Mumbaikar

Mumbaikar (Marathi: मुंबईकर) is the Marathi word to signify a resident of Mumbai. Even though the term has been in use for quite some time it gained popularity after the formal renaming of the city to its original name Mumbai^{[citation needed]}. The renaming and rise in the popularity of the term led to common adoption of the term Mumbaikar. Generally speaking, the term encompasses a whole range of ethnicities and cultures of which Mumbai is a melting pot.

Its a general practice in Marathi language speakers to add the verb kar (which means resident of) to the end of individuals native village/place of residence and refer the person using it. So based on this general rule natives of Pune city are called as Punekar, Nashik city as Nashikkar and so on using. It is also fairly common to find people who have their last name based on this rule, so some natives of Goregaon do have their last name as Goregaonkar, similarly Chiplunkar from Chiplun and so on. Similar surnames based on profession with a kar at the end are also very common.

A survey by journalists of the Reader's Digest, reported in June 2006,^[1] claimed Mumbaikars were the rudest city residents in the world from a comparison with 34 other principal cities. Mumbai was bottom with a score of 32%, against a top score of 80% in New York. This 'claim' can be vigorously disputed because the Western cultural customs such as saying 'Thank you' to someone holding door for you, or holding the door itself open for the previous or next person to come in through, smiling at other passing people that are common in America and may be in other 'Americanized' countries just don't exist in Indian culture and therefore in Mumbai. Such gestures are seen as fake (e.g. smiling at other passers-by) and therefore applying a rigid and uncommon (across different cultures) scale to measure 'rudeness' and intention of such a 'research' can be questionable. In fact, in Mumbai, it is considered normal to push the person in front of you so that he / she moves faster through the doorway, thus providing motivation for moving faster.^[2] However, Mumbaikars display great solidarity and wholeheartedness in times of peril, examples being the July 26, 2005 flooding^[3] and the train bombings on July 11, 2006.^[4] In both cases, people did whatever they could to help the victims.

Notes

1. ^ Rashmee Roshan Lall, Mumbai is the rudest city in the world, says survey Times of India, June 20, 2006 accessed at [1] July 18, 2006
2. ^ Alan Hamilton, London fails civility test in survey of world cities The Times, June 20, 2006 accessed at [2] July 18, 2006
3. ^ PM salutes Mumbaikars for courage, patience Indian Express, July 28, 2005 accessed at [3]
4. ^ Mumbai death toll reaches 190, city back on feet Indian Express, July 12, 2006 accessed at [4]

External links

• Bachi Karkaria, Mumbai the Red-faced Rude-deer Erratica column in Times of India, June 24, 2006 accessed at July 18, 2006: comment on Readers' Digest survey story
• Mumbaikar- a community resource for Mumbai with blogs, news and events.