Dilli Dur Ast (Delhi is still far)

The film attempts to archive India's capital city, Delhi during the period 2013-2015. Shot in more than 200 locations within the state of Delhi, it endeavours to capture the essence of the city. From monuments, religious places, life on the streets, life of the working-class, art, culture and wildlife to political campaigns and protest rallies, the film is aimed to be a collage of nonlinear events, which looks at the issues relating to class divide and socio-cultural pluralism in Delhi.

The interactions between races and religions have always been a feature of this city. It has always been an influential nucleus for progressive inter-community/ religious exchanges. The history of migration into the city has also contributed towards adding more heterogeneity into the socioeconomic and culturescape of Delhi.

Given a slew of corruption charges against the then Congress government at Center and in the state of Delhi, a mass movement against corruption, headed by activist Anna Hazare was launched in 2011. It demanded the constitution of the Lokpal (an ombudsman). While the Lokpal remains to be constituted, the movement saw the formation of The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the rise of the Bhartiya Janata Party(BJP). Correspondingly, since 2011, the city saw the rise of intolerance and a uni-polar politics.

The left parties and the cultural organisations along with other civil society groups staged various protest marches and public meetings. The film attempts to archive the various kinds of protests that were organized by different organisations before the 2014 general elections opposing the rise of the Right Wing in India.

While the AAP was initially seen to be an alternative, after coming to power in the state even they failed to match up to the expectations of their voters. BJP, the populist Right-wing party which came to power at the Center in 2014, soon created a totalitarian political environment through anti-poor and anti-farmer policies and shoving controversial Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) propaganda onto its citizens, ignoring the covid stricken economic crises that the state and the country would go on to face just a few years later. Infighting within and among these two parties, some major wrong decisions from both of these parties in power have earned them the wrath of the people. The two parties that organised support and started the movement against the corrupt politics of the then Congress government in 2011, and promised a new alternative gradually began to seem like a lie.

The film attempts to capture evidence of these events through vivid montages in a non-linear frame. The film covers the political turmoil that the city has seen in recent years. It also attempts to profile and provide evidence of many artistic, communist and intellectual forms of dissent that the city has experienced in the last 3 to 5 years (reference footage used as timelines go beyond 60 years.) in a non-narrative style, using the structure of a city symphony.