As a clutch of films with a Delhi address hits theatres, the capital finally gets some screen presence
There is no better way to know a city than to walk. Walk and wait for the city to yield its secrets. As a college student in the Delhi of the early 1990s, Anurag Kashyap did a lot of that, hunting for books at the Daryaganj Sunday market and scoring dope in Paharganj—a place that he returns to in his new film, Dev.D. Dibakar Banerjee, director of another film with a Delhi address, Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, grew up in Karol Bagh, got beaten up by neighbourhood toughs and got a good look at the street-smart side of the city.

Not too many artists have tried peering into the heart of Delhi, one of the largest cities in the world and home to nearly 1.5 crore people. While Mumbai and Kolkata have near-mythical status, celebrated and reimagined in films and fiction, Delhi has not been seen as the stuff of legends. But Oye Lucky and Dev.D have company. Suddenly, we have a list of films that include the city in their frame, either as prop or as character. The end of last year saw the release of Subash Ghai’s Black and White and Oye Lucky. Nikhil Advani’s Chandni Chowk to China and Dev.D hit cinemas this year, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Delhi-6 releases this month and Abhinay Deo’s Delhi Belly later in the year. For the city, these few screen images add up to something significant. They rub some colour into the bare outline that is the idea of Delhi, give identity to the geography of the city's everyday life.

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