Ghiyasuddin’s eyes keep drifting back to the road as he tends to the fire at a makeshift eatery. It is 11.30 p.m. on a weekday and the traffic that loops around Durgam Cheruvu in Hyderabad never quite pauses, and every slowing vehicle draws a glance. “People keep coming here throughout the night,” he says, glancing up and down the street, tracking both customers and other businesses around. “But I usually wind up by 1 a.m. When the police vehicle comes around midnight, it creates panic, for the diners as well as for us,” he adds.
For a late hour, the place remains unusually busy. Cars and motorcycles slow down, then surge ahead, jolting over the dozens of rumble strips outside a luxury hotel. A zillion lights from offices, shopping malls and high-rise apartments bathe the street in a soft yellow glow.
On the roadside, the acrid smoke of cooking hangs in the air. Woks and pans clang, chilli oil crackles and its pungent heat hits the nostrils. A car pulls over. Three young men step out, hunch their shoulders against the smoke and heat, fold their hands across their chests and ask for ‘bamboo chicken biryani’.
Ghiyasuddin lifts a thick bamboo tube from the fire, cracks it open and tips out the greasy, spicy, reddish rice dish onto three disposable plates. Priced at ₹300, the dish draws a steady stream of customers, some of them perched on plastic chairs and tables by the road while others eat inside their cars.
