The ???bad??? suffixed to some of our cities could very well be the root cause of the evils that follow us continuously and that prevent us from working to our full potential. We want to reach the highest peak but invariably fall short because of this.

Somehow, everything goes barbad (for the uninitiated, barbad means waste). Yes, the number of cities in India that have ‘bad’ names would be enough to drive one crazy. Of late, there is a demand for vaasatu shastra – there are particular directions in which the table should face at work for extracting the best of all the worlds. The ‘bad’ suffixed to some of our cities could very well be the root cause of the evils that follow us continuously and that prevent us from working to our full potential. We want to reach the highest peak but invariably fall short because of the ‘bad’ influences.


Alphabetically speaking, the first in the list is Ahmed-a-bad (how deep is its friendship with one or the other Ahmed?). Then comes Allah-a-bad - it is one of the holiest cities for the Hindus. The Prayaga is considered to be so holy that people run to immerse the ashes of the dear ones in the confluence of three rivers namely the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati – there is a strong belief that such an action guarantees a permanent resting place in Heaven for the departed soul.

One wonders whether Aurang-a-bad derived its name from Aurangzeb. As far as Dhan-bad is concerned, dhan means riches – this city used to be rich due to its hidden underground reserves of coal. Faiza-bad – might have been a secret meeting place for Faisal Khan. Hyder-a-bad (could have had links with Hyder Ali or some hydra headed monster?), Nizam-a-bad (must have been associated with Nizams!), Osman-a-bad (cannot be linked with Osama-bin-Laden because of the wide difference in the time scale!) and Secunder-a-bad (in memory of one of the Sikandars?)


These are some Indian cities have the ‘bad’ element embedded in them. The only way to come out of this issue is to rechristen them suitably and eliminate the horror of living with the bad ones. There are immense possibilities – for a start, Allah-a-bad could be renamed Nehru-ganj (in memory of Motilal Nehru of the Nehru family) or Bachchan-ganj (to immortalise Harbans Rai Bachchan) or Prayaga-ganj (to recognise the confluence of three rivers).