Once a Hyderabadi, Always a Hyderabadi

Note: You will enjoy the write up more if you are familiar with Hyderabad/hyderabadi Hindi.

My friend called me and said ‘ticket lene ko hona’ trying to make fun of the hyderabadi Hindi I talk in. It was then I realized the humor and personal touch in hyderabadi Hindi. Hyderabad is known for many things; Biryani, Pearls, bangles, IT etc but two things that stand out are the hyderabadi language and culture.

Talking about our culture, we are very laid back people. We love to do things with patience and we also love to boast about every small thing we do. We love our morning tea and the gossip that goes with it. Basically we love to talk. Anything and everything is talked about in detail. Every small thing calls for a party. Anyone who buys even a new set of clothes is asked ‘party kab hai’.

For every big or small thing we just say ‘light lo yaaro’ (take it easy) and we actually take things easy. Hyderabadis have this penchant to come up with killer, bollywood style dialogues even at the most mundane situations.

When we say ‘I will just come’, it can be 2 mins or 2 hours too :-). We have our own Hyderabad Standard Time which ranges from anywhere between 1-2 hours after the fixed time. For example, you call us for a wedding at 7 Pm we’ll be on time at 9 sharp :-). Never try to call us and ask where we have reached. The answer will always be ‘yahi paas me hoon abhi 5 min me aatu’ and we might have just started from home.

Another very common word we use is ‘Parso’. Actually this word means day before or day after but for us it can be day before, week before or even month before. Anyone who bought a new car 6 months back will say ‘parsoich liya car ye’ (I bought it day before).


Now comes our language. As we are laid back people we do not complete the sentences and give a personal touch to the language. Hyderabadi Hindi is a mixture of Urdu, Hindi, English, and Telugu. We do not complete the sentences in hyderabadi. It’s more personal and extremely informal. For example, if you want to ask someone where they are going you would say ‘kaha ja rahe ho’ in normal Hindi but in hyderabadi it would be ‘kaha jaare?’ It’s Simple. No extra words.

We say ‘hau’ for haan (yes), nakko for Na (No). We tend to change the pronunciation of words; especially English words. For example school is iskool, forms is faram. This applies to the names of the places too. Necklace road is naklis road, market is markit, and most common is ‘Amrica’ for America. Any one who comes from abroad has either come from Amrica or from foren.

Best is the way we mix English in our Hindi. We will not say tickets nahi hai; we’ll say ‘ticketa’ nahi hai. Just add ‘a’ to any English word and that’s English plurals in hyderabadi for you. Shirta (shirts), schoola (schools), phona (phones), busa (buses) roada (roads). Not only English, hyderabadi blends in all the languages.

There is lot of Telugu influence too on our language. You go to any primary school in Andhra Pradesh and you can see the kindergarten kids shouting loudly to Yell, Yem, Yen, Whoa. No it’s not the native language but they are practicing their ABC’s and the above example is pronunciation of the letters L, M, N, O. I still remember I had a manager (from a town in Andhra) who had a ‘Getz’ car and said I will sell this ‘getj’ and buy a ‘Benj’ (yes he meant Benz and Getz with a Z as in zoo but he always said ‘benj’ with j as in jug. He used to call himself a ‘no-lej-may-nay-jer’ (knowledge manager).


We hyderabadis love our Biryani, our language and our city. We love our spice and do not mind mixing pasta with mango pickle which ever part of world we are in. Do whatever; make fun of us, laugh at us, or just have a hearty laugh at our conversations; no one can change us. Once a Hyderabadi, always a Hyderabadi.

You have to live in Hyderabad and blend into its culture to understand the warmth of this place and its language. Once you have lived here you can identify a hyderabadi in any part of the world.