Friday, October 26, 2007

The Mumbai Spirit

Since the time I came to Mumbai, I have been hearing about the poor human aspect of Mumbaikers which has become non-caring and selfish. There was a case of a women being stabbed in the middle of the road with scores of people just watching her die. Accidents taking place and no one bothering to take the injured to hospital etc etc…
But 2 such incidents have taken place within 4 days which show a positive face of Mumbai emerge out of the chaos we usually see in the trains and roads of the financial capital of India.
The first incident is of course which I mentioned in the previous post, where a bag with mobile phones and plenty of cash had been left in a local train. A good soul had taken care to call a few numbers from the mobile and some amazing coincidences had worked together to land the bag with all its contents (The coincidences were such that they demand another post).
Many said that it was impossible to find a bag left in a Mumbai Local. But it happened. And then to top it another incident happened just 2 days later. Amit, my roommate had given his bike for servicing. While going to get his bike back, he left the packet containing all the papers and driving license in the autorickshaw he had taken to the service center.
To further complicate the problem, there was no local phone number written anywhere in the documents and there was only 1 small mention of the local address. A day later, a person was standing on our door with the packet. The autowallah had taken pains to find the local address, then search for the house and came till the door step to deliver the packet. Moreover, when Amit tried to reward him, he refused to accept anything. “I know how it feels when you lose all your papers”, he said.
Incidents like these go a long way to re-instill the faith in others, in this self centered society today.
3 cheers to this spirit of Mumbai!!!!

6 comments:

Cuckoo said...

Yes 3 cheers for Mumbai.

Ye hai Mumbai meri jaan ;)

Amey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amey said...

I tagged you. Check out my blog.

http://randamthots.blogspot.com/2007/10/power-of-5.html

Detailed comment later.

Sanchit421 said...

Mumbai to me seems much safer than many other cities. three cheers...

Amey said...

Well, the cynical view of things is: given the overall apathy of normal people, such civilized acts stand out. No doubt they are praiseworthy, but you know what they say about exceptions and rules.

indicaspecies said...

My gold bangle and diamond ring that I had forgotten in my drawer in my previous room after I changed to another room was returned by the housekeeper of a Mumbai hotel. Need I say more other than more cheers to Mumbai?