Nitya Choubey

It’s a relief to shrug off a rather long and sluggish January. The sun’s coming out, the weather’s near-perfect, with cool mornings, bright afternoons, and evenings that are begging for bar crawls. And February may be the shortest month, but in Delhi this year, it's completely action-packed. The calendar’s stuffed to the brim with theatre, sport, music, culture, and ROMANCE (or did you forget about Valentine’s Day?), making it one of the most reliably busy months to be out and about. The big-ticket item this month is, of course, the T20 World Cup, with multiple matches in Delhi. The music scene’s alive and well too – The Lumineers, Armaan Malik, the India Jazz Project, the HT City Unwind (the GOAT Lucky Ali returns) and the Sufi Heritage Festival (featuring big draws Daler Mehndi and Sona Mohapatra) all in a single month. The Pride Parade and the Delhi Literature Festival are also big crowd pullers, along with the ongoing Bharat Rang Mahotsav, which kicked off in late January and features plenty of theatre productions through the month. We simply cannot forget the Surajkund Mela, which brings artisans from across and beyond India under one roof, selling some of the most unique things money can buy. You’ve also got the big V-Day bonanza starting mid-month, with loads of bars and restaurants hosting special events and offering hefty discounts, so make sure to catch those. But all in all, like we said, February’s weather is too good to be true – so don’t miss this chance to grab

The first week of February's action-packed: the T20 Cricket World Cup kicks off, a bunch of great festivals in town, including the India Jazz Project, HT City Unwind (Lucky Ali and Jasmine Sandlas are slated to perform!) and the fortnight-long Comedy Non-Stop in Noida.  A couple of great exhibitions are on too, whether it's the celebration of 100 years of Satish Gujral at the NGMA, or the ongoing Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters at the Humayun's Tomb museum. The India Art Fair's back in Delhi, and so is the intensely popular Surajkund Mela. India's biggest theatre festival, the Bharat Rang Mahotsav, launched late January, but the good news is that there are dozens of shows stacked up for almost the entire week of February. All in all, it's a busy week. Here's what to look out for. Editor's note: We auto-delete events from this list that've already happened to make sure you don't feel the fear of having missed out.   

February’s biggest draw has always been Valentine’s Day. And what did you picture when I said that? Chocolates? Candlelit dinners? Heart-shaped boxes? Yep, all of the above. But then Pride shows up to remind us all that love doesn’t come in one format.  I repeat – it’s finally time for the Delhi Queer Pride Parade! The excitement’s high after the parade was rescheduled from November last year, which means 2025 passed by without the event. It’s also finally not unbearably cold outside, which in Delhi, feels like a minor miracle after an icy January.  The half-day event’s the biggest celebration of queer identity in the city, and is set to chart its usual course: a march from Connaught Place until Jantar Mantar. Organised by the Delhi Queer Pride community, the event grows bigger and better each year, but the march itself remains as high on energy as ever: folks in snatched outfits, painted faces, bearing slogans. And glitter everywhere.  Here’s everything you need to know: When and where? Allies should flock to Connaught Place by 11am latest on Sunday, February 8 (the parade is always held on a Sunday). Reach 20 minutes early if you want to avoid jostling through a really heavy crowd. This’ll also give you a chance to exit the metro station peacefully (if you’ve come by metro) and chit-chat with people before the march begins.  I do advise against getting a personal vehicle here. The best course is the metro – get down at Barakhamba Road (on the yellow line), and exit from Gat

If you’ve ever accidentally spent an entire day around Mandi House in February, you already know what the Bharat Rang Mahotsav feels like. Darting between auditoriums, clutching paper tickets, debating a play they just watched over chai – it’s when the Delhi theatre neighbourhood really comes alive. And it’s that time of the year again – the National School of Drama’s (NSD) flagship festival returns on January 27. It’s India’s largest theatre festival, so the NSD is most definitely lining up performances beyond the capital, though Delhi’s got the lion’s share (no surprises there). You can catch plays at select locations in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata. But what’s interesting is that this year, the fest marks a new milestone – for the first time, a couple of productions are heading to Sri Lanka, marking its first international outing ever. Over the years, Bharat Rang Mahotsav has hosted everything from large-scale repertory productions and reinterpretations of classics to stripped-back experimental work, late-night performances and international collaborations. It’s also been a space where regional theatre travels. Audiences have been able to discover work in languages they don’t speak, and theatre-makers have found new audiences far from home. So when and where can you actually watch something?The festival runs from January 27 to February 20, with multiple plays often scheduled on the same day. In Delhi, most venues sit within walking distance of each other in the