“Ab-ich aatun main, pareshan nakko ho. (I’ll be there in a jiffy, don’t worry),” he assured. The man, on the other line, who was supposed to fix my air-conditioner, made me wait for three days, but everyday he repeated this phrase. Sometimes, he would drop in a shayari about parso (the day after tomorrow). Switching between Dakhani, Telugu, Hindi and English, a deft Hyderabadi knows that parso is a gaping hole of doom in Hyderabad — for that day after tomorrow may or may not come. And that’s why in Hyderabad, time isn’t real and humour is everywhere. And once you see the humour, there’s no need to worry about the time.
- A conversation with Gautam Pemmaraju on Dakhani poetry.