Life
Mumbai: Rudest Or Most Caring
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| The overly genteel Reader’s Digest was rude enough to label Mumbai the rudest city in the world – and Asia the rudest continent. But surely the august magazine, known for its quips and funnies, was joking. It tested to see if people in the city held the door for their reporters, salesmen said thank you after a sale and if they bothered to pick up littered paper. After all, how can you judge a city by the most puerile kindergarten rules of politeness, the thank you and please barometers? Even New Yorkers snickered that their city topped the Reader’s Digest list of most polite city in the world!
Mumbai showed the world what real courtesy is all about – it’s slum dwellers donating their bed sheets to the injured and the bleeding victims of the bomb blasts on the trains that run past their shacks. For the citizens of Mumbai, politeness is not just about holding the door open for the person behind you, it’s about opening your hearts and giving your blood to strangers, carting unknown people in your car to the hospital and offering food and water to unknown human beings. Top marks to Mumbai for showing its gritty heart of gold.
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