There are many reasons I don’t visit movie theatres anymore. Not that the movies are any better at home, but at least I’m not surrounded by dimwits flashing phone torches into people’s eyes or chronic WhatsApp addicts who can’t hold off messaging their cousins for two goddamn hours.
But yesterday was my wife’s birthday. And so, like any married man who wants to keep living indoors, I gave in.
We went to a nearby theatre to watch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. (Yes, the one where the villain is literally a rogue AI called The Entity, but in the theatre, the real threat was human stupidity.)
As usual, ten minutes into the movie—after Tom Cruise had already done three things the laws of physics wouldn’t approve of—some jackass walks in, waving his phone flashlight around like he’s looking for a lost kidney. Right after that, the lady next to me starts composing WhatsApp epics under her dupatta, as if The Entity personally asked her to forward a chain message for world peace.
Now, let me set the scene. We always book three seats: corner seat for me, then my wife, and then our 6-year-old son. This is by design. The corner seat buffers any popcorn-spilling, question-asking chaos my son might unleash on innocent moviegoers.
Ironically, my son, a true cinema purist, is the only one among us who asks us to put our phones on silent before the film starts. God promise, we’ve never trained him to say that. Must be genetic, from some prehistoric line of theatre-respecting humans.
Anyway, back to the lady next to me. She’s deep into her messaging spree—probably telling her family how intense the scene is, WHILE IT’S HAPPENING. If it were a man, I would’ve leaned over and told him to shut his fucking phone. But since it was a woman, I chose non-engagement. As a rule, I never talk to stranger women. If they want to chat, they can book a consultation. I’m not giving free talk-time.
We could’ve changed seats. But no. This time, I wanted a different kind of justice.
Ola! A brilliant idea struck me. I gently swapped seats with my son. Now, he was sitting right next to her. With a full bucket of popcorn. Six years of curiosity. And unlimited questions.
And I let him be.
From that point onward, I watched the rest of the movie in glorious peace, while my little human distraction did what no adult could. I don’t know exactly what happened on her side of the battlefield, but she kept adjusting her dupatta like she was shielding herself from a sandstorm.
Sometimes revenge doesn’t need a raised voice. It just needs popcorn and a six-year-old with questions like:
• “Why is that man running on the train?”
• “What is an Entity?”
• “Is Tom Cruise a real name?”
• “Amma, this popcorn has a brown one, can I eat it?”
Mission: Possible. Target neutralised.
To the next idiot who pulls out their phone in a theatre: beware. I have a child. And I’m not afraid to use him.