HYDERABAD: If any food could be awarded the title of the most staple food ever in our region, it would undoubtedly be rice. We live right next to the rice bowl of India, and if you observe the level of consumption, it almost feels like the rice is constantly spilling over into Hyderabad — freely and abundantly.
It’s understood that our breakfast is rice (idly + dosa), if lunch isn’t rice, it’s practically a crime, and dinner, of course, is rice. You go to weddings, and you’ll be served rice to eat and to bless the couple. Visit a temple, and the prasad is lemon rice. Even when someone dies, we put some rice in the mouth of the deceased. Sure, you could argue that these are age-old customs that can’t be changed, and I agree. But when you combine these traditions with the way rice is being thrown around in modern times, you’ll definitely see my point: we have too much rice, and it’s practically free.
The breakdown of the word biryani is rice + meat, which is fair enough. But the quantity of rice that Hyderabadi biryani joints serve is more like 2x rice + meat. If you order biryani, there’s always a fight for who gets the last leg piece, but no man has ever finished all the biryani rice. The last time someone did, it was probably Bakasura — the demon who voraciously devours everything and everyone in sight.
Mandi restaurants have been trying to one-up biryani places since they came on the scene, and they make this quite clear by plating a mountain of rice on a plate the size of a truck wheel. This is why eating mandi is always a group activity — you need a village to finish that much rice. Just like there’s no such thing as veg biryani, there’s also nobody who has ever eaten mandi alone.
Why bother calculating the amount of rice when you can get unlimited rice for Rs 80? If nothing else, this should end the debate that rice is practically free. Again, it’s not a tempting offer; it’s more of a dare. This is why you won’t see Bakasura’s relatives in Hyderabad anymore — they failed the dare and had to leave the city, vowing never to return.
Now that rice is the unofficial mascot of our city, even KFC has to serve it — because even Colonel Sanders knows you can’t win here without a side of rice!
The bars of Hyderabad serve rice beer, which should be the final argument in this case. And if the best keychain in Hyderabad is one where you can write your name on a grain of rice, well, I rest my case.
(The writer’s views are his own)