Peculiarities about people in Mumbai

Mumbai is such an interesting city, that one offhand post isn't enough.

Let me throw some highlights on the people in Mumbai:

Definition: People in Mumbai are people who do not react to things that other people in other cities react to. E.g. traffic, travel distance, crowd, time , heat, rain, floods and local trains.

Types of people in Mumbai:

A) The SoBo crowd: This is the elite crowd. People from this strata live in the coveted part of the city called South Mumbai and have a cosmopolitan life. Mostly hailing from top notch MBA or likewise schools, They are head honchos in large corporates or owners of their own company. They are majorly English speaking, hardly speak Hindi and wear international attire. They work hard and party hard. Their hobbies are theatre, classy English cinema, English Music or French cinema, art exhibitions, music soirees, concerts and page 3 events, which are more of charitable or social kinds.This crowd is of mixed origin, South indians, Parsees, Goan, and a few Maharashtrians and other communities of India. This is a crowd with its own trends and is generally oblivious of certain realities of the lesser society of Mumbai.

Peculiarities of this crowd:

1) Neutral accent

2) International holidays

3) Expensive spas for stress relief.

4) Favourite haunts are Blue Frog, Hard Rock Cafe and Jazz by the Bay (tHEY used to play jazz there) and occasionally Hawaiin Shack or Zenzi ( the lower parel one) .

5) House parties as they have well done up houses.

6) Lot of open, frank behaviour between men and women.

7) Generally genuine natures as they are exposed to nicer things/ people in life.

8) Expensive hobbies like photography or art.

90 Classy taste in furniture attire.


B) The 'Wanna Be's: This is the bourgoeuis of Mumbai. It's a crowd hailing from simple middle class origins but fast gaining western lifestyles due to exposure to international culture through work and mall culture. It's mainly scattered all over the fast growing suburbs, kick started with the bpos 2 decades back and is essentially educated from second rung mba schools than iims and generally carreer focused.

It apes the SoBo crowd as they are the lifestyle benchmarks for them . But somewhere down the line its a confused crowd. This sense of confusion is reflected right from dressing to food habits as they are in an Indo western trap and often may exhibit poor table manners or grooming knowledge due to lack of exposure and also trying to adapt to sudden western culture, not used to from childhood. This crowd is full of relocaters and local Mumbaiites often hailing from small one bedroom pigeonhole families to proudly stand on one's feet and spearhead the family by buying a house in the suburbs and ensuring a decent lifestyle.

Peculiarities:

1) They have an in-between look between modern and indian.

2) Women in capris

3) Sunday mall culture.

4) Big family of 2 generations doing things together.

5) Women car drivers.

6) Intelligent men and women.

7) Growing divorce rates.

8) Favourite haunts are multi plex and malls.

9) Taste in furniture ranging from good to cluttered, and sometimes gaudy.

C) The Mumbaiiya Mumbaiites: They hail from outskirts of the city which are not in Mumbai but nevertheless struggling in concept to be Mumbai. This crowd has certain distinguishable peculiarities:

1) They are dressed in synthetic clothes.

2) The men wear checked shirts often with colours ranging from pink to onion colour.

3) They are local train savvy.

4) They are chartered bus savvy.

5) They entertain themselves in the modes of transport by cracking loud Mumbaiiya jokes with harmless innuendos, playing card games, and eating group snacks of the Mumbaiiya category which the SoBo guy wouldn't touch with a bargepole. (vada pau, samosa pau, dabeli, dhokla.).

6) Use slang like kantaal agaya- means bored, pagaar- means salary, dhakkan- means dimwit or fool, mamu banaya- means making a fool out of.

7) The women are a curse on the name of grooming. Dark lipstick, latest hairstyles done in cheap salons such that the result is a disaster, lycra churidaars bought from station markets, high heels with crooked walks, sindoor and mangal sutra with western attire,tight pants showing underwear lines and saree when worn, with blouses with weird designs at the back showing unbleached backs.

8) Common form of greeting is blinking the eyes with a smile and common form of asking someone to move out of the way is by making a kissing like noise, which would shock any visitor to the city!

9) This crowd is low on culture content but blissfully unaware of it. The main highs are national tv shows on Bollywood dances and songs and of course saas bahu serial and Hindi films.

10) Furniture is mainly faux Godrej steel almirahs and ugly dual purpose sofa cum beds.