‘M’ for Mumbai & ‘M’ for Manners!

Article Written By: Amit Abhyankar

    “Abhyankar……” the familiar shrill yell of our postman! I collected few magazines & couple of letters (yes, I still receive few snail-mails even in this era.). As I scanned the contents, there was ‘frontline’ talking about ‘Peace in Peril’ in Lanka, ‘Yojana’ highlighting the urban development, the Special Economic Zones and then there was ‘Reader’s Digest’, the cover story of which attracted my attention- “How Polite are you? We Test the World and Mumbai shocks us!”

As I glanced through the article, the ‘table of courtesy’ showed New York the most courteous city in the world while Mumbai languishing right at the bottom. I did set everything aside I was doing & went through the entire article. Were good manners dead in Mumbai? The Survey emphatically claimed so. They had conducted the survey of around 60 ‘randomly selected’ Mumbaikars and the three tests were- whether a person holds door open for person immediately behind him; whether the shopkeeper says ‘thanks’ to his customers & whether anyone stops by to pick up the ‘deliberately dropped’ pile of papers! And Mumbai scored a meager 32%, standing 35^th in the list of 35 surveyed cities of the world!!!

    I closed the magazine and many thoughts flooded in. One could debate for all day on the rationality behind the method used for the survey. Yes, the three said tests are by no means sufficient to label any city ‘shockingly impolite’; nor will the number of persons surveyed give correct picture of entire city. Equally agreed, the concepts of manners, politeness, and courtesy do change over time & place. Hence what is generally accepted manner here may be grossly discourteous in other part of the world. Saying ‘thank you’ to every customer is not the kind of manner particularly observed in India; nor does any customer expect to receive the same.

    Having said that, the question remains- Wouldn’t we do better by following these ‘seemingly insignificant’, ‘important nevertheless’ manners? Would it be bad if everyone follows the standard norms of manners, observed worldwide? Won’t a shopkeeper be creating a permanent bond between him & his customer by just uttering a pleasant ‘thank you’? ………But we do know Mumbai; don’t we? There’s famous tale here- if anyone would tumble down on the platform, trying to get off from moving ‘local’, the people around would either seem totally indifferent or find amusement in counting the number of tumbles. In this city where people move ‘alongside’ the mass of other people, but more importantly ‘along with’ the minute hand of the clock, are we really expecting too much?

    “After 9/11, New Yorkers are more caring. They understand shortness of life”, points out the former Mayor Ed Koch. ‘Would Mumbaikars ever….?’ I wondered, not for long though; because something happened just two days after this……..Mumbai 7/11.

    Those serial blasts & the aftermath presented entirely different face of Mumbai…….

People, stunned for a moment or two, realize the situation and start helping others; they don’t wait for police to arrive & start the rescue work; they hardly think that lifting the dead bodies or giving a helping hand to those injured is work of Ambulance alone. I cannot help but wonder, whether the ‘most courteous’ citizens of New York would ever dare to do this? Rhetoric question; isn’t it? But around here, people do; they do (not just because police are often late), without any complaint, not wanting to be just show-offs! Rain cannot deter them. They work in absence of & then alongside the police. Someone stops for hours on platform, just to deliver message of some injured person to media because that unknown person while being carried into the ambulance requested him to do so! People residing nearby the station join the rescue work. Some make arrangement for food & water; others use their private cars as ambulances for unknowns. The new bed-sheets from some nearby houses become the covering clothes for dead bodies. Some nearby Restaurant owner provides food at no cost. Someone whispers- ‘there’s shortage of blood in some hospitals’ and soon the donors make blood-bank in every hospital full……Unending stories……and there would be plenty more as I write this.….all of them telling something to the world……

…… “Manners? We have them aplenty when it matters most!”