Dr Arundhathi
Funding period: 12 January 2026 – 31 August 2026
Type of funding:
Other Grants
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69752/Y3QA-NS83
Award Number: USF-KMA-251201
Partner organisations: O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India.
Lead organiser: Dr Arundhathi, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India
Team member: Sarah Zia, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India
Event dates: Documentary Film Public Screening and Panel Discussion July/August 2026
Contact: Dr Arundhathi
Abstract:
Recent research on New Delhi’s bus service has focused on the lack of an efficient, reliable and adequate service (Bhatt 2019; Gowande and Pradeep 2025). Over and above, there is not enough literature (academic or non-academic) that examines the lived experiences of bus use in the Indian context, or that of transport-related infrastructures. Responding to the lack of “social research on bus journeys” (Jain 2010) and the negative popular perception of the bus service in New Delhi, this project aims to draw attention to passengers’ lived experiences of using bus infrastructures such as bus terminals in contemporary Delhi. It is anecdotally known that many passengers who use Delhi’s bus system often end up waiting for long durations, in the absence of reliable timetables and tracking mechanisms. Moreover, as many of these passengers come from socio-economically marginalised backgrounds, their voices often go unheeded in transport policy discussions. Through a short documentary film that follows three people as they navigate their way through Delhi’s bus terminals to find a bus, this project seeks to expand our understanding of waiting as an integral aspect of everyday mobility in the Global South and how it informs being in the city. This documentary film is expected to be released through a public screening in July–August 2026, followed by a post-screening panel discussion to facilitate a dialogue between transport policymakers, passengers (the film participants) and academics. The film will also be screened in academic institutions and film festivals whenever possible.
The project Just Waiting/Bas Intezar entails a documentary film that captures narratives of passengers waiting at bus terminals in New Delhi, India. By examining how waiting is an integral and inescapable part of everyday bus mobility, the film aims to throw light on how waiting also informs belonging in the city. By foregrounding the experiences of bus passengers, the film seeks to inform transport policymaking, particularly to ensure that lived experience is taken as the basis for policymaking, rather than a top–down approach that does not consider the experiences of everyday mobility at all.