Mumbai Is A Cultural Wasteland, Says The Hindu
Delhi, alas, does not have a Dhoble.
Having dipped our toes into the great New Delhi vs Mumbai culture debate more than once last year (and come away sufficiently drenched from the response), we realise what a good eyeball grabber the story tends to be. Everyone loves a good bashing, and none more so than one that roils up alliances and tests city fealties. Now, The Hindu has waded into these booby-trapped waters, offering its perspective on which city should rightfully wear the culture crown, and no surprise, it’s New Delhi! The venerable paper trots out the usual examples—we censor, we’re home to two Thackerays, our nightlife is dying, we love Bollywood—and a couple of damning quotes to drive home its point that we’re essentially one big wasteland.
“When the U. N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visited Mumbai, a party was hosted for him by an industrialist and the guest list was essentially glamour-driven, when it could have included more people engaged in public life,” huffs writer Santosh Desai to the paper. Srila Chatterjee, one of the partners of music venue Blue Frog, believes the culturati are few and far between in our city. “I’m constantly surprised by the interesting people I meet and engaging conversations I can have in Delhi,” says Chatterjee. “In Mumbai, you end up meeting the same people all the time.” Chatterjee also bemoans our lack of culinary diversity. “I don’t know of a single restaurant in Mumbai that serves the cuisine of Nepal or Bhutan.”
So the key claims are a) we love Bollywood to the exclusion of pretty much everything else b) we’re boring and c) we don’t have a Bhutanese restaurant. What do you think?
The New City Maximum [The Hindu]
Tags: Art, Bollywood, Film, Media, Mumbai, Mumbai Culture, New Delhi, Nightlife, Santosh Desai, Srila Chatterjee, The HinduComments (3)
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whoaaa, lol, khee hee, haha, get me a drink now — were the reaction my brother gave me when i said him about this article.
Seriously, when it comes to culture no one can say Delhi is better than Mumbai. I have myself lived in delhi for about 7 years and have been in Mumbai for just 6 months.
I don’t want to share the experience but Delhi will take another century to board a bus or a rickshah and another two centuries to accept women.
Summing up all, delhi has roads but no CULTURED drivers.
Delhi has Big and Spacious buses but no cultured commuters.
Delhi has huge suburbs but no cultured realtors.
Mumbai Addict
Raj
I really don’t understand how the claim of seeing the same people over and over again is a valid point. The people you see is dependent on the people you associate yourself with. The writer associates themself with people who probably always hang out with each other. How is that a problem with the city? It is the largest metropolitan region in the country, if the author really wanted to find new people to meet, it wouldn’t be that hard. I doubt the supply would ever run out considering the never ending stream of immigrants into the country.
Well, claim c) can be easily dismissed by the fact that Delhi being closer to both those countries has created a culture that has imbibed the foods of both those countries. A relevant question would then be of how much South Indian food there is available in Delhi as compared to Bombay?
The whole Bollywood thing is a normative argument that can’t really be pinned down and is highly dependent on the experiences and desires of individual people.
I like the way Srila Chatterjee claims that she meets the same people in Bombay when she herself is so particular and snobby about whom she will give a moment of her time to. Turning a nose up if you chose the wrong fork to eat. or chose a cheaper liquor bottle to drink. Perhaps she should look beyond her ‘ilk’ to meet more people. In delhi everyone is an ‘elite’. Just her kind.