Life Without Cinema is azoic.

I am in India right now locked at my place and waiting for the things to get normal. Pandemic is creating havoc here, economy is down, salaries are being cut, people are losing jobs and if not that then definitely losing lives. And I, a fortunate one, just eat, sleep and write the whole day, I have started feeling like a zombie and the only thing which keeps me going and gives me the sense of being a human is; Cinema.

Netflix, Amazon Prime and other OTT streaming platforms are my medicines to be sane these days; I watch films from all around globe, trying to live the lives of all the characters from different cultures and regions. And not to forget the amazing web shows which are available to watch and be lost in them.

You must be thinking how crazy I am, how unreasonable maybe. Think whatever you want to but just give a thought for once on what I am going to say next.

'Life is so boring as if we are jammed in a loop, without realizing we all do the same things', I am glad cinema is here to give us the feel of many lives in one life. It helps us to break the loop at least virtually for some time, diving in an unknown story for some time makes me feel rewarded.

Though I still miss the smell of movie halls, I miss being in the auditorium sitting with unknown crowd, laughing and crying on the same things. Cinema halls unite us unknowingly, I feel sorry for those big screen storytellers who are unable to shoot films because of this pandemic, and actually they are the healers. That's why I always say, Cinema is the best ointment on the wound of reality.

But what I am sorry about the most is the young kids who are yet to enter the magnetic and majestic world of cinema theatres and probably they would never visit there as people have started preferring their tabs, phones, laptops and TV home theatres over movie halls and this pandemic has put the last nail on the coffin of it. Many single screens and multiplexes are being shut down due to heavy losses. I wish this cinema going activity to an auditorium would never abolish, already in a normal scenario also very few people turn up to watch a movie. Dangal which is India’s biggest worldwide grosser to date has only four crore footfall in India and ironically more people have seen it in China, which says the story of how seldom we go to these cinema halls.

The perfect cinema viewing experience has never been the priority of Indians; piracy is another evil which is hollowing the movie making market and off course the viewership. If you watch a well made movie anywhere without noticing the nuances of it on a pirated site in substandard print and audio, then why makers will make honest products. We don’t give respect to the art and in return we get shoddy films mostly because makers just want to make quick bucks.

Art is something which only gets its true value when the stomachs of the crowd are full and in a country like India where most of the people are struggling to get meals of two time, maybe cinema won’t get the required due.

Meanwhile I just want to explore myself through cinema, the characters and the music it has, life becomes so bearable with the presence of movies of course for the fortunate ones. And even the fortunate ones are so unfortunate if they are not attentive, grateful and empathetic, cinema might help them to better the social fabric of the country.

I'll be back with my new vague write-up on cinema again because I dare not hesitate to say that; cinema is more real than reality for me.