The original Torrington, recalled for his oppressiveness. It is worth changing the road named after him. Just change it better.
Colombo is renaming a lot of its roads. The original names do refer to somewhat douchey Brits. Torrington, for example, was recalled for cruelty in suppressing the natives. As SarongJohnnie tweets, ” I think renaming roads after great people is fine. But these guys are losing the plot with some of these names.” How are they losing the plot?
The new names are insanely long. No one uses them.
Dickman’s Road
Take the old Dickman’s road. They renamed it to Dr. Lester James Peiris Mawatha (he lives down the street). He’s a local film-maker, cool, but everybody calls him LJP. For what seems to be bureaucratic reasons, they’ve put his full name and designation on the sign board. it’s not a road, it’s a business card. The result is that people still call it Dickman’s.
You know what else, that’s only the name for part of the road. It literally covers the distance that LJP himself would walk to the shops. If you go up Dr. L.. fuck, I can’t even write the whole thing, if you go up LJP it changes into Isipathana Mawatha. But it’s the same road.
As another example, Dudley Senanayake Mawatha becomes Horton Place which becomes Ananda Kumaraswamy Mawatha which becomes Green Path. All in a couple of kilometers. On the map it’s just a straight line.
Havelock Road
They also renamed Havelock Road to Sri Sambuddathwa Jayanthi Mawatha, to commemorate the 2600th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Full support, but I still call it Havelock Road. Why? Not out of any sympathies for the colonial governor. I don’t need to share such complex meaning with a trishaw driver, over such a length of time. I just want to say a name and get there.
Other recent changes include making Marine Drive (named after the US Marines?) the Colombo Plan Road. The Colombo is completely redundant, seeing as you are already in Colombo and seeing that every road which leads to Colombo is called the Colombo Road. I guess I could live with Plan Road, but I still call it Marine Drive. Why? Because they renamed as a political gift. It has nothing to do with how people actually live or speak.
The parallel Duplication Road is actually named R.A. De Mel Mawatha. Do you know who calls it that? Nobody.
Perhaps more inexplicably, there are moves afoot to rename Bagatelle road to Srimath Wijayananda Dahanayake Mawatha. This is inexplicable because bagatelle is a french word meaning a thing of little importance. It’s literally a residential road, of little importance to anyone but the people that live there.
A Suggestion
I’m OK with renaming the roads. To me, Dickman’s always referred to the male prostitutes that used to work that strip, but I get that they probably should be renamed for colonial reasons. Just rename them better, and as roads rather than political statements. Rename them for something more than the naming ceremony, rename them for daily use. Colombo’s roads do need to be rationalized. Nationalization just isn’t the same thing.
Indi, Isn’t Duplication road R.A De Mel Mawatha?
Oh and they changed Hospital Road to some long name. After a monk if i’m not mistaken.
shit, yeah. Changed that.
I honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck about what politicians decide to call roads, airports or cricket stadiums today. This shit has been happening for 20 years or more, although it seems that parts of the sri lankan internet wasn’t paying attention back then. But …
The Colombo Plan actually means something. Also, I travel along Galle Road quite often and I’m rarely in Galle. Go figure.
I recently had to help my wife to find an address at a Polgengoda Road. I normally look for addresses in Google maps but that road simply do not exist on maps. And later found out its now Vijaya Kumaranathunga Road. Weard part is when driving through that road at the beginning there are name boards of businesses which show address as Vijaya Kumaranathunga Road. But after about 1km everything change to Polgengoda Road.
This is the assertion of ethnic self-aggrandizement over practicality, something that has been perennial in Sri Lanka since Independence. It is also an aspect of the great Sri Lankan disease of denial. We are forever trying to deny our history, to pretend that the colonial era never happened, pretend that no civilians were killed in our civil war, etc.
Part of the reason for the lengthy names is that there are so many Peirises, Fernandos, Jayasekeras, Seneviratnes, etc. You need the full names to be able to tell one from the other. Also, many of these people were pygmies on the historical stage anyway – people have mostly forgotten who they were already – so the full names are necessary to forcibly perpetuate their memories.
As for the names being replaced; Sir Arthur Havelock was a career bureacrat, a nobody. Torrington wasn’t an oppressor, just an incompetent who had the bad luck to be governor during the Great Coffee Disaster. His foolish reaction to the local unrest that followed ruined his reputation and he went home in disgrace. Both are disposable, I suppose, but taking their names off former national leaders of road signs is a game at which everyone can play; how long do you really think these names are going to last? Have you noticed how often Katuanayake Airport changes its name? And have you noticed that everyone still calls it Katunayake Airport.
Nobody except government agencies (which are forced to) will ever know these names. Vijaya Kumaranathunga was someone famous enough actually to deserve a road named after him, but we will still call it Polhengoda Road.
And that is just as it should be.
Marine Drive means what it says and is a common name for such places around the world. Mumbai has one too. In French-speaking countries they call it the Corniche. Galle Road leads to Galle; in Galle it is called Colombo Road. Nothing wrong with that.
I support the use of indigenous names for roads, but am not a fan of naming them after people. Why not use use simple native terms.
For the lols :http://twitpic.com/67w13k
Isn’t Reid avenue renamed to Philippe Gunawardena Road now. But everyone still calls it Reid avenue.
Why did you assume Dickman had anything to with the colonial power (the Brits who ran the country when roads were named)? It’s an old Dutch Burgher name: http://www.dutchburgherunion.org/genealogy/ancestry-d/JDBU%201937%20Vol%2026%20No%203%20p125-129%20-%20Dickman%20Ancestry%281%29.pdf
I didn’t know it was a Burgher name. Just did a search and the first thing that comes up is actually a gay friendly resort in Negombo
Apart from all that Palmyrah adds to this wonderful piece of thought, I would also like to add the following link from the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales http://www.young.nsw.gov.au/images/Road_Naming_Guidelines.pdf
I am sure there is a guideline sunny SL in some dusty corner, but I think the above sheds light as to how we ‘should’ name roads. I specifically quote
3.1 Names of living persons should not be used
4.1 Names should be reasonably easy to read,
spell and pronounce in order to assist both
service providers and the travelling public.
4.2 Unduly long names and names composed of
two or more words should be avoided:
….. Aiyo, I can go on and on. Good one Sarong Johnnie!!!
I just saw this post.
On renaming roads/building: I have no objection to naming roads or buildings as long as the politician/official concerned actually builds it.
If this eminent person needs to be honoured, then do so by connecting it to something that they have actually done. Establish a school to train actors/directors in the name of Lester James Peiris, establish an award for outstanding films in his name. Put your money where your mouth is, instead of doing the cheap thing of renaming something already there and confusing everybody.
More here:
http://jestforkicks.blogspot.com/2010/12/no-more-ceylon.html