Things to Do in Delhi

It’s an exceptionally rare day when a film isn’t being screened somewhere in Delhi out of someone’s good will. Tickets to screenings at many of these beloved spots are free or nominal; often, even in the city’s busiest or oddest hours, they draw seriously dedicated viewers and intense conversations. You really don’t have to wait for a classic old film to be digitised online or prove yourself as a buff to be let into some exclusive club. Chances are what you want to watch – and what you didn’t know you wanted to watch – are being screened, like, yesterday, with friendly people at their helm. For years now, we’ve been staying till credits roll in spots and clubs across the capital. This guide rounds up some of the best.

Delhi’s got a little bit of everything when it comes to music – qawwalis, the ever-becoming raga, an emerging underground hip hop scene, vinyl bars, a few really cool karaoke spots. It’s slightly unfortunate then that so many recent conversations about music have strangely become limited to who the next new it-performer’s going to be and which stadium gig recently got sold out.  Let me tell you: there’s a lot more to consuming music in this city beyond fighting for an overpriced ticket on booking platforms that gleefully glitch when you think you’ve finally nabbed one. Some great opportunities to listen to stuff you like and discover new tunes often lurk in WhatsApp forwards, word of mouth, listening club sessions in basements, casual acts on bars’ spare stages, and venues for whom music isn’t even their biggest sell. This guide is a set of entry points into that city. You’ll have to work slightly harder than clicking a genre. You’ll have to watch for announcements, show up somewhere unfamiliar, trust that something worth a shot is about to begin, and even – gasp – be ready to not love every track. The best music has always required a little courage. Delhi asks for no more than that.

Editor's note: This guide, compiled in 2026, lists the best comedy venues in Delhi, Noida and Gurugram, including stand-up comedy clubs, performance spaces, intimate studios and smaller underground venues. The list is curated by Time Out editors based on the quality and variety of comedy on offer, with a focus on venues that regularly host stand-up shows and emerging and established comedians. Delhi may arguably be the king of comedy in India. It’s got the makings of exactly THAT kind of city: brash humour, quick-as-you-please insults, a tangle of communities from across the country that just can’t stop poking fun at each other. It makes for a vaguely delightful kind of inelegance that’s played a big role in churning out some of the topic comics in India today.  Once upon a time, there were only two or three clubs that’d host standup night. Now, Delhi’s crawling with them – so are Gurugram and Noida – and not all are created equal. This guide sorts the sorted from the sordid, from underground rooms to tiny studios. Take a look, book a ticket, and laugh your head off.  Also, it's worth checking out Time Out's weekly events calendar to see which comedian's swinging with a special this week.   

For decades, the city’s queer community navigated underground parties and whispered word-of-mouth locations. Today, the capital’s LGBTQIA+ nightlife scene is starting to boom, far beyond the confines of prioritising a safe space or someone’s parents’ house (though those never get old). You’ve got the trailblazing dance floors of Connaught Place. The free-spirited rooftops of Hauz Khas, the sophisticated mixology-forward bars of Greater Kailash, their nearby chilled-out older sibling dive bars, and those two Aurobindo Market icons that feel like they’re caught in an enemies-to-lovers trope. Delhi’s queer nightlife is more diverse than meets the eye at first. This city hosts spectacular high-decibel drag, sultry corners for dates, and spots for a cold beer, and none of them wave a rainbow flag during Pride month just for the sake of publicity. Some do lovely LGBTQ+-specific programming, while others are local haunts where inclusivity to the queer community is woven into the very fabric of their hospitality. Whether in glitter or a T-shirt, run! Crowds fill in faster on certain nights than others.

Sure, you could do the Qutub Minar dash in twenty minutes, land at Ambawatta One to tick the box of watching the sunset spill over the monuments with a picante, and move on. Spend some more time on Mehrauli’s expanses, though, and your curiosity is rarely not rewarded. This is one of Delhi's oldest neighbourhoods, home to over 50 monuments spanning multiple dynasties – dotted with rose kulfis and steaming chai to boot.  Every year, between September and November, Phool Walon ki Sair takes place. It’s a qawwali-led festival with origins in the 19th century. For three days, Delhiites converge to offer ceremonial floral fans and tributes at two sacred sites: the dargah of 13th-century Sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and the ancient Yogmaya Temple. Then… there’s a contemporary art centre and boutiques with some of India’s most bougie names in design and fusion restaurants. A rather stale phrase, that of the old and new coming together,  comes to the mind of many Delhi residents when describing the city, its gallis and buildings alike. Mehrauli is one of the few areas, personally, where you can get away with saying that and not sounding generic.  You get it. This guide, really, is just asking you to give Mehrauli the kind of time that a Delhi University south campus student would.

The particular fluorescent exhaustion of a Saturday evening in Select Citywalk or DLF Avenue isn’t the end of Saket, though that has its occasional delights. This neighbourhood’s charm also exists in a fashion that I’d call the stuff of side-questers’ and souvenir-grabbers’ dreams.  A bunch of abandoned poultry sheds-turned-cafes that became South Delhi’s favourite budget film indie setting, a sixty-year-old ceramics market that’s become responsible for much of my kitchen’s contents, and arts initiatives in the most unassuming of corners… in the same neighbourhood where post-post-modern sports are kicking off, and lowkey bars compete head-to-head with hundreds of Delhi’s best in-big-building dining spots. Several of my Saket favourites are near a metro station, making most of them reachable in a single visit. But no one visits Saket just once if they live in Delhi. As these picks will likely indicate, bringing friends here is great, but it’s rewarding to give some of these spots some time alone as well.

