#lecture: Drinks, Divides, & the Drama of Borders

#lecture

When was the last time you attended a bar talk by a documentary film maker on the daily realities and complexities of people living in India's border areas?

When we think of borders, popular culture often conjures images of conflict. What’s usually missing from these images are the very people who reside in border areas, for whom negotiating the border is not an exotic idea, but a daily reality. The lecture will take you on a kaleidoscopic journey to India’s deepest recesses and explore the everyday complexities of life at India’s margins. Through images, videos, anecdotes, and songs, we will meet common Indians who deal with borders in their own unique ways and come out with light, humor, and hope from the darkest possibilities. Touching the themes of migration, kinship, and fluid identities, this lecture invites you to look beyond the media’s obsession with “Us vs Them” - towards a more complex and intersectional world of “Us and Them”.

We're delighted to present Samarth Mahajan, a Mumbai-based filmmaker with a special interest in narratives from India’s border areas. His work includes two national award-winning documentaries - the latest feature ‘Borderlands’ explores lives defined by India's borders, and the film ‘The Unreserved’ captures stories from general compartments of Indian Railways. He is now writing his narrative feature debut, and developing it at the Writers INK Screenwriting Lab 2024, an idea-to-draft lab supported by Ford Foundation and Netflix.

You can learn more about him & his films here → Bio | Work | IMD

What to Expect:

✦ 12:00 PM – Doors open. Arrive early to grab your seat; seating is first come, first served.

✦ 12:00 – 12:15 PM – Settle in, order your drinks and food, and ease into the space with a few conversations.

✦ 12:15 PM – The lecture begins.

✦ 01:00 PM – We open the floor for questions and a shared discussion with the speaker.

✦ 1:30 PM onwards – Stay back for more food, drinks, and conversations that linger.

About Pint of View Delhi

Inspired by the Lectures on Tap movement in the US, Pint of View creates informal spaces for serious ideas. It brings together philosophy, science, technology, and art in settings where conversations unfold slowly and critical inquiry feels collective rather than instructional.

📌 Note: Alcohol will be served only to guests aged 21 and above. Non-alcoholic options will be available. Attendance implies consent to being filmed for event documentation.