As a non-resident Indian (NRI) growing up in Dubai in the early 2000s, my experience of cinema revolved around going to plush multiplex theatres, situated in the world’s largest mall. Everything was towering, stylish and attractive.
I could not relate to my parent’s stories of home – drive-in theatres, single screen cinemas and a Sunday film on television. But still I romanticized this sort of cinema with a strange nostalgia for something I did not experience. To me, it represented a sense of togetherness.
The movie halls of earlier periods were designed in a way that encouraged people to meaningfully engage with one another. In my mother’s stories of going to the cinema
