There are many places in India which have “Linga” or “Lingam” in their names. Here are few.
Probably the best known, a suburban terminus in Hyderabad.
This serves the famous temple near Bhubaneshwar
Near Chhindwara in MP
Near Guntur in AP
In Telangana
Near Guntakal in AP.
And finally, another one from AP:
While it is marked SCR, it is actually on ECoR.
All these places need to be given more importance now.
Meanwhile in Yorkshire:
It is common to find odd things in the inscriptions on signboards at railway stations in India. The traditional rule is to have three languages-the state’s language at the top, Hindi second and English third. Examples from southern and eastern India:
Now, it becomes complicated when a state has more than one official language. UP and Bihar have Hindi and Urdu, Assam has Bengali in some districts, and so on. This is summarised here:
The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has official languages Kashmiri, Dogri, Hindi, Urdu and English. Kashmiri was added only in 2020. Up till then stations in this state/UT had inscriptions in Urdu, Hindi and English. Dogri has started appearing in the Jammu region now. Sometimes there is only Dogri in addition to English and Hindi, or only Urdu, or sometimes both.
Jammu Tawi:
Here we see signs with Urdu or Dogri but not both.
Kathua, close to the Punjab border has signs with only Urdu and with Dogri and Urdu.
Samba, associated with a spy scandal and Gabbar Singh has Dogri and Urdu
Similarly for Vijaypur Jammu:
So there does not seem to be any clear policy as to which languages are to be considered local languages in the Jammu region.
You would know the old jokes about Seshappa Iyer and Sheikh Pir who moved to 16th-century Britain and became famous playwrights.
These got a fresh lease of life when Al Gore was Vice-President and later Presidential aspirant, for he had a connection in Maharashtra:
who was associated with this place:
And his wife “Tipper” Gore clearly had some connection with Tippu Sultan.
The combination of Bill and Hillary was known as Billary, which fits in well with the renamed Bellary:
Later, Barack Obama became President. He visited India more than once but did not visit this place:
Perhaps he had visited Barrackpore in Trinidad. That is the birthplace of cricketer Darren Ganga.
Trump and Pence did not have any ready-made jokes like this. There is more scope for PJs now, starting with the former VP and new President:
This is west of Prayagraj.
The new Vice-President has numerous places fitting her name, like this one:
This is near Kadapa (Cuddapah) in Andhra Pradesh.
The surname Harris can be matched to the Muslim male name of Haris.
The venerable 80-year old Speaker of the House also has a place name in India, known for a decisive 18th-century battle:
You may aspire to winning a Nobel Prize. But you may have to be satisfied with an Ig-Nobel Prize.
And there is at least one person who won an Ig-Nobel Prize before getting a Nobel Prize a decade later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Geim
especially this bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Geim#Ig_Nobel
Similarly, if you cannot reach Singapore during the lockdown you can go to:
This place in Odisha was once listed as Singapore Road. Later it became Singapuram Road before settling on its present name.
If you cannot reach Kuala Lumpur, there is
This is in the hills of southern Assam.
If you want to visit the capital of New Zealand, there is
in the Nilgiris. Both are named after the same person.
Riga is the capital of Latvia in Europe. For this we have one in Bihar:
This Riga was of some interest to steam enthusiasts, as you can see above.
If you wish to venture further to Dundee in Scotland, there is
near Jabalpur in MP.
Not sure if you really want to go to Accra in Ghana. For that, we have this place near Kolkata:
A smaller country in Africa is called Guinea-Bissau. For that we have Bissau in Rajasthan:
However, you have to draw the line somewhere. If you are going to Jakarta and you are sent to this place instead, you should not accept it.
This is in one of the more remote parts of Uttarakhand, where the Special Frontier Force roams. Even the elite troops of the Mukti Bahini trained here in 1971.
Some may need an explanation:
Next, we proceed to one of Guwahati’s main markets:
Those familiar with the city will point out that the market is near the jail, where hangings were carried out. The trading community must have thought that Fancy Bazar sounded better than Phansi, which would be bad for business. Hence the present name.
Then there is this small town near Siliguri. It is important enough to be marked on highway signs. Here is one sign which indicates its name:
It is unclear why this nondescript place was associated with hanging.
You can see the town here.
The nearby station was indeed named Phansidewa. By the early 1970s it was renamed:
It is on one of the main routes leading to North-East India.
However, there is another station in India where you can hang out:
This is the Hindi word for “noose”.
This is between Bhopal and Ujjain.
There are, of course, other places with morbid-sounding names. One of the better known ones is Tombstone, Arizona which was the site of many shootouts in the days of the Wild West:
Examples of the town’s history (with a lot of graveyard humour) can be seen in this tourist brochure:
Here we have a list of names of railway stations which were being used in timetables between the 1930s and 1970s.
Do you know the current names?
1. Begamabad
2. Cambay
3. Cannanore
4. Chakki Bank
5. Chicacole Road
6. Chutiapara
7. Contai Road
8. Daman Road
9. Ellis Bridge
10. Ellora Road
11. French Rocks
12. Futwah
13 Goya Gate
14 Hyderabad (MG)
15 Kankanadi
16 Kirkee
17 Kothapetta
18 Manipur Road
19 Margao
20 Mhow
The best effort is by Bharat Prashar, 18/20.
Answers are given below:
Chutiapara was associated with the Chutia tribe of Assam.
Ellis Bridge is a locality in Ahmedabad near the British-era bridge of that name. There is still a Vidhan Sabha constituency of that name.
Potul is between Manmad and Aurangabad.
Kothapetta became Sirpur Kagaznagar when a paper factory came up there. The station to the south was Sirpur which became Sirpur Town.
Manipur Road was listed as Dimapur Manipur Road in the 1960s before it became Dimapur.
