Mumbai: Amidst Tragedy, The (British) Empire Lives

I know that some British folks are still nostalgic about Empire but, as a reader from New Zealand notes, "How tacky that The Times of London still calls it Bombay."

To be fair --- kind of --- The Times is caught up in post-imperial schizophrenia. Many of its articles use "Mumbai"; however, other reporters are still working with Retro Empire. Jeremy Page and Rhys Blakely top the list today with a double-header: they have a lead story that "relations between India and Pakistan were on a knife edge today as Indian authorities combed through the wreckage of last week's attacks on Bombay" and a feature on the re-opening of the Leopold Cafe "just 24 hours after the deadly terror strikes on Bombay finally ended". (Correction: In a superlative effort, Blakely took first place with a third story on "Bombay's poorly-equipped police force".)

Still, for intrepid linkage of the glorious (British) past with the dangerous present, The Times isn't a patch on its competitor, The Daily Telegraph. The harrumphing paper for Colonel Blimps everywhere sums it up in the headline of an opinion piece today:

Let Bombay remind us: they haven't gone away