I don’t know if this is true of other cities but in Bountiful Bangalore we have several names for the same road. It is quite hilarious when you tell the auto driver, “Lavelle Road”, and he confirms it, “Lovely Roaddih?”. I am not getting into renaming of roads and localities over the years – Cavalry Road to Kamaraj Road, Fraser Towan to Pulakeshi Nagar and so on. Enough has been said about that.
So here are some interesting names as pronounced by our autowallahs and roadside vendors. Don’t forget to add an ‘ih’ after road, town to get the right pronunciation. Eg, M G Roaddih? Murphy Townih?
- The road that gets the brunt of it is Lavelle Road, the versions are Level Road, Lavelly Road. The funniest though was Lily Road.
- Brigade Road as Brigadier Road, now that was the creation of an old mallu aunt
- AK says he heard a driver call Magrath Road as Margaret Road
- Victoria Layout gets a winner with Victory Layout
- I have heard Tanny Road for Tannery Road, Moks Road for Mosque Road
- Frasier Town for Fraser Town, this was of course even before the celebrated comic serial
- Kokis Town for Cox Town
- Another contribution from AK is Minreva Circle for Minerva Circle. This is good branding for the electric car guys
- A digression from roads and localities with Philomela Hospital for Philomena and Boring Hospital for Bowring Hospital. Given the facade it is definitely not exciting
- Cantonment is Cantroment for a lot of people
Of the recent settlements Kamanahalli and Lingarajpuram has some rib-tickling names given the high concentration of Anglo Indians – Kamanahattan, Lingafonia. A friend says that in the old days when Kamanahalli had dusty trails in place of roads they used call it Texas and Wild West. But the ultimate killer title is United Dingdom.
Anymore contributions?
