Renaming Cities: Kolkata Poem by RAJ NANDY

Call me Kolkata or Chennai,
Call me Mumbai or Dilli,
If you please;
You can’t cut me off
From my historic past,
Nor obliterate my old memories.

Alas! these new names could not
Create any new spurt of nationalistic
fervour,
Nor did it make people perform
Any better with a miraculous
change of heart! .
The black crow still sits on top
Of our newly erected statues,
As it did over the heads of Clive,
Hastings and Curzon.!

You may call a rose by any name; -
I still retain my cosmopolitan halo
and fragrance of old Calcutta; -
As a city of Joy, of light, of love;
As a city of art, culture and poetry,
With all it’s intellectual heritage
And my historic past!