Note these station signs where the Hindi inscription seems to have been taken from Tamil rather than English:
Now compare the sign of Park Town above (top right) with the nearby Park:
One wonders about the logic.
Finally, a similar one from Coimbatore:
Undivided Andhra Pradesh was the land of long and unpronounceable place names. Make special note of the full names of Shivrampally and Jogulamba at the end. Shivrampally has to accommodate 4 languages on its board.
As we have seen in the previous post, a name of a place or person may become offensive if it means something else in another language. We start with this station in the outskirts of Kolkata:
Though there are many words common to Hindi and Bengali, this is not one of them. In any case, the Bengali inscription indicates that it should be spelt Nungi or Noongi. This locality is known for the manufacture of fireworks, possibly the largest such centre in India after Sivakasi.
India has many place names such as Bangarapet, Bangiriposi, Banganapalle of mango fame and the former Bangalore. Then there is Bangkok, where you will find:
Poor Susan! She will have to be particularly careful there – especially as this is to become Bangkok’s main station in the near future.
There are other things traveling Indians will run into, such as this place in Sweden:
I have passed that way by train many years ago, although no suitable picture of the station sign is available on the net.
While this is not one of the largest cities of Sweden, the University of Lund is highly ranked.
Surnames such as Hammarlund are common in Sweden. The Hammarlund Radio Company was one of the leading manufacturers of radio receivers in the US. Back in Mumbai, there is this long-standing establishment near the Gateway of India:
We close with this sign which causes amusement in northern India:
Names like this are found in Gujarat. Morarjibhai’s middle name was Ranchhodji.
To be continued.
Most readers will know the identity of the stations with the longest and shortest names in India.
Copyrights of all these pictures rest with their creators.
We take a look at some other long names, after the undisputed leader;
Here are some others. They are from both North and South:
This category involves initials, which would make a long name if spelt in full: 
This one is not that long, but may be the most difficult to pronounce by non locals:
As for the shortest names, there are two with two letters. One is well known, the other is not so well known though it is odd:
The person seen in the “odd” sign is Vimlesh Chandra, a railway engineer who has collected a vast number of pictures of stations and other items of railway interest.
There are several other stations with 3-letter names:
And this one used to have 3 letters, which was changed to 4 letters for obvious reasons:
This listing is not intended to be comprehensive, but does include the longest name (Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta) and the shortest names (Ib and Od).
Also see this for a global viewpoint:
http://www.railwaystationlists.co.uk/information/trivia.pdf
As we have seen in
https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/indian-railway-stations-with-matching-names/
there are many pairs of railway stations in India which are situated far apart but have similar (if not identical) names. In general, there are no convenient connections between these pairs, such as Udaipur City (Rajasthan) and Udaipur (Tripura) or Chandrapur (Maharashtra) and Chandrapura (Jharkhand).
Except for one pair:
and its better-known namesake
The one above has now developed into an important secondary station for trains heading on the routes from Jaipur to Delhi and beyond as well as to Agra and beyond. Thus we have the Ajmer/Delhi and Jaipur/Agra Shatabdis halting there, as well as several other prominent long-distance trains.
While Gandhinagar is the capital of Gujarat, it has relatively poorer train service as it is not on a main line, but on a loop between Ahmedabad and Kalol which is used by a handful of long-distance trains as well as locals connecting it with Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad itself has secondary stations such as Sabarmati and Maninagar.
The relative importance of the two Gandhinagars can be seen from the lists of trains serving them:
http://indiarailinfo.com/departures/jaipur-gandhinagar-gadj/363
and
http://indiarailinfo.com/departures/2474?
Recently I did have reason to make a round trip between the two Gandhinagars, in connection with work at IIT Gandhinagar, which many feel is the best of the “newer” IITs.
There is, in fact, precisely one daily train which connects the two stations, as you can see below:
and
That is the 19031/19032 Yoga Express, which was the Ahmedabad/Haridwar Mail until 2013 and the 1/2 Delhi/Ahmedabad Mail still earlier. Until the 1970s it was considered to be the most prestigious train between Delhi and Ahmedabad, but this mantle then passed to the Ashhram Express (for the regular traveller) and the Rajdhani (for the premium traveller). Somehow the Mail never got superfast status.
There is also the Garib Rath which runs 4 times a week between Bandra Terminus and Delhi Sarai Rohilla. But taking that would be “cheating” because it does not stop at Gandhinagar Jaipur but only at Jaipur Junction.
So if you have to start from the southern half of Jaipur, Gandhinagar Jaipur is preferable.
For the hard-core timetable fan, here are the details for the up and down journeys between the two Gandhinagars:
Although the Yoga Express is supposed to be a train with reasonable prestige (as it has AC-1 accommodation), it does not have a pantry car and passengers make do with informal arrangements. For instance, the northbound train had provision for meals to be delivered at Beawar, although this did not seem to be part of the e-catering system which IRCTC tries to push.
A collection of picture of stations of the Indian Railways whose names involve fruit:
There is Mango, a suburb of Jamshedpur, which does not have a station. As Robert Vadra said, there is no space for the mango man in a banana republic.
Take a closer look at the sign for Sitafal Mandi in Hyderabad. It appears to be one of the old signs from the time of the Nizam’s State Railway, with the Hindi inscription added later.
One wonders how the citizens of Nagpur allowed a much smaller town to grab the title of Orange City.
And Amla may not be named after the fruit but is supposedly an acronym for “Ammunition Land”, where a large military storage facility exists.
Afterthought-Prior to partition, Afghanistan used to export fruits to different parts of India by train. These fruit trains usually started at Chaman (a railhead to the north of Quetta), travelled down the Bolan Pass and made their way to faraway places.
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