Dilli Dark: Film resonates with Africans seeking acceptance in Delhi

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

'What New York is for Indians, Delhi is for Nigerians.' Nigerian actor Samuel Abiola Robinson's qualification of the Capital finds an echo in his portrayal of the protagonist of Dilli Dark, a newly released dark comedy that questions the city's attitudes towards race, tolerance, majoritarianism and colonialism.
Robinson, last seen in the 2018 Malayalam film Sudani from Nigeria, plays Michael Okeke, who seeks to wriggle free of the stereotype so many Africans in Delhi are plastered with. In one scene an electrician, called in to repair a faulty fridge, flees after he sees a plate of meat, shouting that the African man is a cannibal.
Another Nigerian, Ola Jason, 49, knows exactly how that feels. 'Once police came to my house in Malviya Nagar because someone complained that there was a dead baby inside my freezer when in fact it was mutton I had bought from INA Market,' said Jason, who has not yet watched the movie but is aware of the subject.
In the movie which released on May 30, Okeke is determined to get an Indian work permit. To pay the rent, he starts dealing in contraband. 'Everybody knows what you guys are famous for,' a customer tells him.
Such statements are not just lines in a script for Robinson. 'I have lived in Delhi for five years and every few days, someone asks me where they can procure drugs from in Delhi. This is one reality, and the other side of this story is that so many African nationals are rejected from the workforce here that maybe they do turn to this. This is what the movie depicts,' said the 26-year-old.
If finding work is hard in a city like Delhi, finding a house is 'like going to war,' said Jason, who moved to Delhi in 2011, and set up his own casting agency after playing side roles in a few Hindi movies. 'Landlords rejected me even before they met me only because I am Nigerian or they charged me double the rent.'
There's more, said Cynthia Oyo, from Nigeria who lived in Delhi for seven years before moving back home. 'They come up with strange rules like no visitors allowed or a strict 8 pm curfew or triple the rent without explanation. Some people I met are such racists that the minute they find out you're African, they impose all kinds of rules,' said Oyo, who has also acted in Dilli Dark.
The pressure manifests in different ways. Robinson recalled how his neighbour in Dwarka in Delhi would repeatedly cut the power supply of his rented home. 'They didn't want African people living in their colony,' he said.
Large chunks of Dilli Dark are also based on director Dibakar Das Roy's experiences living with Nigerian students while at Delhi University.
'When I came to college in Delhi, there were a string of incidents against Africans. I later worked as a writer in advertising, which is when the impact of how I was treated and the incidents I saw around me came together. But really, it was my time in the US that helped me understand what race was,' said Roy. The 90-minute film was first released at MAMI and toured the festival circuit. It could not find a theatrical release until now.
Largely shot in Delhi's southernmost fringes such as Neb Sarai, Mehrauli and Chhatarpur, the film purposely avoids most of the Capital's reliable identifiers – India Gate, Jantar Mantar, Jama Masjid.
The only exception Roy makes is for the illuminated Qutub Minar. For the character Okeke, it is a lighthouse in a sea of darkness, a short distance from his apartment in Neb Sarai, the south Delhi neighbourhood home to many of the city's 2,500-odd Nigerians.
His other refuge is, in many ways, is Debu, a dark-skinned Bengali who insists he's black and Okeke's brother. 'No you're not,' Okeke clarifies. 'You have no idea.'
For 25-year-old Miracle Dike, who hails from Ghana and made Vikaspuri in Delhi her home six months ago, even a trip to the local market daily is not free from challenges. 'I find people staring at me which makes me extremely uncomfortable. They use racial slurs, even the N-word and that just breaks my heart. When I watched Dilli Dark, I could relate to so much,' said Dike.
Even in the darkness, Roy stressed, Delhi isn't a city without compassion. The film uses power cuts as a recurrent motif, moments of sudden darkness that let crucial characters out of trouble. That for instance, said Roy, is one of Delhi's many moments of compassion.
And there's the great unifier, pointed out Roy, one that's also underlined in his film.
'You want to be an Indian, no?' a teacher in his MBA class tells Okeke. 'Then struggle'.