World City Guide

Culture

The premier performing arts institute is Sangeet Natak Akademi, Firoz Shah Road (tel: (011) 2338 7246; website: www.sangeetnatak.com), while the arts complex of Triveni Kala Sangam, Tansen Marg (tel: (011) 2371 8833), contains two galleries devoted to fine art and an open-air and an indoor theatre, as well as a sculpture park and bookshop.

Among the ranks of Delhi's ‘chaterati’, the India International Centre, 40 Lodhi Estate (tel: (011) 2461 9431; website: www.iicdelhi.nic.in), is a political icon and post-Independence institution. The capital’s premier cultural centre, it organises seminars, lectures, music and dance recitals, as well as screening films on all aspects of Indian culture and environment. Nearby is the huge and recently-built India Habitat Centre (tel: (011) 2468 2001-9; website: www.indiahabitat.org), junction of Lodhi Road and Max Mueller Marg, which offers a lively and interesting programme of drama and lectures.

Most of the cultural centres host concerts and exhibitions, as well as screening films in English or their native language. These include, on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, the German cultural centre Max Mueller Bhavan (tel: (011) 2332 9506; website: www.goethe.de/su/ned/enindex.htm), the British Council (tel: (011) 2371 1401; website: www.britishcouncil.org/india), and the American Centre (tel: (011) 2331 6841; website: http://americanlibrary.in.library.net), at D13 NDSE Part II, the Alliance Francaise (tel: (011) 5101 2091-4; website: www.afdelhi.org), on Golf Links, the Italian Culture Centre (tel: (011) 2687 1901; website: www.italcultindia.com), and, on Firoz Shah Road, the Japan Cultural Centre (tel: (011) 2332 9838) and the Russian Cultural Centre (tel: (011) 2332 9102), which houses the Eisenstein Film Club.

Local newspapers Hindustan Times (website: www.hindustantimes.com) or Times of India (website: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com) carry daily and weekly listings of all events and should be the reference point for anyone interested in sampling the rich cultural life of Delhi. City Scan, City Guide and delhidiary magazines also carry listings.

Music: Delhi’s concert halls tend to be busy more or less year round, with the Delhi Symphony Orchestra performing at the Kamani Auditorium, Copernicus Marg (tel: (011) 2338 8084) and the FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg (tel: (011) 2335 7369). Hindustani music is by far the most popular, closely followed by Karnatic music. Some of Delhi’s open-air venues, such as the majestically lit Qutb Minar (see Key Attractions), provide a dramatic backdrop for select performances. The Delhi Music Society (tel: (011) 2611 5331) is based at Nayaya Marg, Chanakyapuri.

Theatre: Delhi is well provided with innovative theatres and the area just to the north of India Gate is home to a number of these, including the Kamani Auditorium (tel: (011) 2338 8084), on Copernicus Marg. The Abhimanch, Bahawalpur House (tel: (011) 2338 9402), stages an exciting programme of theatre, dance and films through the year.

Dance: Lovers of dance are well catered for in Delhi, seeing as a rich mix of classical (including Kathak, Bharatnatyam and Kathakali) folk and tribal dance, as well as ballet, are performed at various auditoria throughout the year. Hauz Khas, Delhi-Mehrauli Road, is a good spot to join well-heeled Delhiites, as they sit back over a meal or a drink while taking in an open-air dance or music performance. The India International Centre, 40 Lodhi Estate (tel: (011) 2461 9431; website: www.iicdelhi.nic.in), and Triveni Theatre, 205 Tansen Marg (tel: (011) 2371 8833), are both popular venues for regular, professional dance shows.

Film: Cinema is by far the most popular form of entertainment in India - it has been suggested that 23 million Indians watch a film every day. The glitzy love stories and action movies of Bollywood attract huge audiences and their stars are national figures. There are any number of cinemas in Delhi, some showing only films in Hindi, some only in English and some in both languages. English-language films are shown, among many others, at the Ritz, Kashmiri Gate, and the Chanakya, Chanakapuri. The movie that is closest to Delhi’s beating heart is the immensely popular Monsoon Wedding (2001), which was set in the city. The busy marketplaces of Delhi punctuated director Mira Nair’s beautiful celluloid weaving of character, place and drama.

Literary Notes: The delights of Delhi have been dissected, eulogised and disputed over the generations, by a whole canon of writers of both Indian and Western origin. William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns (1994), the fruit of a year spent in Delhi, is a luminous and penetrative combination of history, observation and anecdote. A meaty slice of Indian life viewed from the inside is Vikram Seth’s epic A Suitable Boy (1993), which follows the lives of four extended families set against the political landscape in a newly independent northern India, in the 1950s. Anita Desai, who was educated in Delhi, also focuses on the time of Partition in her first published novel, Clear Light of Day (1980), which traces the interweaving, departures and reconciliation of the Das family of Old Delhi. Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940) gives a pungent whiff of life in early 20th-century Delhi. Through Ali’s wistful eyes, the reader glimpses the rhythms and rituals of Islamic life in the city, before the construction of New Delhi, a world that was destroyed forever by partition. One of the most prominent of Indian writers today, Arundhati Roy, who won the Booker Prize with God of Small Things (1997), studied and lives in Delhi. Those interested in the history of India’s progress to independence and beyond should search out a copy of Durga Das’s India: From Curzon to Nehru (1969). It is a most absorbing book, written by someone (a Delhi man to the core) who was himself on stage as these momentous events unfolded over a period of 50 years.