By: Sameer Lone
Bijbehara: Changing names of places is not new. We have seen big airports, streets and stadiums being renamed. But this village in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district has changed its name for a very different reason.
Not more than 10 kilometers from Bijbehara town, the village is anonymous to many. Even the locals of Bijbehara fail to identify when they are asked about the location of this place. And the same thing happened to this reporter while looking for this village.
The village is now named as Khushrou-e-Kalan (Happy looking face) commonly called K-Kalan. It has not been much time since the village has changed its name. Earlier it was known as Badroi-e-Kalan. Badroi is a Kashmiri word which means ugly face.
Even in many government records the village is still named as B-Kalan or Badroi-e-Kalan.
A government official shared a similar incident with this reporter: “I got posted to this village…and it was difficult for me to locate also. I faced similar things like which Kalan village. Many still don’t know this place,” he said.
The locals said that the name Badroi-e-Kalan was given to their village by some saint. “We don’t know the reason that that saint faced here that he gave our village such a name,” said the locals.
The name had not gone down well with the locals especially the newer generation and several years ago it was changed to Khushrou-e-Kalan, which is now commonly known as K-Kalan.
However, the village is very developed with a two lane macadamised road, a Primary Health Care facility and several good private and government institutions.
