Here is an interesting insight on Hyderabad and what it has to offer. We are carrying the article in a series. Make sure that you don’t miss out on the next one’s coming in the forthcoming issue of IBSAF World.

The twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad are a wonderful blend of old and the new… the old city with a 400-year-old history, and the new, is emerging out of the embryo. The charms of the old city with its traditional dish of Biryani, and the forts are in paradox to the new glamour of a hi-tech park with it stuff of Burgers.

It is like a big village, where everyone knows everyone and yet, it has managed to acquire an inimitable position in the world map.

A city; where one gets to rub shoulders with history and wonder at the ebullience of modern technology. Hyderabad is about the Nawabs, the Charminar, the Pearls, the Bangles, the Biryani and lots more.

Maska bun with Irani chai at the crack of dawn at Charminar and Biryani breaks gastronomical boundaries at the noon; emanating from the culture of Nawabs…passion for food is an integral part of the city folklore.

The city that captivates you with all its splendor and colors, and that always makes you want more…is also turning out to be the hub of sporting events. The Afro-Asian game was the context for the congregation of foreigners.

During interactions, my obvious question like others was how do you find India. It’s a mysteryyyyyyy…said a Nigerian.

How do you find Hyderabad?
O! It’s a great place, to start with the food are an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Wanna chill out with some kebabs and wash it down with a mug of beer…Aha! added a voice by another African…

Indian food, for the most part, is a rather lavish affair… Taj Mahal-like grandiosity, Silver-plates, Exotic-dishes and the hot spices in the air… portrayed a short stoic lady from Japan.

The hype and hoopla about the city, has resulted in large-scale flocking of people, from different parts of the country. So was I; one amongst the lot migrated to the city.

I read the best of Andhra food is available here… boorelu, bobbatlu, pootarekulu, and the chakrakeli… it was a tongue twister for me.

It was my first day in the world of South… no clue on the concept of Thali. Lunchtime, I just barged into the nearby South Indian restaurant. Famished and frantically wanted to grab on what is quickly available.

The waiter said; it’s the Thali that you can get immediately. I was a bit baffled hearing the word “Thali”; in my place Orissa, in normal parlance we relate the word to an empty plate. I was wavering to query, to unearth the inscrutability, I asked for the menu card. Adding to my agony was the added prefix, the Standard Thali and the Special Thali.

Left without choice, called the waiter and asked what’s there in the Thali… Anni Unnai was the instant answer.

South Indian Thali

Not to further expose my ignorance, I decided to go ahead with a Thali. I was about to derive some solace for taking the decision…comes another twister from the waiter.

Do you want the limited or the unlimited one? Unfazed, instantly I concluded that there are some schemes in this restaurant.

I contemplated for a second; limited one must be in demand, so ordered for the limited Thali.

For first timer, eating South Indian Thali is a combat for some, a conundrum for the others. Confusion sets in at the outset as regards the permutation of the items to be eat…I was no exception, struggled to put the ‘Jigsaw Puzzle’ of the sequence of eating.

I later realized that “Cooking is an art but Eating has a scientific approach”…. the consumption of items in specific order (dal powder, ghee, pickles, sambar, rasam, dahi…) makes the difference. This articulated adage, in an apt way best applies to the South Indian Thali…the motley of dishes and the myriad tastes…an ensemble of a dozen or so tiny stainless steel ramekins, each filled to the brim with a different unidentifiable concoction.

Chairs that creak the moment you sit on them; marble-top tables that look more smudgy after the waiter has cleaned them, plywood walls and mirrored interiors. This may not be everybody ’s cup of tea, but to the acolytes who have spent many an evening brooding over a wrecked love affair, while the ever solicitous proprietor plied with cups of thick milky tea, and a plate full of Osmania biscuits and Hyderabadi somosas… there is quite no place like the Irani cafe.

I also wanted to experience the culture, ventured into one Irani Café. The plate full of somosas was placed in my table, when I said; I just want two. The answer was you can pick two and leave the remaining in the plate…normally the left out is thrown away in any place, but here in Irani Café, the plate gets passed like the musical chair. Tea stains on the creaking chair cum table; the eater passionately munches the mutton somosas and unmindful of the marks gets indulged in the drink.

