By Mir Ijlal Shaani

Going to the cinema involves a series of small decisions that feel unnecessary until you make them. You leave the house at a fixed time. You buy a ticket, you cannot refund it even if you want to. You accept that once the lights go down, you will not be able to pause, rewind or check something else. These conditions feel restrictive, but they are also what make the experience possible. They ask you to stay.

People have been saying cinema is dying for as long as there have been other screens. When television entered homes, it was assumed the theatre would empty. When video cassettes arrived, the argument hardened. Why leave the house when the film could come to you? DVDs added the promise of ownership and control. Streaming refined the offer, unlimited choice with minimal effort. Each time, the prediction was that convenience would replace commitment.

But cinema was never only about access to images. It was about the act of gathering.

The cinema hall creates a particular kind of attention. You sit among people you do not know, but whose presence alters your experience. Laughter moves across rows. Silence thickens. You notice when someone shifts in their seat. Your response becomes part of a larger pattern, even if you do not acknowledge it consciously. You are both alone and not alone, which is a difficult balance to reproduce elsewhere.

There is also everything that surrounds the film. The interval, for instance, which interrupts the narrative but expands the experience. People stand, stretch, talk. Some argue about the film so far. Some queue for snacks. Outside, the chaiwala waits. Cigarettes are sold one at a time. Someone quietly offers black tickets for the next show. These exchanges are informal, sometimes illegal, but always human. They remind you that cinema has never existed only within official structures.

Piracy has always been part of this ecosystem. Video CDs passed hand to hand. Poorly recorded prints circulated long before platforms offered global catalogs. These practices were often condemned, and often rightly, but they also pointed to something else. A desire to watch. To possess stories when access was denied or delayed. Cinema leaked because people wanted it badly enough to break rules. That hunger has not disappeared. It has only changed form.

Streaming platforms have altered the industry in undeniable ways. They have funded stories that would not survive theatrical economics. They have allowed regional films to travel beyond geography. They have created a space where watching alone is normalized, even preferred. This can be intimate. It can feel protective. It allows viewers to engage privately, without explanation.

At the same time, filmmakers have begun to speak about what is being lost.

Anurag Kashyap, in interviews with Bollywood Hungama and later with Mid-Day, has described the current OTT ecosystem as morally corrupt. His criticism is not directed at technology itself, but at the culture that surrounds it. He speaks about executives driven by fear, about decisions shaped by algorithms and internal metrics, about risk being quietly discouraged. His concern is that cinema becomes predictable, not because audiences demand it, but because systems reward it.

Others express similar unease in a different language. Vikramaditya Motwane has said in conversations with Bollywood Hungama that while platforms offer scale, they also introduce layers of control that dilute authorship. Dibakar Banerjee, speaking to Mid-Day, has talked about the narrowing of permissible stories, about how certain tones and silences struggle to survive in an environment optimized for engagement.

These are not arguments against streaming. They are warnings about the concentration of power. About what happens when too much authority over taste sits in too few places.

The cinema hall resists this in subtle ways. It does not personalize itself for you. It does not adapt to your habits. It asks you to adapt to it. You sit through scenes you might otherwise skip. You encounter boredom, discomfort, and moments of attention you did not plan for. You share these moments with others, whether you want to or not.

Cinema survives because it creates shared vulnerability. You allow yourself to be affected in public. You risk reacting in front of strangers. This is not efficient. It cannot be optimized. But it is meaningful.

Streaming will continue to grow. Some theatres will close. Others will persist, sometimes precariously. Outside them, the chaiwala will still wait. The black ticket seller will still appear. Someone will still argue about the film during the interval. These things matter, not because they are romantic, but because they indicate cinema’s place in public life.

The innocence of watching a film on a big screen is not about purity or nostalgia. It is about trust. Trust in the room. Trust in the people around you. Trust that for a short while, attention can still be shared.

Cinema remains because people continue to choose it, not out of habit, but because watching together still feels necessary.