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