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10 Things That Will Instantly Give Away That You’re From South Mumbai

Gateway of India
Gateway of India | © Simon / pixabay

Mumbai is a buzzing, loving cosmopolitan that, even with a traffic and monsoon fiasco, is a lovely to place to live because of the people and their ever embracing ways of living in harmony. But all that niceness comes to a shrieking halt once someone compares South Mumbai (the richer part!) to the suburban areas. People born and bred in areas like Grant Road, Marine Lines and Malabar Hills are distinctly different from those who live in parts like Goregaon and Vile Parle. Here are 10 things that will instantly give away that you are from South Mumbai.

You take ‘gaon’ in Goregaon too seriously

A friend has invited you as plus one to another friend’s party in Goregaon and your first question is ‘Where is that?!’ A South Mumbaikar hardly ever knows about places beyond their southern territory.

Goregaon is a part of Suburban Mumbai in India

When going to the suburbs takes days of planning

When a friend from the ‘burbs’ makes a pyjama party plan, the first thing you do is start looking for someone who can give you a ride to and from the friend’s place, because it seems as far as Timbuktoo!

For a South Mumbaikar, traveling to the suburbs could take days of planning

Your usual suburban trips are only to go to the airport

Oh, it must be killing the South Mumbaikars that the Mumbai airport is in Santacruz and not in their part of the town. Once in a while, ever so reluctantly, South Mumbaikars have to descend to the ‘other side of town’ to take a flight.

South Mumbaikars usually come to the suburbs only to go to the airport

You want to go to Forever 21 but it’s TOO far

Ask any South Mumbaikar and they are all still shocked and upset about Forever 21 or H&M opening in suburban malls! Although, they really want to visit these shops, reaching them would mean days of planning ahead.

Big brands like Forever 21 and H&M have opened stores only in suburban malls

Beach can only mean Girgaon Chowpatty

You can be called a South Mumbaikar if you haven’t heard of Aksa beach of Gorai in Borivali and go nuts over how beautiful Girgaon Chowpatty is, and how watching the ‘Queen’s Necklace’ at Marine Drive can’t be compared to anything else.

There’s no beach better than Chowpatty and Marine Drive for South Mumbaikars

You don’t consider Vashi a part of Mumbai

When Vashi or Navi Mumbai comes up in a conversation (those rare occurrences) you dismiss it, saying it is not a part of Mumbai anyway. Just because it contains the word ‘Mumbai’, it doesn’t mean it’s actually a part of the city!

South Mumbaikars still haven’t accepted Navi Mumbai as a part of the city in their head

You can never stop calling Mumbai, Bombay

Home will never be South Mumbai to you. It was and will forever remain Bombay, the name British gave the city after they moved in the 17th-century. The city’s name officially changed to Mumbai only in 1995.

You cancel on friends who make plans in suburbs over weekends

If you make dinner plans with your friends you obviously choose Li Bai, Exo or Café Zoe because who will take the trouble of going all the way to far, far away land just to have food, right? So, either it’s your way or you basically stay home and Netflix.

A South Mumbaikar would rather cancel a plan than go to the suburbs over the weekend

Taking the local train is a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence

If you are a South-towner you will feel weird taking the local train because it is only once in, maybe, two years that you decide to hop onto that scary thing where people barely have any room to stand. Oh, and you will ask and make sure a thousand times when your destination is about to arrive.

Traveling in the Mumbai local train is a rare occurrence for a South Mumbaikar

You never take rickshaws

You are a true South Mumbaikar if you have completely forgotten what riding in auto-rickshaws feel like. Auto-rickshaws only work in the suburban parts of Mumbai and beyond Bandra only taxis run the show. So, South Mumbaikars never see auto-rickshaws in their normal daily life.

For South Mumbaikars auto-rickshaws are a new sight every time they see them
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