I have lived all my life in Delhi & spent about an year in Mumbai, so I think I've a different perspective of looking at this "rivalry".
 
Space:
 
 
My house (Paternal, I was born here & my Father before me & live in a Joint family) in Delhi is big, spacious & most of the bedrooms have attach lat/baths.
 
 
I craved for space in Mumbai, although my consulting gig paid well in stock & bonuses & I was getting a 12k HRA it barely covered my rent. I got a small ground floor 1BR + Small kitchen/store room for that money in Andheri East, which apparently was only 5 minutes walk from my office in Mahakali Caves Road (Near Tunga Restaurant). 
 
 
I had a small fenced verandah & space to park my car, which although didn't had a society sticker was still had empty spot.
 
 
I loved my empty parking spot but hated the room; it was tiny & it sucked the life out of me, I didn't even have space to put in a real bed & accommodate a cupboard, the place came with a godrej almirah but we all know how much do we use those, I improvised used a futon mattress & got myself a industrial rack from my designer friend.

 
The love affair with my apartment didn't last long since it was on ground floor it almost drowned in Mumbai rains, I had to sleep on a friends couch for a week & almost got my things ruined hadn't it been to nice uncle who noticed the rains doing damage & informed me. I cut short my trip to take charge. 

 
Still Love The Parking Spot:

 
I still loved the parking spot, I live in South Delhi & still hate to find a decent one near my home, apparently we own too many cars for one household to sustain healthy parking ratio (perks of living in a Joint Family, you will always be fighting for that golden spot with your elder cousin)..


We The People:


The people in Mumbai are definitely nicer to do business with & although they don't waste time with pleasantries are still gracious, polite & thankful people.
I have some of my best friends in Mumbai available on call 24/7 & who come to Delhi often & still take time out to drop in at my office to say hello, drink beer or just "hang out".

 
Delhites on the other hand are evil (not all) & are heavy on Name Dropping (I get that, really I do. My dad's been a lawyer for enough decades to know every single politico in Delhi) EVERY ONE KNOWS SOMEONE.

 
Mumbaiya Guys are cool & don't give a shit who you are or what's your background. They will trust you blindly & open their homes for you.
 
 
When I started my Broadband company my first & only investor was from Mumbai, he is an ex-BOA guy who owns more rentals than anyone I know. He insisted in investing in me when noone had any clue what we would do or becvome; not even me.
 
He saw "Potential" when we everyone all saw "Crazy". He is also pushing me now to complete my book (fiction) which I stopped writing a year ago & publish it for me. He is the best Mentor & Friend I got, my strongest Mumbai connection.
 
 
I'm not mentioning RoadRage & Rape's cause the traditional media does a good job of covering those. Please let me know what you think. I request you to not be judgmental or patriotic toward your home state but be rational & think which city has given you more. For me Delhi has given me culture & home but Mumbai has given me my Dream.
 
Thank You,
Deepak Sharma
 
P.S. I can be reached on Twitter.
****

Tags: Delhi, Mumbai, Story

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A very fair comparison. The tu-jaanta-hai-main-kaun-hoon and the inherent evilness of ND repulses me. However, my opinion is based on little experience.

Mumbai is an amazing place. The people are wonderful. Space is a problem, no doubt. I wish they'd speed up the metro and monorail projects; commuting is a pain for common people. I also lived in Andheri East, but with two roommates. For 25k we had a pretty good and spacious 2BHK apartment in an excellent colony. My brother also lives there, paying 16k for a 2BHK in an even better colony. lol

For 25k/mo you would get a 3br + drawing room + parking spot + vast kitchen & veranda space on a first floor in posh South Delhi locality. I know cos I rent my apartment out. It's silly to compare I know but I just can't imagine living in small house maybe because I grew up in a boarding school where we had amazing playgrounds & horse riding tracks.. But No Doubt Mumbai people are nicest people I know. No Nonsense attitude.

This post is about living conditions, so, as someone who's moved here from Bangalore, who's spent a couple of months living in Delhi to run a IT startup, I would summarize Mumbai as being India's Plug-n-Play city.

Mumbai truly is a Plug-an-Play city, we setup our office in Mahakali Caves Road in flat 15 days partially because the rent for the duplex was 2.75 lac which oddly could only sustain 50 - 60 people. wherein we also saw some properties in MindSpace near bakery, that one was 1 lac but could accommodate only 35 peeps at best. yes this article may be little space biased but it is based on experience so I can only vouch for what is true. :-) Hope you found it interesting.

