Sab ko badal daloonga!

Even after the renaming of Bombay as Mumbai, some groups are not at all happy…

The Mumbai Rename Everything Committee (MREC) is upset with the continuous use of Bollywood and has urged the film fraternity, journalists and writers to use Mollywood with immediate effect. Mira Nair, Mani Ratnam, Kaizad Gustad and Andrew Lloyd Webber have been petitioned to re-register their works of art as Salaam Mumbai!, Mumbai, Mumbai Boys and Mumbai Dreams respectively.

Show causes have also been issued to the Malayalam Film Industry and the Mormon Film Industry (in the US) that they cannot use the term Mollywood, which will refer exclusively to the film industry of Mumbai henceforth. Stunned American journalist Molly Wood was also issued a threat asking her to change her name.

The Walt Disney Company wasn’t spared either. They have been asked to rename of their fictional character Gordon Bombay as Gordon Mumbai. As we can see, the MREC media arm has been very busy. It has written to the producers of popular American serial Bewitched! to change the name of one of their characters from Dr Bombay to Dr Mumbai. The international division of MREC is also alarmed to learn that a town in Franklin County, New York is still being referred to as Bombay. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports say that the Auckland administration in New Zealand will change the name of Bombay Hills to Mumbai Hills.

Various air forces of the world were mystified to receive emails saying that the area of their bomber aircrafts where bombs are kept should be named mumb bay (as against the current bomb bay). A retired US colonel on condition of anonymity revealed that in that case they would have to petition the Oxford Dictionary to change the name of bombs to mumbs.

In international news, certain black Bombay cats in Liverpool had the words Mumbai written on them in white paint.  In business news, Bombay Dyeing has called an emergency meeting to think of a new name for the company.

Police have intercepted a mysterious list titled “Kaheech rahanar nahin” (nothing will remain) with the following seemingly unrelated terms: Bombay duck (type of fish dish), Bombay mix (a snack), Bombay Sapphire (a type of gin), Bombay Before the British (a research project in Portugal), Bristol Bombay (type of aircraft), Bombay blood group (a rare blood group) and HMS Bombay (a Royal Navy Ship).

Top secret reports also confirm that the radical division of the MREC has got hold of a Time Machine. They are planning to travel back in time and change the original names to Mumbai State and the Isle of Mumbai to avoid all this confusion in the first place.

© Sunil Rajguru