There’s Hyderabadis & There’s Rest of the Country

It is yet another day in the United States of America and I suddenly realized that I have been craving for the Hyderabadi delicacies for a while, which then, reminded me that it has been 4 long awful years that I had left Hyderabad. Now, I’m not having a meltdown here, but I thought about all the different people from different parts of our country that I’ve met here. I have nothing against anyone, but the one breed of people that I love, no matter what, are the Hyderabadis. I know that sounds a tad bit stupid when you read it at first, but I can’t help it.

Hindi? nope, Hyderabadi Hindi: When I was a complicated 15-year-old girl not knowing how far behind I was in the race for IITs, I met this ‘shudh-hindi’ speaking north Indian guy who was interested in me, and he said ‘Sheekha, I do not like the way you speak Hindi. I don’t like the Hyderabadi Hindi’, and I was like ‘Aan Baigan nai?’.  aaanndd…, that was the last time I ever saw him. Not only had I learnt that there are people in Hyderabad who don’t speak Hyderabadi Hindi, but, I also realized how much I loved speaking and listening to the old city style of saying, “Nakko dumm karo yaaro!”. Mujhe, Tujhe always sounded super strange. Ok, I will stop with our dictionary but you know, you get the point. Oh wait, I forgot to mention kirraakk, another favourite term of mine. We are proud of the way we speak. 😉

Food? You mean Biryani right.

Biryani is BAE. (I hate the term bae..I don’t know who started that and why, but it felt appropriate to use it here since everyone knows Biryani is my first love. 😛 )

Time to get your facts right. There are a lot of Hyderabadi dishes that are finger licking level of good and yummylicios apart from the world-famous Biryani. Of course, biryani tops the list, but the food in Hyderabad is to die for. So, the next thing that I love in Hyderabadis is the fact that they can relate when we talk about that dosa from Ram ki bandi at 4AM, Irani chai, Nanking’s Chinese food, gapchup (which, to the rest of the country is pani puri), mirchi ka salan, Haleem, shawarma, bhagaara baigan, gongura mutton and sheer khurma (*insert heart eye emojis here and start craving for them again*) It is sad to not have anything open at 11 PM here. But, if you were in Hyderabad, you can never be hungry at any point in time.

And FYI, biryani with dry fruits and aloo is NOT biryani ☹ Only a Hyderabadi can understand the essence of dum biryani and appreciate it. People who live abroad have had their own share of troubles trying to get the dum part of the biryani right.

Lite lo attitude.

Most of the Hyderabadis inherit the lazy and laid-back attitude from the city. I won’t lie, but this attitude has actually helped me overcome few situations pretty easily. If I didn’t have the ‘lite-lo ji’ or the ‘Jo hota dekhlinge’ attitude, I can clearly picture myself running around pulling each strand of my hair and going bald overthinking and stressing about illogical and unimportant stuff. You just need one conversation with any Hyderabadi when you are in deep shit..and the first few words that they say is ‘Lite lo yaaro. Khaali peeli tension nakko lo.’ This positive vibe and warm nature are few of the loveliest things about Hyderabadis. In addition, they are few of the best brains in the country. 😉  In short, we are cool. 😀

No matter when, where and which situation you are in, you can instantly connect with them and you’d always leave feeling good. 😀 So, next time you meet a Hyderabadi, don’t try to blend in if you are not one of us, you’ll be caught 😉 and it won’t be pretty. In short, posan nakko maaro. 😉

InExAcT as always.
–Sheekha