The never-ending ruckus around chai tapris, a steady drift of classical music, natak companies running lines like opening night is today, and skateboarders slicing through the air: these sounds sum up Mandi House on any given day. This classy-yet-affordable neighbourhood in central Delhi is the closest the city gets to Broadway. But long before Mandi House became Delhi's cultural command centre, it was the private estate of Raja Sir Joginder Sen Bahadur of the former Mandi State in Himachal Pradesh – hence the name. By the 1970s, the king's grand palace had been auctioned off, making way for Doordarshan Bhawan (the OG state-run television broadcaster of newly independent India) and Himachal Bhawan. Around the same time, the area's cultural icons assembled: Lalit Kala Akademi, National School of Drama, Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts, and Triveni Kala Sangam. They, along with a dozen other institutions, helped transform Mandi House from a royal address into the beating heart of Delhi's arts scene. And that's why Mandi House is the city's easiest plan: for an evening, a morning, an afternoon, or whenever you're in the mood to accidentally stumble into a play, an exhibition, a poetry reading, or a handicraft sale. If nothing else, come here for a stroll through its surprisingly quiet backlanes, lined with gorgeous postmodern houses. If you're looking for a head start, begin at any of these spots.  

Connaught Place, locally referred to as 'CP', is perhaps the only place in Delhi to boast crowds, colonial-style buildings, five-star-hotels and good dirt-cheap food all at once.  Featuring several two-storied Georgian-style structures, Connaught Place is made up of two concentric circles: the Inner Circle and the Outer Circle, around a central park (bearing the tallest tricolour flag in the capital). Radial roads bind the two circles tightly. This is fitting, given that CP’s pretty much the epicentre of Delhi’s cuisine and shopping experience. Connaught Place was designed by Robert Tor Russell in the 1950s. Its location gives it an edge: right at the heart of the capital, close to Janpath Market, Jantar Mantar, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, and Mandi House. There’s also a high chance you might stumble upon some cute pop-up performances: a guitar solo, or a living statue.  What does it take to explore Connaught Place at its most beautiful, though? A late evening or midnight walk with friends, I'd say, coupled with this list. 

When the late Mughal emperor Shah Jahan shifted his capital from Agra to Delhi, it’s said that his daughter, Begum Jahanara, was the one responsible for planning and executing the market that stretches out in front of the royal residence, all the way from the Lahori Gate of the Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid at the other end. This distance of nearly 1.4 kilometres spans not just the length of Chandni Chowk, but also that of a few dynasties over the centuries, whose fates were intertwined with that of the city and its denizens.  How to navigate Chandni Chowk The neighbourhood was divided into kuche and galliyan, which were streets and lanes that were both commercial and residential in nature. Folks who practiced the same trade or profession were bunched together into these; the bangle-makers in Galli Chooriwallan, the exquisite kebabs were crafted over coals in Galli Kebabiyan, while Kucha Chelan was where you’d find the equivalents of the modern-day bureaucrats, literally the chelas to the throne! This part of the Walled City remains a one-stop shop for everything you can possibly conjure within the confines of your mind, and then some. Shops selling wedding couture jostle for streetfront space with some of the best chaat joints in the city, while the erstwhile haveli of noblewomen from the 1800s today houses one of the largest electronic markets in all of Asia. Much like the times of yore, Chandni Chowk has different streets which house different markets: Kucha Chaudhary Market near Esplanade for cameras, Ballimaran is known for its eyewear shops, while Dariba Kalan is a hotbed of jewellers and, interestingly enough, shops selling trophies.  The biggest landmarks in Chandni Chowk With horse-drawn buggies, carts pulled by oxen and sometimes even men, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve travelled  back in time when you set foot in Chandni Chowk. The photographs from decades, and even centuries ago, still look much the same as the ones taken today. There’s churches, mosques, temples (both Hindu and Jain) and gurudwaras, all of historic importance, which are situated along either side of Chandni Chowk, and they’ve been there through the years, standing strong as testament to the secularism prevalent in Delhi. Take the Red Fort or the Jama Masjid, for instance – two monuments that anchor each end of Chandni Chowk. How to reach Chandni Chowk It's incredibly difficult for cars to navigate the chaos of the tight lanes, so I suggest you leave your personal conveyance at home. The nearest metro station is Chandni Chowk, on the Yellow Line. Alternatively, you can disembark at the Red Fort Metro Station, on the Violet Line. Once you're inside, you can hire a three-wheeler autorickshaw or rickshaw, or walk!  Chandni Chowk at a glance 😋 Best for street food: Natraj Dahi Bhalle  🥻 Best for shopping: Asiana Couture 📷 Best for knicknacks: Kucha Choudhary Market The pandemonium and human gridlock seldom act as deterrents to tourists, who in fact love seeing the energy in this part of the city. Odes are paid to this maze of streets through time, in the form of lyrics from iconic bollywood songs and exquisite guides for discerning travellers on how to best survive the chaos that is Chandni Chowk. This guide is another attempt at the same.