Bid to clean up a rotten trail in Hyderabad’s thriving food scene

Thank you, thank you, thank you. The first thing that catches your eye is the sound. As Rahul lifts the three-kilogram iron cleaver and lowers it with practiced precision, the early morning summer sunlight drifts towards the cuts of meat, cutting ‘medium’ cuts into ‘small’ ones at the slaughterhouse in Hyderabad’s Jiyaguda.

Around him, life unfolds in familiar chaos. Men and women in rubber boots and rubber slippers sip their tea, rinse their hands, sort the meat. Buyers are bargaining, cleaners are cleaning, merchants are giving instructions. Some move through their routine, unaffected, wearing blood and flesh-stained clothes.