I’ve never felt closer to Delhi in a while than I did while watching Dilli Dark in a sparsely filled cinema hall in Mumbai. The film, directed by debutant Dibakar Das Roy, is funny, sharp, unflinching—and deeply familiar.
Dilli Dark tells the story of Michael Okeke, an African man in his early twenties who has been living in Delhi for the last six years. “New Delhi is to many Nigerians what New York is to India,” he says. With no family left back home, Michael is alone in a city that both claims and alienates you—one that allows you to belong just enough to remind you that you don’t fully. What surprised me most was how easily and humorously the film dissects the many layers of othering that Delhi offers to outsiders. Michael’s problems are unique to his skin, but not to his experience—his alienation is deeply rooted in how Delhi treats difference, whether regional, racial, or religious. The city serves as a convergence point for people from across the country, and with that convergence comes a hierarchy of who belongs more.
Michael’s encounters reveal how irrationality, outrage, and performative nationalism have come to define everyday interactions in a society increasingly driven by sensationalism. When he calls a repairman to fix his refrigerator, the man notices some meat inside and arbitrarily decides it must be human flesh. He immediately creates a scene, accusing Michael of being a cannibal. No proof, no context—just pure, paranoid sensationalism In a country where news anchors routinely spread misinformation without facing consequences, such leaps of logic have become part of everyday discourse. There’s no need to rationalize—because rationality has no place in the machinery of sensationalism. In another instance, Michael complains about the incessant Diwali firecrackers: “Isn’t Delhi already very polluted?” His remark provokes outrage from his co-inhabitants. One accuses him of insulting their culture; another throws firecrackers at him. The absurdity escalates. That’s the logic of a city where anger often substitutes for argument, and identity is always under threat. In a city—and a country—increasingly shaped by suspicion, rumour, and the viral power of misinformation, he becomes an easy scapegoat.
The film also challenges the blanket stereotypes that shape public perception. In Delhi, Africans are often associated with drugs or crime. This taint makes legal employment difficult, which in turn pushes some toward the very activities that fuel the stereotype. It’s a vicious cycle, and the film lays it bare without moralizing. The line “In Delhi, you just have to exist to be a f*****. If you’re Bengali, then Bengali f*****, if Punjabi, then Punjabi f*****, if Bihari, then Bihari f*****” immediately reminded me of the sequence in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, where characters from different racial communities face the camera and hurl slurs at one another. Both moments are uncomfortably funny, and deeply telling. Colourism, of course, is not new to India. We’ve built multi-crore industries on the idea that fairness equals beauty and virtue. In one scene, Michael’s only real friend—a Bengali neighbour always seen munching on biryani—sums it up bitterly: “The British did it to us. Now we do it to ourselves—and everyone around.” It’s this tone—irreverent yet unsparing—that gives Dilli Dark its edge. We relate to Michael, and yet we are distanced from him. He’s both mirror and stranger. I was reminded of Prateek Vats’ Eeb Allay Ooo!, another Delhi-set satire that follows a langur impersonator hired to chase monkeys from government buildings. There too, the protagonist becomes a symbol—one we understand, yet are uneasy about.
Social media is tightly woven into the film’s narrative fabric. We first meet the godwoman Maa (later revealed to be Maansi), played by the brilliant Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, on a YouTube show titled Dilli Se Hoon. Michael, through a fluke, goes viral for singing the film’s title track—“Hum kaale hain, Dilli waale hain”—a wordplay on the popular song Hum kaale hain to kya hua dilwaale hain. The song repeats perhaps a bit too often, but its satirical punch lands. Michael’s accidental fame catches Maa’s attention, and she hires him to pose as her international disciple. From here, the film spins into further absurdity, exposing Delhi’s obsession with image, status, and spectacle.
Samuel Abiola Robinson, who broke out with Sudani from Nigeria, delivers a performance of restraint and quiet strength. His Michael is no caricature. He’s lived in Delhi long enough to have adopted its mannerisms and temper. In many ways, he is a Dilliwalla. But he can never forget how the city sees him. In one particularly wrenching moment, a boy not even in his teens chases Michael down the street shouting, “Kaalu! Kaalu!” The supporting characters are archetypal Dilliwallas—loud, nosy, opinionated, often hypocritical. But they never feel flat. Each person reflects a particular attitude that the city breeds: the defensive chauvinism, the casual racism, the transactional warmth.
Dilli Dark is not a perfect film. It stumbles in places—repetitive musical cues, a slightly uneven pace—but it dares to ask bold questions through humour and satire. It never preaches, yet it forces you to reflect. For me, the film did something rare: it made me see Delhi again—not just the city I know, but the one I’ve forgotten, the one I look away from. And in the quiet moments of laughter and discomfort, I felt close to it again. That, I think, is a kind of triumph.