The bug of coffee culture bites of late Hyderabad. It was 8.00 pm, lets plan out for Café Coffee Day… for my new friend from Bihar a different image conjured up. His instant question was; are we planning for the next day. No, we will be going right away. We will have the Cold Machacinno with those Stuffed Somosas… are you talking of some associated café where you get the cold drink stuff.

Quite naturally, the question from my friend from Bihar…what do you mean by going to a day coffee, and having some cold drink stuff in this hour of the night. The world is a changed place…things are happening. You just can’t keep your windows shut to the world around…Coffee concept …what’s that.

It has a past, and has a link to the culture. Drinking tea at Irani Café is a powerful culture in Hyderabad. This is one of the oldest and beloved pastimes of Hyderabadis, a tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation. Irani cafes, every colony can be identified by its own café where you find men, surprisingly this kind of entertainment is restricted only to men folk of various age groups, from different background meeting over a cup of tea…has perhaps lent hand to the Coffee-concept to the upper class, and to the otherwise excluded women folk.

Day café opened in the night…. coffee that is available cold…. isn’t this a misnomer. Contemplation has to be abstract…. For any common middle class man, imagination has to defy the rationality…. Perception needs to undergo a metamorphosis to grasp the evolving phenomena of Coffee concept.

Dosa

Thali

When my heart pines for a paper-thin crepes… my mind robotically navigates the body towards the Kamats, the Shanbags... the incarnations of Udipi. Within seconds of my settling down, a scrawny but hyperactive fellow wiped the table, installed a glass of water, and instantly began reeling out the menu… all in one go.

And then regardless, of whether, it was Krishna Prasad or Koteswara Rao, or whether it was taken in English, Hindi, Urdu or Telegu… proverbial train of events followed.

Quickly I heard the waiter shouting okketti Masale Dosa… in a very nasal sort of way, only midway through the kitchen. This ensured that even before he enters the hothouse, and registers the order… the assembly line would have been activated.

The hiss of the water being splashed on the tava and then cook tickling, almost teasing my taste, buds by tak-tak-tak-ing, the sides of it with the spatula. Brusquely, thereafter it was the cook’s turn to screech back massss-aaale… his signal to the waiter that the order is ready.

Even as I was marveling at the savor, and hygiene of the food I was devouring … the swiftness, the efficiency of the service and the reasonable cost at which I have got this, one thing did strike me. How on earth, multinational fast-food joints, peddling alien tastes would ever be able to match the Kamats, the Shanbags… by then the waiter had shoved a bill into my hand and vamoosed.

My half stomach used to get filled, seeing the spectacle parade of chutneys that accompany them at theChutneys, where Dosas/Idlis becomes peripheral…from creamy coconut, fragrant mint, and sweet tamarind to spicy tomato or onion, each chutney bathes the appetizer in a flavor all its own. Some like the fluffy idli… a cornbread-textured steamed-rice-and-lentil cake, or various embodiment of the doughnut shaped vada, a sturdier fried lentil patty.

These don't have much flavor of their own, but they pick up a new taste with chutney they are dipped into…my balance stomach used to get filled, by seeing the way the south Indians cherish eating.That’s what I used to do as an onlooker with a cup of tea…state of a student with exhausted money before the month end, waiting for the postman’s knock about the arrival of draft.

It always puzzles me why people pretend to be different. Even though they despise the self-imposed enactment… Is that they unfasten their self-esteem or become over conscious. I was seating along with my colleague in an urbane restaurant…the Southern Spice. With my inclined soft corner towards Appam and Idi Appam, my choice was fixed. Undecided, he repeated what I ordered.

Swiftly I employed my hand, neatly tearing the Appam into pieces, before garnishing with the chicken curry to push it into my salivated mouth. Countering the spicy chicken was the cold coconut milk. Something was questionably erroneous. I halted my tearing, dipping and dropping cycle for a moment.

Keep reading as the history of Hyderabad and a lot more unfolds.