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He cannot, for example, understand the fulfilment that the Bombayman gets in scrambling aboard the 6:18 fast from Churchgate, his left foot perennially aspiring to be ahead of his right. Or that obsessive all encompassing urge to get 99.3 per cent in the optionals in the 12th standard. He'd much rather let a crowded bus go by and continue talking about Madhuri Dixit in Tezaab. Or better still, walk across to the Irani restaurant on the corner and chat over a bun-muska and one by two chai. On a good day, he would order a pauna instead. Again one by two.

The Hyderabadi is invariably, therefore, a satisfied man. Even laid back. The urge to conquer that comes from an unsatisfied mind is a largely alien concept to him. He is more likely to aspire for happiness and having got it, to share it. At his daughter's wedding he would invite the entire community to a lavish biryani and baghara baingan meal, most probably in an open yard, rather than to just an ice cream in a classy hall of a five star hotel. To him that would be impersonal. It wouldn't be symbolic of his daughter's wedding.

He is more likely to be polite and unassuming. And you will always be aap to him; only occasionally tum but never ever tu That would be sacrilege. Or a concession made to someone very close. Correspondingly he would be greatly offended if somebody addressed him as tu The nawabs always said aap and the Hyderabadi has kept the tradition alive.

Not surprisingly, Hyderabad has produced very few heroes, in any walk of life… that demands grit.

Sarojini Naidu was one of them. A freedom fighter but more familiar perhaps as a poet. "You don't know. Bapu, how much it costs us to keep you poor," she once said of Mahatma Gandhi. And her Palanquin Bearers features in almost every anthology of Indian poetry. Almost every Indian schoolboy has grown up reciting, "Lightly we bear her along, she sways like a flower in the wind of our song; she skims like a bird on the foam of a stream. She floats like a laugh on the lips of a dream".

Mukhdoom Mohiuddin, the communist leader, was another, known as much for his leftist leanings as for his sensitive verse. There was the qawwal Azis Ahmed Khan Warsi and, of course, there was Ghulam Ahmad, an excellent off-spinner and in later years a distinguished civil servant and cricket administrator. In 28 Test matches, official and unofficial, he took 99 wickets with 5 wickets in an innings 7 times, and 10 wickets in a match twice.

Perhaps the late N T Rama Rao would qualify to be a Hyderabadi too given the amount of time he has spent in the city. But his ascent towards acquiring the status of a legend on the Telegu screen was made in Madras which was then the centre of the Telegu film industry. And the former Prime Minister, Mr P V Narasimha Rao, has had his share of Hyderabad too.

Shyam Benegal returned to his roots and captured the ethos of Hyderabad brilliant in his first film Ankur and then again in Mandi. And Dr Anji Reddy gave the world ibuprofen at a price they could not believe. His company, Dr Reddy's labs, is now a stock market favourite and his achievement is the stuff corporate case studies are made of.

But none of these people have stirred the country like cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin has. And yet, the fact that one can remember the city's success stories on one's fingertip shows how little Hyderabad has contributed to the national achievement pool. Frequently, an atmosphere of success acts as a seed to more achievement and in Hyderabad, Azhar did not have it. As another eminent Hyderabadi, the celebrated advertising professional Mohammad Khan, who had a role in starting Rediffusion and Contract before he set up his own agency, Enterprise, says, "Hyderabad is for people who want to get up at nine in the morning stroll into office and have a cup of tea. It's not for someone with fire in his belly. I'd give anything to be able to live there but in the profession I am in, I think I'll go mad if I did."

Harsha Bhogle is one of India's best known cricket commentators. Excerpted from Azhar by Harsha Bhogle from Penguin Books