Who wants a street named after them?

I sometimes wonder what’s in a name – if names are powerful, they get a street, pond, road or an entire flyover, depending on how impressive you were either alive or dead. I have been staying in Noida for the last thirty years however none of the roads or streets bear my name. Some people are lucky and get entire roads named after themselves. I am jealous of you, Vikas or Shanti, because somehow you manage to get multiple roads to yourself without putting any extra effort for popularity. Then I realized my name has got more than five alphabets, maybe it’s difficult to pronounce names beyond five alphabets but here also my hopes shattered. I crossed a road in South Delhi and found Chandragupta proudly occupying a decent stretch. He somehow has more alphabets in his name- but you can tell he was important.

Did you ever find a Gupta or a Sharma Road? Their surnames are pretty common still they have no road to themselves. If it comes to easily pronounceable names, even then Vikas has already won the race. Did you ever find a Sandip or Pradeep Road, have you come across Amit Street or a Pinky Marg? They are equally deserving however they never got their share and here I am cribbing about having a road to myself. I crossed these famed roads and came to a roundabout or a rotary. These roundabouts are very fascinating because it can throw you out of the trajectory if you are unmindful- you might be looking for peace or Shanti, but you took a wrong exit and ended up in growth or Vikas Road.

Roundabouts are commanding centers as they usually have a leader standing in the middle to watch the wrongdoers. It is also a meeting point of Chandragupta, Vikas and Shanti – they have to be present to meet their supreme boss – who doesn’t just have a name but a statue to themselves. I took the fourth exit at the roundabout – entered a by lane and realized that there are some internal roads and sidewalks that are unnamed and still waiting for a Vikas or a Shanti to provide a respectful identity to them – my hopes rose this time – but you can’t burden Vikas or Shanti again and again – there are fresh names – waiting to be adorning these roads – we now have more Ayaans and Kiaras but wait, these are unique names and  they might not want to become ordinary by showing up on streets and roads. So that leaves us with the old ones unless you want to name a road or a place on Google Maps, for your own private usage.

Yes, Google Maps does provide that feature to name an unnamed location on the map. It gets reviewed by Google and then gets added but if you ever wanted a road to yourself, you could try your luck doing it on Google Maps. I can tell you this works because people in America can now see Gulf of America while people in Mexico will continue to see Gulf of Mexico – isn’t that an easy way to satisfy the desire to own places, roads and oceans?