How many Indians does it take..........

Yeah, yeah, I know, the title is the clichéd start to a joke, like "An Irishman, an Italian and a Greek walk into a bar....". But I couldn't resist, because it's so apropos to what I'm about to relate.

I needed a small appliance, so I went to one of the popular appliance stores. On the ground floor, I am greeted by about ten salespeople. When I mention what I am looking for, they direct me to the first floor(2nd floor in American English), and the ten salespeople go back to watching a game show on the big-screen TVs that they are supposed to be selling. Someday, Indian retailers will learn that it's better to keep big-ticket items in back, rather than out front. People making big-ticket purchases know what they are looking for, and they have cash. What you want to do is place impulse items along their path to the big purchases. You simply don't let them make their large purchases at the front of the store and walk out without seeing any of your other merchandise. Anyway, on the first floor, there are two salespersons, both dressed in salwar kameez outfits. I tell them I am going to browse. The taller of the two tails me, and it strikes me that she is pretty tall for a girl, and a bit butch-looking. Turns out she's transgender, but that is neither here nor there. I do give credit to the store, though, for hiring her, since there is considerable prejudice in India against transgenders and therefore few legitimate employment opportunities.

I ask her about different features, but unfortunately, it appears that they are not particularly well trained in answering technical questions on the products. Again, that is neither here nor there, since I knew what I was looking for. I pick one appliance that fits my requirements, and I am informed- not for the first time in my Indian shopping experiences- that they have no more stock of that model, and they weren't sure when they would get another. So after another ten minutes or so, I settle on another, a bit pricier but with similar features. Then we get to my checkout, which is what the title of this post applies to.

My salesperson takes me to a long counter, behind which are five people- four men and a lady- sitting all in a row as you would find in your typical municipal office here. I felt like I was about to be interviewed by a committee. She tells this lady what I want to buy, and the lady types stuff into her terminal and produces a printout. She hands this printout to the person to her right, who then processes my payment and returns the printout with my receipt to the aforementioned lady. The lady then stamps the printout and sends it over to a guy two places to her left. He looks at it, types some stuff into his terminal, stamps the printout and returns it to the lady. The lady then gives it to the guy on her immediate left, who takes about ten minutes typing stuff in and apparently waiting for a response from some other source. I am asked to take a seat, which I do.

Finally, the printout comes back, the lady stamps it one more time and hands it to the salesperson who in turn hands it to me, and I note that each stamp is of a different color. My simple checkout of one item involved-besides the fifteen or more minutes it took- the salesperson plus four of the five people at the checkout counter, plus the guard who needed to check my receipt against the "free gifts"(toothbrush holder, refrigerator deodorizer and washing-machine de-scaler) I was given, and I wasn't even carrying the item I had just bought, which was promised for delivery the next day. I couldn't help thinking about the confusion that must prevail on a busy day, such as a Divali sale, or a Republic Day sale, with people lining up and having to mill about while their receipts play musical chairs.

I can see only one reason why such inefficiency is still feasible, and that is that the cost of labor is still too low to encourage streamlining. At the moment, it is still possible to sell appliances and electronics to the Indian public without too much(or even any) technical knowledge, but that hopefully will change and these stores might have to hire- and better compensate- trained and knowledgeable staff. Perhaps increased staffing costs would nudge them into streamlining the checkout process. That aside, is it too much to ask that the customer have a pleasant shopping experience and not be subjected to unnecessary inconvenience even if you can afford to stuff the store with employees? The appliance was delivered the next day as promised, but the chap who was supposed to unpack it, "demo" the device and- more importantly- activate the warranty has not shown up in the two days since. Par for punctuality here. Perhaps he's standing in a line someplace waiting to get papers stamped in rainbow colors.

Okay, so how many Indians does it take to check out an appliance purchase? Five, in this instance. Plus one to hold my hat. Just kidding! But I bet they would have provided someone to do that too, from all the employees just hanging about.

A rose by any other name, or how renaming isn't the princess' kiss

  Many countries, mostly in the developing/industrializing world, have been bitten by the bug of re-naming cities bearing a colonial name, or spelled in English in other than the way they would like it. So we have Peking/Beijing, Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Rangoon/Yangon(with Burma/Myanmar), and so on. In India, the renaming centered around British colonial settlements for the most part, the most notable exception being Kerala's numerous changes in wholly native places. This, of course, has its merits when it is done with the right intent and with rationality.

This post will focus on Indian name changes. The driving motive in India appears to be to diminish- some would say deny- the influence of colonialism on the development of the major cities and thus to claim native pride in their progress. People say that history is being re-written to correct historical inaccuracies. My own view is that history is never inaccurate, much as the reality of today's weather is never inaccurate. History may be misrepresented, as it often is, by those who have a vested interest. Name changes in India, both for towns/cities as well as for roads and streets, appear to be rooted in the desire to erase, to the extent possible, any memory of our colonial past. Except, of course, when it is conveniently invoked to justify the sad state of the majority of the people.