Great one.. Mumbai, I guess is way too fast compared to Delhi.. the over crowded local trains and narrow roads always gave me jitters. Meanwhile Delhi is more open and more spacious.. and the life is not that fast. Given a choice, I will always choose Delhi :) Meanwhile, your facebook link on http://intellectassets.tumblr.com/aboutme is not working.. ! 

The metro and monorail projects can go a long way in reducing the congestion, but they keep getting delayed. Traffic is a perennial problem.

Corruption is more pervasive in Delhi, I suppose. The taxi run by Delhi Police at IGI Airport robbed me every time I visited there.

Reminds me of a true story :

All over India, the cops @ the airport would ask, bored out of their wits, "Āp kahān jā rahe hain"

In Delhi, it's "Behen chot! Kiddhar jareh too?"

:)

Thanks Mohul,

I corrected the Facebook link now, there was some error in my custom css, thanks for bringing this to my notice. Much Appreciated. Hope You would've enjoyed the article.

I recently got an opportunity to spend around 9 hours in Delhi as a stop-over for one my Trip and literally vouched never to visit the city again in my Life, except only might do a one-off to someday visit my buddy Gurpreet Singh Tikku..

My Judgements may be wrong, depending on the short time that I spent, but two things got communicated very clearly.. One being that the phrase "DILLI KE THAGG" is more than Real.. And the Second being that there is no such thing as "DILWALON KI DILLI".. Something that one of my co-passenger, who was born and brought-up in Delhi admitted himself..

Now, though I have stayed in Mumbai all my Life, I would still point-out certain things that are seriously worrying about Mumbai.. The "COLDNESS" of the people (except for a few percentage) living here.. If an accident takes place on the road, the accumulated people look at each other to see who will take the initiative first.. You can stay in a Building in Mumbai without anyone knowing you for years, including the people living just across the Lobby.. I agree that it offers the highest level of Privacy that one can get, but People lying dead in their apartments for weeks without being noticed or helped is its side-effect..

Well, every city has its Pros & Cons.. But that's also what distinguish them from each other..

To conclude, I would like to quote a famous dialogue that totally fits this situation,
"Hum hee Hum hain, Toh kya Hum hain,
Tum hee Tum ho, Toh kya Tum ho.."

Very Nice observations, but this level of negligence is only because of loose social fabric that we as society has woven around itself, you would find many cases of elderly dying unnoticed in their house in some very posh area's in Delhi. The middle class or people like us who live in Villages are the one's who are close to our neighbors...- (Yes, I live in a Village; the distiction is becuase my home is adja...

No delhi lover here?

Anyways, I bet over this one that, delhi is good.

With over a thousand historical monuments and upmarket fashion goods are damn cheap price and stuff, it makes things easy for us, Bengalis to adjust in a 'foreign' land. Cant be experienced in a travel of few hours or a day or two. 

Its kind of an adventure. With one area being so dangerous (Noida Sec 110 etc) at 11 O clock, there are places such as Pahar Ganj and Gurgaon, where you can get awesome food even at night 3.30.

Mumbai is good, only for those, who can afford it.

But Delhi is open to all. 

 

I would like to take an opportunity to speak in a much broader sense. Are we not wasting time here just comparing Delhi vs Mumbai. I am sure at The Rodinhood, people aspire to be leaders in the business world. Why just waste time in writing opinions on Delhi is full of shit and Mumbai flourish. Well every city is full of shit and nice people too, depends on your perspective and whom you meet as well as it depends on personal experiences. I believe there is 80/20 rule which applies here where 80% of opinions are based on only 20% of your experience/s. I would suggest feel and enjoy rest of the 80% of your life and experiences in joy, happiness and spreading a good word around or even finding a good reason for fun live.

I was born in Kanpur, lived and studied in Delhi, worked in Gurgaon and Mumbai. In my first company in Mumbai, the first question I was asked by the leadership was 'Hey, Welcome, Where are your from'. My answer was 'I am from India, where are your from?'. He replied back, 'Peddar Road', as if I care. 

I want to ask all the people above, what efforts have you made to make your city a better place to live? Taxes and vote doesn't help. I am speaking from the New York city where I am still an Indian by heart. Well I would like to make a point here that The Rodhinhoods should invite business leaders to speak about opinions but also speak about the solutions. Make India a better place to live in and lets talk about solutions which can impact millions of lives on this planet. Talking never helps. I my 'opinion', opinions are like a'holes, every one have one but different. 

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