Which city do you like best, aamchi Mumbai or saddi Dilli? Ask this question to anyone and they will have an opinion, even those who have not seen either place. Having spent time in both cities, let me be presumptuous enough to offer my take on the evergreen topic of Mumbai vs Delhi.

1. Definition: land of business vs land of babu-dom
2. Pace of life: quick and busy vs slow and easy
3. Pollution: no visible dust or smoke vs “quick, I need to get a mask!”
4. Traffic: escapable using the local train vs you’ve got no choice but to sit and curse away your time
5. Auto rickshaws: black and yellow vs green and yellow; and the latter run on CNG
6. Auto rickshaw drivers: charge by the meter vs fleece the passenger in direct proportion to his/ her ignorance of Hindi
7. Capriciousness of auto wallahs: Ah, now that’s one parameter where both cities are equally exasperating. You are lucky if the place you wish to go to matches the place the auto wallah wants to go to.
8. Temperature: uniformly comfortable throughout the year vs always hotter or colder than you’d like it to be (No wonder then that people from Delhi find Ahmedabad’s winter “pleasant”, as I complained in this post on what I dislike about winter)
9. Rainfall: flooded roads vs desperately waiting for the rains
10. Culture: “this city is for everyone, literally” vs “this is my city, what are you doing here?”
11. Suburban train: dirt cheap (no pun intended) but efficient vs posh but inefficient
12. People: mind your own business vs “I’ve got all the time in the world to stand and stare”
13. Rent: resign yourself to the reality of effectively giving away an iPhone each month vs take comfort in the fact that you don’t give away even a smartphone each month

P.S.: The genesis for this post lies in a question: which city is better, Delhi or Mumbai?

My immediate answer was that I did not know enough to comment. For instance, I didn’t know till about three years ago that the h in Delhi was silent. And yet, my answer was not fully true. For one, you don’t need to know much about something to form an opinion. (Think of some of our dear politicians. Or some b-school graduates.) Indeed, if I could form an opinion of Istanbul without as much as stepping foot on Turkish soil, why not on two cities in India that are no longer alien to me? (In case my fairy godmother with her magic wand is reading this, Istanbul is one city I’d like to spend some time. Orhan Pamuk just has a way of weaving reality and dreams so closely that you forget to distinguish between the two.)

Moreover, I was ineffectually trying to be diplomatic because the questioner happened to be from Delhi and I am, if anything, mildly in favour of Mumbai. There, I have given away my opinion, if it wasn’t already clear! But I dare say Delhi is beginning to wield her old-world charm on me.