Delhi

If a director needed inspiration for a post apocalyptic vision of the future, he need go no further than Delhi. No imagination could conjure nor capture the essence of this city. I have never seen anything more alien. It felt like I missed my stop and ended up on the wrong planet.

Weaving our way through the medieval back alleys of the Chandni Chowk Bazaars I am a stranger in another world. The alleys are impossibly narrow instilling nighttime on to daylight. The merchants ply their wares virtually on top of one another and once the day’s trading is finished they scramble up a makeshift ladder on to the roof of their 2sqm shop and huddle under the shelters they’ve built from corrugated iron sheets, gunnysacks and tarpaulins. We constantly had to flatten our backs against the wall to let through loads fit for a mule with only two small brown legs visible beneath – deftly propelling it along through the claustrophobic space.

If a director were to go to Delhi, sure, he would find inspiration. But anything that made it up on screen would be a pale imitation – a mere symbol of the real thing. My even writing this is an act of futility. You have to go there yourself to breathe that air and see those unbelievable situations that happen every millisecond on every street.

Even if the director had the kind of budget necessary to attempt this, he would need a set designer that could create the kind of architectural chaos that would send a Bauhaus fanatic into a fit, with each building being a palimpsest of several – from Ancient to recent, from blackened cement to cardboard.

The art department would have to add centuries of grime to the structure as the Animal Trainers brought in mules that could sit out a mortar bombardment without so much as a flinch.

The casting department would have to seek out thousands of extras ranging from the heartbreakingly beautiful to the tragically deformed and everything in-between – all of them with their life story etched on their faces.

The Gaffers would have to abandon every Health & Safety measure they’ve learned and rig up kilometers of tangled electrical wire and suspend it just above head height above every alley, with each wire sprouting new branches – splicing off to power yet another light bulb, another TV set. The Gaffers must pay no heed to what might happen to this set-up if it rained.

The wardrobe department would have to source Saris of the most brilliant colours and delicate fabric and sew on little pieces of glass that dazzle the eye when they hit the light. The 1st assistant director would need the help of a choreographer to train the extras so they can move through the dirt and grime without so much as a mark on their clothing.

The Sound Engineer could record the din of an actual Delhi street – with horns, revving unmufflered motors, screeching breaks and shouting hawkers layering upon themselves exponentially until you have an impenetrable wall of sound – but the sound system to deliver such an assault in the required 3D doesn’t exist yet.

Even if the director were to succeed in capturing all of these approximations with the aid of a killer Director of Photography – what would appear on screen would be a disappointment. For no director (or writer) can capture the feel of that dirty air soup that lines the inside of your mouth, clings to your skin and seeps in to you pores or that combination of sewage, spice and incense that once it hits your nose stays in your sensorial memory forever. Not only are these impossible to capture, it is simply untenable that anybody could (through any medium) convey the fractal-like depth of what is going on around you. The deeper you look the more you’ll see - and the more you’ll miss out on seeing.

Delhi is like the universe. Indefinable, it never stops. Never stops creating, never stops dying and whatever you witness through the tunnel of your senses is at once everything and nothing at all.