Karnataka’s got the whole Kannada Pride thing going. From 1 November, they’re getting rid of ‘colonial’-era town names:

Bangalore becomes Bengalooru (this is the correct spelling, not Bengaluru)
Mysore becomes Mysooru
Mangalore becomes Mangalooru
Shimoga becomes Shivamogga
Hubli becomes Hubballi
Belgaum becomes Belagaavi

Maybe this is a good time to remind them of West Bengal’s Calcutta → Kolkata experience. For those not in the know, practically no one but Bongs can actually pronounce Kolkata right, thereby guaranteeing that I’ll cringe every time I hear the City of Joy’s fair name being mis-pronounced on Indian TV, usually as kol-katta or kol’kaata or worse. (The correct pronounciation is ‘kol-kata with a soft t, people. Or just say kal-katta in Hindi, Calcutta in English, and whatever you want in other languages).

Heh, now that linguistically sensitive Kannadigas will face the same mangling (how do you spell Hubbali again?), I no longer feel quite as bad.