Same Place -3 Names- 748

         Vizag - Vishakapatnam - Waltair 

Some places have a lasting connect with you despite you never having stayed there over a length of time .  It is a  place which you visited often during your School Holidays . 

VIZAG - VISHAKAPATNAM OR WALTAIR                  Undoubtedly is one such place . It is not common for the same place to have three different place for it .

My father started his career here initially before being transferred to Kharagpur in W Bengal . My Three Paternal Uncles as well as one Maternal Uncle were employed here . Two were employed in the Hindustan Shipyard and the other two elsewhere . With a whole bunch of cousins there and both my Brother and Sister doing their School studies and College there , visits to this place were quite frequent .

The Beach and Seafront close to our place was a huge attraction and was a place where we spent all our evenings . The Second World War German or Japanese Ship lying grounded far into the sea is a sight which flashes bye even now after so many years .

Now as to the reason as to why this place got 3 different names for it .

Waltair was the name given to the place by the British Raj from the original Telugu name of the place Val - Teru  or a small Rivulet . The British could not spell it properly and over time the place came to be known as WALTAIR . The South Eastern Railway had a Division here with this place as it's Headquarters . The unique feature of this Railway Section is that that Trains from Kolkata to Chennai reverse direction at Waltair Junction . The influx of Anglo Indians as Railwaymen was also a reason for Valteru becoming WALTAIR .

It is now the second biggest City after Chennai on the Coromandel Coast . The presiding Deity of the Temple here is Vishaka and hence the name Vishakapatnam which got popular with the Shortened name of VIZAG . IT IS ALSO THE COMMERCIAL CAPITAL OF THE INDIAN STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH .