rude mumbai

mumbai has been branded rudest city in the world.
"
Mumbai Judged Rudest City In World
Mumbai is the rudest city in the world, where
door-holding, paper-picking and thanking a retail
customer is not part of the culture.

Reader's Digest magazine sent reporters to the principal
cities of each of the 35 countries where it is published
to conduct a survey of local politeness. Three tests
were employed: dropping papers in a busy street to see
if anyone would help; checking how often shop assistants
said "thank you"; and counting how often someone held a
door open.
etc..
"
i am not a native born mumbaite, i have been living here for the last 6 years. i was surprised to see this take on mumbai.

mumbai is loud and a tough place to live. but rude?

the first day i landed into mumbai, and i was shifting from the hotel to my rented house.(this was somewhere in july 2000) there was some "hard rain" and most of the streets were flooded. the taxi which naina and i were travelling in came to halt at a place where the road had was covered with about 2 and half feet of water(this was in the vertical direction!)

the taxi driver was so concerened, trying to figure out a way to get us to our new home. then we started wading through this water. as is a habit with most of us we were trying to walk on the sides of the road, the native mumbaites, came to our help asked us to walk in the middle of the road, because there would be lots of potholes, and other manmade opening on the sides of the road.

and post the last mumbai floods(july 2005), all kind of stories were published which showed the kind, helpful nature of mumbai people.

of course i do get yelled at,at the stop signs if i take more than 2 seconds to move the car after the light turns green.

the below is a kind of joke ... but is it? i am sure that mumbaikars will have a wry smile when they read it, but i am sure no one is going to be rude about this... (check the below note on being a mumbaite got this from this link)

25 Sure signs that you're a Mumbaite.

1. You say “town” and expect everyone to know that this means south of Churchgate.

2. You’re suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

3. You have never been to the Gateway of India.

4. You don’t hear sirens anymore.

5. Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible.

6. The trains make sense.

7. Your door has more than three locks.

8. The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.

9. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

10. You call an 8’ x 10’ clustered room a Hall.

11. You consider beyond Andheri as “Upstate”.

12. You think Chowpatty & Juhu beaches as “nature.”

13. You’re paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of a walk-in closet and you think it’s a “steal.”

14. You’ve been to New Bombay twice and got hopelessly lost both times.

15. You spend more time each month travelling than you spend at home.

16. You haven’t heard the sound of true absolute silence since 1977, and when you did, it terrified you.

17. You take fashion seriously.

18. Being truly alone makes you nervous.

19. You have 14 different menus of Free Home Deliveries next to your telephone.

20. Going to “town” is considered a “road trip.”

21. You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise.

22. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.

23. Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.

24. You have a minimum of five “worst cab rides ever” stories.

25. You’ve mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city’s air quality and what it’s doing to your lungs.