At your service!

Shah Rukh Khan, in an interview in L’Officiel’s latest issue, says Mumbai is the greatest place to be. “When I am asked which my favourite city is, I say Mumbai — with all its grime! I love it, I really do.” And why not? I cannot think of any other big city in the world, where its residents — even the most middle class of them — enjoy such a culture of comforts, especially in the department of door to door service.

Each morning, even before most of its residents are awake, along with their papers and milk, the more devout amongst them receive a small packet of fresh flowers, to place before their deities, known as their ‘puja flowers’. Delivered with unfailing regularity, their appearance is taken for granted, and only really thought about, when their provider turns up at the end of every month for the payment, usually a paltry amount. But this is not the only service that Mumbaikers enjoy at their door.

Most provision stores deliver at the drop of a hat. In addition, the meatwallah, the fish monger, the fruit vendor, and the vegetable man all come daily round to sell their wares in the morning. The bread-and-eggs man however comes in the evening, and usually, along with the freshly baked and still-warm bread, sells a variety of home made biscuits and rusks.

But it doesn’t stop there, this culture of extreme service. The dhobhi comes to pick up clothes for ironing and then drops them with a thud outside our doors, fragrant with the smell of hot irons and burning coals; the chickwallah (bamboo blinds repairman) comes around asking if there’s any work for him; then, there’s always a friendly neighbourhood tailor to be found to come home to take measurements for sari blouses and to put sari falls; the patwa (jewellery fixer and re-stringer of necklaces) can be found sitting arduously mending things in the corner of most homes at least once a month.
 
And that’s not all: the computer servicing and repairman can always be called home if there’s an emergency; the curtain maker and upholsterer makes time to come over and take new orders; I haven’t seen them much in south Mumbai, but I know that in the suburbs, knife sharpeners and mattress-and-pillow fillers still come around on Sundays to the door, as do utensil sellers and women hawking old sari borders and antique zari.

Of course, there are services that are slowly disappearing with time: there’s no need for the bootlegger of smuggled alcohol any more, and you see less of him in these days of reform; the pickle-makers and the ladies who came to clean rice are also becoming a thing of the past, in the age of supermarkets and branded goods. But I know that the barber still comes around to many a home for the monthly cut for all the men in the family.
 
No doubts about it, we Mumbaikars are a very pampered lot. Even when we have to travel abroad, our foreign exchange, travel insurance and tickets are all hand delivered to our door. But of course, we travel with a heavy heart. Where else in the world would we get such a plethora of goods and services at our very door! So no wonder that Shah Rukh Khan feels Mumbai is the best city in the world. I tend to agree with him!
—s_malavika @dnaindia.net