New Delhi, May 9 -- I skipped the World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, organised by the Union ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) and Maharashtra government, in Mumbai last week. Not because I wasn't interested, but because crowds have now started to unnerve me in ways I didn't expect. Part of it could be a post-pandemic rewiring-spaces that once felt electric now feel claustrophobic. But the other part is harder to name: a quiet exhaustion that comes from dealing with online mobs. When you have spent significant time being dogpiled in digital spaces, offline crowds begin to carry that same strange weight. You start scanning for threats, not connections.

Even as I sat out the first edition of this four-day sum...