Mumbai is the place with the worst pollution in the world. It is also where you can travel back from a late night movie by train and not be afraid to getting mugged -- even if you are a woman!
It is also where you can eat every day at the railway station for months and years but not fall sick.
It is also where you can have a meal for Rs 20 or spend Rs 2000 (at a star-hotel). I’ve done the first one for over a decade as a newspaper reporter and managed to survive.
It is where you can remain at home all day (if you’ve lost a job) and no one gives a damn! The same thing happened to me in Calcutta and they nearly drove me crazy.
It is where you can ask somebody on the road an address and if they don’t know, they will tell you so. In Delhi, they point you in the opposite direction!
Slums: Not all of them are dirty hell-holes. Not all the people who live there are scum. Try Dharavi: many people there can buy you out.
I’ve stayed in Bombay and Delhi and Calcutta and Bhopal. I won’t live anywhere else but Bombay.