Matipo, Catalpa, Photinia, Stenocarpus,

Pittosporum, Santaram, Kashmira…

(The Streets of Australia)

In a corner of an unassuming local government building, somewhere in Melbourne, Australia, there sit a group of men and women with a wonderful, wicked sense of humour. I just love what they have done. In my travels around the world, I have rarely seen such a clever way to make people a little cleverer, a little more well-read and have fun thinking about what one has done, long afterwards, for many years to come.

            If you are wondering what I am talking about, the uncommon and strange sounding words in the title are just a few of the street names around Melbourne. I think this is a common aspect of Australian cities. Someone, or some group of people, have gone to great lengths and exercised great creativity in coming up with street names that are a mouthful to say the least…

            I have lived in big cities of India and the USA but have never seen anything like this. I am fascinated.

            In Seattle, USA, a city comparable to Melbourne in size and population, the entire map of the city can be folded over (it opens out roughly into the size of an old-fashioned newspaper sheet) and put away in the glove compartment of a car. Most streets are numbered and there is a pattern to the numbering. There are occasional, or often, streets with names that are legendary, old and worth retaining. In spite of them, the majority of the streets are numbered, even the highways and freeways. There is typically, a ‘Main Street’ and the numbering and naming the streets start with a pattern, depending on their distance from the main street and orientation (typically North-South or East-West).

            In India, the streets in many cities do not have a particular orientation in the old parts of the city and maps are not commonly used. So, you can travel anywhere without a map – just ask people around for directions, there is always someone around in India (the population density seems to ensure that, and the fact that most Indians seem to know a fair amount of details of who lives where in their neighbourhood).

            Now, in Australia, even with its small population but vast distances (you _need_ to drive a vehicle to get around), you  _need_ a book which is the thickness of a comprehensive edition of the Bible, and of a larger page size, to find your way around the city. It is a book with each page showing the detailed map of a small part of the city. It runs into a few hundreds of pages. The most popular such book is usually Melway (published by a business). There are also other such street directories. It is impossible to compress this information into a smaller size with all the information. It is updated regularly every year since there is always new growth, new streets, old things demolished.

            The creative naming of the streets with the street type also included make for a very demanding and exact writing of addresses. This also helps develop the intelligence, focus and mental discipline in Australians and  those that visit. Unlike in typical loose Indian definition a ‘Road’ is different from ‘Street’ or ‘Avenue’ or  ‘Lane’, or ‘Grove’ or ‘Cresent’. There are ‘Courts’, ‘Close’ and they are abbreviated to ‘Rd’, ’St’, ’Av’, ’Ln’, ’Gr’, ’Cr’, ’Cl’,’Ct’, etc.

            Just a little error in typing can send your mail somewhere else. Of course, there are dozens of ‘Barker Streets’ and the one you are looking for has to have the right suburb name and Post Code. You better not confuse ‘Barker Street’ with ‘Barker Lane’ or ‘Baker Street’. You better not confuse ‘Barker Street’ with ‘Parker Street’, because where there is a ‘Barker Street’, the odds are high there will be a ‘Parker Street’ as well!! You can bet there will be all the common street names from anywhere in the world, right here in Melbourne, each many times over. Pick any name from the phonebook or the encyclopaedia, and chances are there is a street in Melbourne so named.

            But with names like ‘Matipo’ or ‘Stenocarpus’ the odds are good you will not find another one within a few miles. But then, once you have named a street with one of these names, you look forward to something fun for the rest of your life, especially, when you have retired and are in your last days in a nursing home. You can still get a good laugh with the thought of people trying to say the name fully (a good mouthful) or trying to spell it right, or the curious ones getting out the dictionary or Googling to find out what it means. You can be sure some get their tongue tied literally. You can rest assured that you have contributed to making Australia a bit more interesting and Australians a little smarter.

            Some of the street names are so unusual that discovering what they mean is a fun effort and can suddenly reveal something interesting about some aspect of human history in some far-away land.

            Many suburbs or parts of them have a theme – there is Endeavour Hills named after ships that first brought European explorers to these parts of the world. There are streets named after the crew members in these ships. So, you can learn a bit of history as you drive around. There are names of streets with Aboriginal names and words so you can learn a bit of their languages if you wish. There are streets named after the Latin names of trees, far-away places and characters from other countries – e.g. East India and Santaram. There are French and Spanish names too.

             

            Now, with technology like GPS in cars and on mobile phones not everyone carries a thick, heavy book of maps with them, but the older generation, who are used to looking up places and routes to destinations in the maps, across different pages and planning for unforeseen road closures and developing a mental map and plan are becoming a rare and endangered species. The new generation, even with GigaBytes of memories on their phones have perhaps a dozen Bytes in their head. The older generation were truly of Mega- and Giga- Bytes memories in their head, even if they did not know what a Mega or Giga was.

            If you planned to drive across the city you may have to encounter and remember a dozen different street names. In typical Australian fashion, a straight stretch of road will have a different name at different section of it, it will have sometimes two names for the same stretch. Then again, two disjointed and offset lengths of streets on either side of another road will be technically the same road with the same name! It just makes a greater challenge for the people developing programs for the GPS or satellite navigation systems, Aussie style.

            Now, I will feel I have contributed to Australia, if one day they name a street after me and call it ‘Narayanamurthy Avenue’… I will have a sense of satisfaction!! Yes, I know some may get their tongues-twisted and curse me a little bit, or run out of ink, breath or patience in saying or writing the name of my street properly.


Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2013

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