After much hemming and hawing and deliberations throughout the State, the “pundits” (read the idiots), among themselves finally decided to officially and finally change the name from West Bengal to Paschimbanga. This is to be pronounced posh (like the luxury car Porsche) chim, (which actually means West) bawn (like lawn) go (like go).
Why? Because alphabetically we were the lowest among all the other states. (How childish can you get?). As a result of our occupying the lowest place alphabetically, it was felt(utterly foolishly) that we were not getting enough attention of the Centre at Delhi when it came to distribution of funds or other largesse. Can you believe this?
The other reason cited was that since there was no East Bengal in existence any more why keep the prefix West? Okay. But then Paschimbanga is actually the exact Bengali translation of West Bengal. You have kept the Paschim. So that was no reason at all. Or was it? This is an unsolvable paradox that can only evolve out of the fertile minds of politicians and their toady hangers on..
Now with a starting alphabet of P, it is felt that we have climbed up the ladder somewhat. If climbing the alphabetic order was the prime reason for this idiotic change, then what was wrong in adopting just Bengal as our new name? We'd have been there right on top of the pile.
Also, the name would have been a lot smarter, phonetically sound and a lot easier to pronounce etc etc. Now the non Bengalis will have one hell of a time trying to pronounce our new name. As it is they murder the new name of the city when they try and say Kolkata the changed name of Calcutta. Not one of the non Bengalis can get it right. And it makes me grit my teeth every time I hear a non Bengali mutilate Kolkata trying to say it. It really is the easiest of names. Kol should sound like coal and kata is simple with a soft t. But invariably the non Bengali will kill the name by pronouncing Kol like call. The name is killed with the first syllable.
If this is what people do with Kolkata, can you imagine what they're going to do with Paschimbanga?
