Mumbai is truly maximum city

It’s been a while since Suketu Mehta bestowed another moniker to Mumbai: Maximum City. Now it would seem that his writerly evocation has been borne out by the revelation that Mumbaikars work the maximum hours in the world, The Price And Earnings 2018 report by the Swiss investment bank UBS avers that at an average of 3,314.7 hours a year, Mumbaikars work longer than denizens of 77 cities around the world, which certainly bears out its claim to be the ‘City that Never Sleeps’. But it does nothing to burnish its reputation of being the City of Dreams considering the report also reveals Mumbaikars have to work the maximum to earn enough to afford everything from a haircut to a top-end smartphone as it ranks just above Cairo at the bottom in terms of average hourly earnings, with Geneva at the top.

Parisians, the report revealed, put in only half as many working hours as Mumbaikars but take a month off on average. Mumbaikars, however, take a mere 10 days off annually, only marginally more than Beijing, Los Angeles and Hanoi residents. The inhabitants of Lagos take the fewest leaves—a suspiciously meagre six six days—but then practically every day is a holiday there obviously as they work only an average of 609 hours annually. Going by these numbers, maximum work and minimum play could very well turn Mumbai into Dull City.