Changing city gets fitting filmi tribute

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Films that have cities as their characters do much more than a good casting job. They immortalise the streets, corners, markets, which you so consider your own and show them like you have never seen before. A feeling which any Dilliwallah must have when watching films like Chashme Buddoor, Dev D or Rang De Basanti. So, when as a part of their film club, the Habitat Centre recently decided to showcase a series called Delhi in 80s, which played movies from that watershed decade showing the city in a hazy meandering light, we were more than intrigued and decided to find how exactly was it then, with its Appu Ghar and empty roads?
Madhur Verma, a filmmaker who spent most of his school life in the city has very few albeit distinct memories of the decade. “Hanging out meant meeting at the Prince Pan Bhandar and we would often drive around in cycles all over the city. Monuments like the Humayun’s Tomb were a favourite haunt and we would often go there to spend the evenings after classes got over,” he tells us.
When we spoke to the programmes team at the Habitat Centre about choosing this topic for the film screenings, we were told about 80s being a formative decade for Delhi. “The early 80s were laidback, pollution free, hosted the mega Asian Games in 1982 and saw the opening of Appu Ghar. The blockbuster TV serial Hum Log emptied cinema halls. The arrival of the Maruti car and the 1984 riots post the assassination of Mrs Gandhi changed the texture and the traffic of the city conclusively and this selection is reminiscent of that halcyon Delhi of the 80s,” said Vidyun Singh, Director of programmes, Habitat World and Epicentre.
But if you thought that the vibrant culture of the present times is a direct antecedent of that era, then not everyone agrees. Theatre veteran Sohaila Kapur says that the city is more thriving now than then. “The roads are much wider and there are many more flyovers than there were at that time. But culture today is richer due to international presence, with so many different cuisines and artforms one can try. I do miss the trees though, they have reduced,” she says.
And activist, writer Sadia Dehlvi agrees. “Delhi was then more like an urban village where everyone knew everyone. But culturally, the city is far more alive now and attracts the world’s best musicians, artists, actors and authors. It’s the skyline and people who have changed the most. To find genuine friends is a rarity, and networking is the new buzzword. Frankly, Delhi has become too big for me to handle and I do not enjoy swanky malls and newer areas,” she reminisces.