About this book:

New Delhi on Film and Television examines how cinema, television, and streaming platforms portray India's capital and actively shape public imagination of the city. The book argues that Delhi functions not merely as a backdrop but as a narrative engine whose architectures, accents, and anxieties influence how publics navigate, remember, market, and visit it. Through close textual analysis combined with production studies, urban geography, and media history, it traces how different media eras—from Doordarshan's nation-building broadcasts to satellite television's commercial diversification and streaming platforms' gritty realism—have framed distinct aspects of Delhi life. Central to this inquiry are the concepts of the "Raisina gaze" (power framed through national symbolism), the "bazaar gaze" (the intimate bustle of Old Delhi), and the "periphery gaze" (aspirational vistas of the NCR edge), which reveal how location politics, permits, policing, and power structures fundamentally shape what gets filmed and how.

The work delves into Delhi's layered urban fabric as a cinematic palimpsest, analyzing how filmmakers juxtapose Old Delhi's historic chaos, Lutyens' Delhi's monumental bureaucracy, and the NCR's aspirational edge cities to explore social contrasts, generational divides, and the contradictions of Indian modernity. It examines how media represents gendered geographies of safety and mobility, caste and class dynamics through spatial segregation and linguistic markers (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, English, Hinglish), protest cultures at sites like Jantar Mantar and India Gate, crime narratives across formats, and monuments as emotional architecture for love and loss. The book also highlights sensory dimensions—soundscapes of traffic and ritual, foodways as narrative devices, and transit aesthetics of the Metro and highways—showing how these textures anchor viewers in place and produce a sense of "Delhi-ness." Chapters on bureaucracy, production design, and platform politics reveal the invisible infrastructures that make on-screen images possible, from permit negotiations to algorithmic curation on streaming services.

Furthermore, the book investigates Delhi's transnational image through foreign films, documentaries, and diasporic gazes, noting how international productions both amplify and challenge domestic narratives while fueling screen tourism that transforms fictional locations into real-world destinations. It emphasizes how media portrayals influence urban development, investment decisions, and public perception, creating feedback loops where screen representations shape reality and vice versa. Drawing on archival research, location mapping, and interviews with filmmakers, location managers, and fixers, the work provides practical insights into shooting realities—navigating Delhi's unpredictable weather, bureaucratic hurdles, community negotiations, and sound recording challenges—while offering an annotated guide for location scouts. Ultimately, the book contends that Delhi's on-screen portrayal does not just mirror the city but actively participates in building it, shaping the routes we take, the places we value, and the futures we can imagine through the powerful interplay between media representation and urban experience.

What You'll Find Inside:

• The evolution of Delhi's portrayal from Doordarshan's nation-building imagery to streaming platforms' gritty realism
• How location politics—including permits, policing, and power dynamics—fundamentally shape what can be filmed and how Delhi appears on screen
• The contrasting cinematic representations of Old Delhi (tradition/community), New Delhi (power/bureaucracy), and the NCR (aspiration/modernity)
• How screen media influences public perception, drives screen tourism, and shapes Delhi's urban identity and development
• The portrayal of Delhi's social dynamics including gendered geographies, class/caste distinctions, and linguistic diversity (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, English, Hinglish)

Who's It For:

This book is essential reading for film and media studies scholars, urban geographers, and cultural researchers interested in how cities are constructed through screen media. It will also be valuable for filmmakers, location scouts, and production designers working in Delhi who need to understand the complex interplay between media representation and urban realities. Additionally, students and scholars of South Asian studies will find insight into how Delhi's social fabric is portrayed and contested across different media formats.