Mumbaikars :)
Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. Spread Love and Stay Blessed.
I had a lovely New Year eve with friends, did Bhangra for more than 2 hours. I felt elated in welcoming 2012 with so many people, from different parts of India.
And that’s the beauty of Mumbai; wherever you go, you will find people from every religion, every state of our country resided here for work. Sometimes, when I go for a walk in the evening, I overhear almost every vernacular language spoken in our country.
Mumbai, the most populous city in India and fourth most populous city in the world has only 1/3rd of the population from Mumbai, rest of them are migrants from all parts of India.
This huge population, obviously, adds a lot to Mumbai traffic and makes commuting almost impossible during peak hours of traffic. It takes me 20 minutes to reach office [from home] in the morning and 60 minutes to reach home [from office] in the evening.
When I first came to Mumbai I asked someone how far was my hotel but instead of telling that, he inquired, “What time do you want to go?” I thought the person was crazy and I went to ask someone else, he said, “If you go now, it will take you 30 minutes by rick (auto-Rickshaw), but if you go after 30 minutes, it will take you more than 1 hour by rick.” Then, I came to know that the unit of distance is not Km but minutes and transport medium in Mumbai. And that’s what it is like, as it all depends on what time of the day you travel and what transport you take.
People from different regions have come and learned to commute with peace. Every day, while going to office I see people, literate/ illiterate, making queues for taking the bus. None of them talks or says anything to anyone but whoever comes, quietly, stands in the queue and will wait for others to enter into the bus first, unlike Punjab where everyone rushes in to take the seat. 
It’s been 6 months in Mumbai and I have never seen a street fight. People neither talk nor fight. But while in a public transport, they do take a nap and also get up on time without asking anyone to wake them up All of them are so busy with their own things that they hardly bother for anyone else. They don’t socialise much except when there is some occasion/ festival.
But whenever there is one, whether big or small, Mumbaikars are very passionate about celebrating it. They sing, they dance, and they get together leaving everything else. They celebrate with so much enthusiasm that sometimes, I feel our culture is still alive in this part of India where everyone celebrates together forgetting about their differences. But from the very next day they get back to their professional lives, no one talks and they get busy with their routine stuff. Baaki sab chodo, people don’t even know how many persons stay in a flat next to theirs.
Even at work, they carry the same professional attitude. It doesn’t matter how the other person works, what he does, what is going on in his life, but the only thing that matters to them is work. If you are doing your work well, everyone is cool with everything.
Once, I wasn’t well and decided to work from home. I got so many calls from people related to work and most of them, after knowing I was sick, didn’t even ask how I was doing but were expecting me to complete the work before end of that day. That’s how people are here but neither do they play dirty politics for their own benefits nor are they selfish. They are just concerned with their own things.
Well, there is a lot more I wanted to write about Mumbai and Mumbaikars but I’ll stop here for now. Baaki phir kabhi likhunga 
Puneet
