Delhi events in May

Delhi still has some excellent Urdu and Hindi calligraphy artists, and Stuti Arora – twelve years in the craft – is one of them. This beginner-friendly workshop at Museo Camera walks you through brushes, papers, and techniques, and sends you home with personalised merchandise you actually made. In the age of digital everything, there's something satisfying about ink on paper.

When: May 31, 4pm 
Where: Museo Camera Centre for the Photographic Arts, Gurugram 
Tickets: ₹9,000 onwards

Seema Pahwa and Ratna Pathak Shah on the same stage, in a ninety-minute theatrical production rooted in stories by Bhisham Sahni and Mannu Bhandari, two names that carry weight in Hindi literature. Pahwa is the director, and the material she's chosen ranges from social issues to loneliness – the kind of wrap theatre was made for. 

When: May 31, 7.30pm 
Where: Sri Ram Centre for Performing Arts
Tickets: ₹500 onwards

With over a thousand shows across the world and a YouTube series that made him a household name, Kanan recently had a houseful run with 'Keep It Real' – he doesn’t take breaks so much as he changes sets. 'Not This Again' is new, and if his track record is anything to go by, you'll still be in splits on the way back home.

When: May 23-24, multiple slots 
Where: The Laugh Store, DLF Cyberhub, Gurugram 
Tickets: ₹1,500

Written by acclaimed Marathi playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar and directed by Lilette Dubey, this English-language production is a psychological, memory-driven drama centred on an ageing celebrated writer dictating his life story to a sharp young PhD researcher. Dubey leads a cast that includes Denzil Smith, Suchitra Pillai, and Sarah Hashmi. 

When: May 29, 7pm 
Where: Kamani Auditorium
Tickets: ₹650

This is a veteran comic who’s a Netflix alumnus who’s a former CEO who’s, now, a grandfather. Khatri's latest show is a riff on his four-year-old grandson, his dog Mr. Butter Khatri, and over four decades of marriage – which, in the right hands, is a comedy goldmine. Fortunately, he has those hands.

When: May 24, 6pm 
Where: The Comedy Theatre, Hauz Khas 
Tickets: ₹900

For decades, Australian alternative health educator Barbara O'Neill has been advocating for a return to nature, and now she's bringing it to Delhi in the form of a one-day interactive masterclass. The sessions cover obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, and constipation: essentially, everything on the Indian family group chat. Whether you're a sceptic, it's a full day of material worth engaging with.

When: May 27, 3pm 
Where: NSUI Auditorium, New Delhi 
Tickets: ₹4,500 onwards

Thirty years of making Western pop and Indian music sound like they were always meant to be the same song, and Penn Masala (one of India's first acapella groups) is marking the milestone with the release of their 13th album, 1996. They've performed at the White House and the Paris Olympics. Now they're in Delhi. 'Shape of You' and 'Pasoori' in the same breath, done entirely with voices.

When: May 28, 7.30pm 
Where: Kedarnath Sahni Auditorium
Tickets: ₹500 onwards

After a Boiler Room Paris set that made the internet pay close attention, Trym's trajectory in the electronic music scene has shot up like a firecracker. His debut India tour touches down in May with a three-night, multi-city run, Delhi included.

When: May 22-24
Where: TBD 
Tickets: TBD

Twenty-four Grammys, a catalogue which shaped the trajectory of modern rap and hip-hop. A dome stage. And a first-ever India date, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Most tickets were gone before March even began, but last-minute resales have a way of surfacing. Do we need to repeat his name?

When:  May 28, 8pm 
Where: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
Tickets: ₹7,500 onwards

Rather than treating drawings, etchings and watercolours as the warm-up act to the real business of oil on canvas, this show holds out the page for postcolonial themes of doubt, hesitation and erasure. Sixteen artists, including Bhupen Khakhar, F N Souza, Jangarh Singh Shyam and Jogen Chowdhury, are brought together, and interestingly, this isn’t curated by school, region or even chronology. If you've ever assumed Indian modernism lived only on the big iconic canvases, this show will surely fix that.

When: Until May 30. Open Sun-Fri. 11am-7pm. Saturday closed.
Where: Gallery Dotwalk
Entry: Free

Delhi’s one of the Indian cities where you most feel the weight of good architecture – the strength of the memories it can invoke, and how a building’s character can quite literally change yours. Like the ones you passed in a cab and thought about for three days, or imagined from a description, or lost to circumstances you'd rather not name. Five artists have been brought together here around this premise. Don’t bring a first date here. This demands some serious staring.

When: Until May 25. Open Mon-Sat, 11am-7pm. Sunday closed.
Where: LATITUDE 28 gallery
Entry: Free