Zoo Station

In addition to having the largest slum in the world and a whole host of other unpleasant firsts to its credit, Bombay has racked up yet another first to its name. The survey on common courtesy run by the Readers Digest has annointed Bombay to be the rudest city in the world (among those surveyed, of course). Of course, given how hard life is in Bombay, it will come as no surprise that the city is so rude, or so the conventional wisdom will dictate. The trouble is the second most courteous city in the world is Sao Paulo, which follows ermmm New York. So much for that excuse then.

The survey found that...the culture of extending help, expressing gratitude when helped and talking politely are not part of everyday life in Mumbai. The magazine sent its over 2,000 reporters to gauge the politeness level of leading cities in 35 countries where it publishes from. The survey used three tests to take stock of the politeness factor -- 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.

Mumbai's count in the test was lower than even Bucharest, the rudest of European cities. Asia, in general, scored low on the chart, with every city on the continent, excepting Hong Kong, finding a place among the bottom 10. New York topped the chart with a score of 80 per cent whereas in Sao Paulo, even miscreants were found saying "thank you", the survey said.

Needless to say, we will not run a check on the survey methodology used and so on. The Readers Digest is the gospel, after all.