Grumpy Traveller Some like it cold

So everyone&rsquos favourite no-frills airline taking baby steps towards putting hot food on the drop-down tray should be a welcome proposition, right There, on the menu card, between the cold samosas and sandwiches and parathas and salads, was a little icon. A hot food icon. You just couldn&rsquot miss it. Next to the hot food icon was a vision in veg biryani, it beckoned boldly.

Weak with hunger and cold from the pre-dawn taxi ride to the airport, I soon drifted into a semi-comatose state, dreaming of succulent and subtly perfumed biryanis of the finest Hyderabadi gharana. I remained thus suspended in a state of tremulous anticipation, till the hostess sailed past, when I impeded her passage with a request for veg biryani, on the double, please. Feeling extravagant, I ordered a masala chai as well. So you want veg biryani with tea, sniggered she. My head bobbed up and down in the affirmative.

That&rsquos when the royal repast came crashing down all around me. Turns out, what was being served up was a cookie-cutter, new-age convenience food, not someone&rsquos grandmother&rsquos aunt&rsquos secret recipe salted away in the family cellars for generations, only to be revived for the delectation of an infrequent flyer like myself.

As I stared at the container of dehydrated rice in front of me, the hostess sloshed some lukewarm water in, shut the cover and told me to refrain from attacking it for another three minutes.

After the interminable wait, when I opened the container tentatively and peered in, what I saw looked like, well, biryani. But it tasted like no biryani I have ever dug into. Dehydrated rice rehydrated, after all, has no resemblance to rice. It is not even rice&rsquos third cousin twice removed. To top that there were boulder-sized bits of whole spice lurking in unexpected places. When I turned to the spice-ridden chai, it tasted like a liquid version of the, ahem, &lsquobiryani&rsquo. Therefore, the aforementioned sniggers presumably.

When, against my better judgement, I flew this airline again recently, a hot veg upma had made its appearance on the menu just below the biryani. I managed to dissuade my co-passenger from trying the masala chai and sank my teeth into a near-frozen palak-makai &rsquowich. Bliss.