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Mumbai rudest city in world: survey

Hasan Suroor

It is at the bottom, worse than Bucharest

LONDON: It is a city where nobody is likely to help if you drop something on a busy street; shop assistants are reluctant to say "thank you"; and people think that holding a door open for someone is infra dig.

Arguably, it is the rudest city in the world. It is Mumbai, according to a worldwide survey of 35 major cities conducted by Reader's Digest.

With a score of just 32 per cent on the "civility" scale, Mumbai is at the bottom of the heap — worse than Bucharest rated the rudest city in Europe.

Other Asian cities, where courtesy is at embarrassingly low levels, include Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila.

Among the Asian cities which figure in the survey — claimed to be the "world's biggest real-life test of common courtesy'' — Hong Kong alone stands out as an island of good manners in a sea of surliness.

London is not among the first 10 most courteous cities and it shares the 15th place with Paris, Lisbon, Johannesburg and Buenos Aires. Courtesy is also at a discount in Moscow, Helsinki, Sydney and Milan.

New York tops the list of the 10 most courteous cities followed by Zurich, and Toronto.

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