I will comment a bit about the major changes, and then focus in on Karnataka and Bangalore. The biggest cities in India are Calcutta/Kolkatta, Bombay/Mumbai, Delhi, Madras/Chennai, Bangalore/Bengaluru and Hyderabad. My reading of history- and outside of Indian revisionism, I haven't found anything to the contrary- tells me that Bombay was the Anglicized name of Bon Bahia, a Portuguese settlement of a cluster of swampy mosquito-infested islands pretty much uninhabited by natives at the time. Revisionists stretched to come up with the legend of "Mumba Devi"as the source for the name, and insist that "Bombay" was a corruption of "Mumbai". Calcutta was founded by Job Charnock of the East India Company on a mud flat on a bend in the Hooghly River, and he originally called it "Chuttinuttea" after a nearby village on the banks called Sutanati. It acquired the name Kalikatta and then Calcutta for another nearby village called Kalighat. Calcutta revisionists were close to the truth when they came up with the name Kolkatta, claiming that one of the original villages around the East India Company's mud flat base was named Kolikata. Given the religious homogenization taking place in India, perhaps naming Calcutta back to "Kalighat", the name written in contemporary accounts by Job Charnock and others, was deemed inadvisable, and it is easier not to have to deal with explanations of that name! And then we have Madras. Francis Day negotiated to obtain a square mile of beachfront at a village called Madraspatnam(or Madraspattinam) and began building Fort St. George, which formed the core of the city which developed. In the revised version, the village was claimed to be Chennapatanam, although even in that version it is conceded that the name was applied to the settlements which sprouted around the fort. In all of these, and other, changes of name, a nationalistic ego seems to prevail, seeking to impute the presence of a nascent native city which was only overshadowed by the colonialists.

Now we come to Karnataka, and Bangalore. The etymology of the name Bangalore is not altogether clear, although what is clear is that it is indeed a corruption of the name of an existing settlement. Some versions claim that it was Bengaval-uru(town of Guards). Another version says it was named by an 11th century king who was served boiled beans by an old woman, and called the place "Benda-kal-uru"(place of boiled beans). In any event, by the dawn of the 21st century, Bangalore had acquired a reputation for excellence in education, the existence of a number of scientific and research establishments, and of course as a booming software and IT-services center. Suddenly, it became an imperative to rename the city in order to reclaim its fame from any overt connection with colonialism. In a matter of months, in 2005-2006, a proposal for the renaming of the city was accepted and implemented. By then, "Bangalored" had become a word in the English lexicon, and the city had global name recognition, or "brand value". What is remarkable, though, is that other cities in Karnataka, such as Mysore, Mangalore, Tumkur, Raichur and others, have not yet been similarly renamed(Mysore is scheduled to become Mysuru, though), giving credence to the notion that the renaming of Bangalore was an egotistical and chauvinistic move, and quite unnecessary. Other cities have dual names, depending on whether it is written in English or the native language. Cities such as Moscow/Moskva, Mexico City/Ciudad de Mejico, Manila/Maynila, Singapore/Singhapura, Munich/Munchen, Warsaw/Warszawa, and so on. Bengaluru, regardless of its historical accuracy, is an awkward name in English and essentially squanders the brand recognition Bangalore built up over the past 40 or 50 years. It wouldn't matter so much if as much local pride were displayed in sprucing up the city and making it livable. But that's too much like work, isn't it? So much easier to just rename the place........

Not content with just renaming the city, there seems to be a veritable stampede to rename all the major roads as well. For a city that is rapidly expanding far beyond its previously compact borders, there would seem to be no dearth of opportunities to name new roads. But again, it's all about ego, and wanting to stamp out even traces of the colonial past. So South Parade Road, which was one of the broadest and probably the finest road in Bangalore, was renamed Mahatma Gandhi Road, and has steadily deteriorated. Residency Road was renamed Field Marshal Cariappa Road, and is now rather a disgrace to that fine soldier. Infantry Road was renamed Bhagwan Mahaveer Road, with the promise(by the Jain Association) of maintaining the road, installing water fountains and toilets. Needless to say, none of that is happening! I think the only road in Bangalore which has actually improved since its renaming is Grant Road, which was renamed Vittal Mallya Road for the late founder of the UB Group. Vijay Mallya, the son- and current chairman of the group- of course wanted the street to be improved, and fortunately had the resources to do so himself. I mean, it's still not as good as it could be, but it certainly is a vast improvement over what it was.

Now, I'm not simply making a negative rant here about the renaming. I wish the people who propose and support such things would look at the overall picture, instead of focusing on the micro issue of name. By all means, rename your city, rename your street, rename your park, rename your railroad station. But, for heavens' sake, don't let the object of your renaming deteriorate into an ugly, messy, crumbling, stinking embarrassment to the name.