Remembering Heroes

Like the Bombay to Mumbai transition, smaller locales (especially places for public gatherings and infrastructure) were renamed to reinvigorate historical state and national pride.  Shivaji, a seventeenth century warrior king whom many Maharashtrians revere, is an icon rather like Abraham Lincoln to Americans or Joan of Arc to the French.  A legendary figure said to have attacked his enemy’s forts with lizards, his name has re-baptized many Mumbai institutions: the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Shivaji Park, and even the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (named after his mother).