Lucknow — I was pleasantly surprised

“How did Lucknow get its name Dad?” asked my 13-yr old on our flight from New Delhi to Lucknow. “I actually don’t know; can you please research it and let me know as well,” was my casual response. “So, the original name of the city was Lakshmanapuri or Lakhanpur or Lachhmanpur, all named after Lakshman of the famous Ram-Lakshman brothers from Ramayana,” announced my son, after exploring it on the internet. It makes sense, I thought to myself, quite interested now. “The name ultimately changed to Lakhnau around the time the British arrived. The Britishers were having a hard time pronouncing it, so a smart Indian man called it out it slowly, with a pause: Luck…Now. And the name stuck,” concluded my son, somewhat victoriously. He had figured it out, and helped educate me in the process. Fascinating!

Of course, I had known of this capital city of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India. I had heard of it as the Awadh capital, of its numerous palaces, grand architecture, beautiful gardens, delectable cuisine, and Tehzeeb (manners) of its people. I had read about Lucknow being one of the more significant sites of Indian revolution (against the British coloniasts) throughout the 19th and early part of the 20th century in our history books. I had read about the decadence of this capital city under years of misgovernance during the reign of political parties that came to power based on caste-politics between 1990s-2010s. The students in my undergraduate college from Lucknow had nothing but the worst things to say about the corruption in the city…