Pondicherry becomes Puducherry

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Maharaj or Dada, Ganguly's legacy lives on

Featured Slideshows

Puducherry /Puducherry: The streets on a grid pattern, the architecture, and the culture of Pondicherry clearly speaks of a French past even today.

However, the next time you want to go to Pondicherry, you might have to go to Puducherry because the town will now revert to its old Indian name.

It was called Puducherry, which means a "new village", before the French made it Pondicherry. The settlement became a Union Territory of India in 1963.

But with the change in name, most Pondicherry lovers feel the old name was a heritage worth preserving.

"The stupidity is that the history of a place has many names. Pondicherry's ancient name was actually Vedapuri. Every time you change a name, you're trying to whitewash the heritage of a particular place. You're saying we're not really proud of our French connection," said Ashit Kumar Mitra of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

Meanwhile, almost all the residents of Pondicherry agree that it's the French connection that makes the town unique. And that hybridity runs in the French medium schools, old streets with names, and of course in the way the residents look at themselves.

"Cherie in French means darling. Pondicherry, like, I'm calling from Pondicherry, the darling of Pondy. I hope we'll preserve at least the heritage of Pondy - the Tamil heritage, French heritage. I hope the town won't change philosophically with the change in name," said a French publisher, Raj de Condappa.

The name Pondicherry was a result of an early scribe misspelling the first 'u' in Pouducherry as 'n', but it became as cherished as the beach, the monuments and a dreamy pace of life in the town.

The Indianness and Frenchness has been coming together in the town for years. So the name change is just a sign of that. Or maybe it's just a way of adding another face to the town.