Hyderabad Diary: Traffic tremors and Biryani jolts

The traffic nightmare: When I landed up in Hyderabad about 8 months back, I used to leave in the morning, with a prayer on lips and hope in the heart that I will be able to survive city's traffic and come back alive.Thankfully things are not any worse now. the fear has gone from the heart, but wading through traffic is still a nightmare.

Hyderabadis lack even the basic sense of commuting as far as road travel is concerned. Many a times, traffic jams here are caused due to utter stupidity of divers and the ultimate desire of 'Need for Speed'. Large numbers of auto drivers, who are equally reckless (and play very loud Himesh Rshamiya numbers), do not help the conditions. To give the devil his due, AP Traffic Police is pretty efficient, though I feel they could be more strict and would do well to regulate city autorickshaws.

Funniest sight: An APSRTC bus trying to sneak away on HiTec City crossroads.

Biryani delights: Times Of India, Hyderabad (perhaps the only newpaper in the world which doesn't have an editorial page and uses its editorials as fillers!) is conducting a contest in which readers will vote for their favorite Biryani joint.

Hyderabad is famous for its Biryani, both veg. and nonveg. I won't be exaggerating, if I say that it is one of the symbols of the city along with Charminar. Almost all the anglo-hindi movies based in Hyderabad (e.g. Hyderabad Blues (HB) and HB2 or 'The Angrez') feature songs about Hyderabad and Biryani finds its place of pride in them. Andhra Pradesh's tourism sites too mention Biryani very prominently. For recipes you can Google it out.

I have been trying to get a piece of this culinary culture by trying to relish veg. Biryani across the city restaurants. Though this has had an impressive impact on my weight and paunch, anything for the sake of serving society!