What’s in a name? A lot mate, money matters

Pune: What’s up at Waterloo? It’s business as usual. Sounds crazy? Hang on. Both “Waterloo” and “What’s up” are commercial establishments in the heart of the city.

Waterloo Motors deals with automotive spare parts on Tilak Road. Down the road, What’s up is a fancy apparel store.

Bizarre names

of establishments are common in the city, transforming from Poona to Pune over the years. While some opted for out-of-the-box names to woo the young crowd, a few have their roots down memory lane.

Waterloo Motors turns many heads for its name. But it has a history.

Director of the company M L Satpute says, “The term ‘Napoleon’s Waterloo’ is always used to indicate a defeat or a hopeless situation. But Napoleon’s defeat in the Battle of Waterloo was also a victory for the Britons and the Prussian army. And this business has been a victory for us.”

Delving into the history of the establishment’s name, Satpute says, “Our founder Manohar P Gokarna had gone to UK to complete his engineering in the 1950s. He used to spend his leisure time on the Waterloo Bridge. It gave him peace and inspiration. So, he decided that if he ever opens a business, he would name it Waterloo. That’s how this company started in 1959.”

The firm was transferred to Gokarna’s friend, K S Hegde, in 1979. He heads it today.

Sharad Deshpande, former professor of philosophy at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), says, “Around 50-60 years ago, Puneites were attracted to names like Waterloo Motors because a foreign name piqued the interest in a traditionally Marathi-speaking city. I think that still holds good though the population has come to embrace English more closely.”

Cut to ‘What’s up’. An apparel store themed in lime green, it started its journey in 2012.

Owner Nilesh Agarwal says, “I wanted my business to relate with college students. We have a fair bit of student population here and I have often seen them using this term. So I thought this would really click, and it has.”

Another inspiration was WhatsApp, the social media app the new generation is hooked on to. “I just changed the ‘App’ to ‘up’,” he adds.

Nilesh owns three other garment stores in the area — ‘Excuse me’, ‘Actually’ and ‘Wow’. All the three are named after the lingo of youngsters. Goal: Bring them on, bring them young!

Ditto with the owners of ‘new PASSWORD’, a men’s wear store on Tilak Road. They wanted a name to relate to the new generation.

Co-owner Satish says, “This is the digital age. Most of the urban population, especially the youngsters, uses some gadget or something else that needs a password. Be it social media accounts, smartphones, or bank accounts —everything needs a password. So we thought this name would resonate well with the public.”

Over to Camp. The owners of a garment shop selling ‘plus’-size clothes had a brainstorming session before naming it “SO What”.

Brothers Raminder and Indeep Bindra had a very clear idea about the customers they wanted to cater to. Their target audience were people wearing clothes of XXXXL size and above.

“One day, we sat brainstorming ideas for the name of our business. We wanted a name that would double up as a logo. We also had to keep in mind that the logo reflects our target audience,” Raminder says.

“We thought of using the letter ‘O’ in the logo. Indeep was apprehensive about using it as it might offend the ‘plus’-size people. I said, ‘SO What?’ There is nothing to be ashamed of being a big person. We want people to embrace their size happily. That’s how we came up with the name,” he adds.

Bhushan Patwardhan, the director of Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (SPPU) says, “The tradition of naming places in a bizarre way is not new in Pune. It is ironic that the National Institute of Naturopathy is located on Tadiwala Road, seeing that tadi is an alcoholic beverage made of the sap of palm tree.”

Sharad Deshpande’s wife, Medha, former professor of economics at SNDT Women’s University, says, “Pune, having seen a very devout population over the years, has several Maruti temples with unique names. ‘Bhangya Maruti’ and ‘Jilbya Maruti’ are among them.”

Abhay Tilak, honorary director at Indian School of Political Economy, finds the name Khuneya (murderous) Muralidhar mandir — a Krishna temple in Sadashiv Peth — interesting. There are several versions of how the temple was christened so. “The earliest version, as mentioned by the authority on pastoral deities and German scholar, Gunther Sontheimer, the temple was built in 1797 by moneylender Sadashiv Raghunath Gadre alias Dada Gadre. He got the Radha Krishna idols made of granite from Jaipur,” he says.

“It is said the idols were so beautiful that Dadre feared the Peshwas might seize them from him. So, he hired Arab soldiers for security. On the day of the pratisthapana (installation of the idols in the temple) a skirmish broke out between Dadre’s security guards and a British troop headed by one ‘Captain Bade’, of American origin over who would play the band. Around 50-100 soldiers from both sides were killed in the fight in front of the temple. Since then it has been known as the Khuneya (murderous) Muralidhar temple,” he adds.

Certain areas in the city have also seen the smart name trend. Popularnagar in Warje is one among them.

Businessman Dhananjay Jadhav, a resident of Popularnagar for over two decades now, says, “The area started developing after the ‘Popular housing society’ came up around 1995. The area just assumed the name of the housing society.”

Smart and popular indeed.

Some smart names did not click, though. The proprietor of ‘@ Tilak Road’, a menswear outlet, Amit Trivedi, says, “People often double take when they hear the name of my shop. I often get to hear ‘Ha kontya prakarcha naav aahe (What kind of name is this)?”

He laments, “I had taken over this business from my friend — a chartered accountant. He named it so. I don’t think I can stick to this. I shall change the name soon.”

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” might have been true in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but it does not apply to many businessmen in the city. They strongly feel that names of their establishments do play a crucial role in drawing customers.

So what’s in a name? Business as usual, mate!