Try it at your risk. Just don’t think of the movies for a month or even for a fortnight like I am attempting currently. Chances are that you’ll go stark raving nuts. Or emerge so blissed out that, like the eminently sagely Deepak Chopra, you could make a living out of giving self-help lectures throughout the world.

My experiment with detoxing the movies out of my system seems to be thrusting me towards the stark-raving-nuts category. I can’t stand it. It’s been a week since I haven’t seen a film. I haven’t sneak peeked at a teaser-trailer on television cut by the promo wizards Binny and Padha (would love to meet this pair of Abbas-Mustan-like brothers). No FM radio channel has me lusting for Chamki Chameli. And I haven’t even glanced at the digitised first look ads for Aamir Khan’s police flick Talaash. This is the cosmos I have left behind, and I am suffering.

Cinema is an addiction, a narcotic. Believe me, I could quit smoking and go easy on my single malts, but not the new release every Friday. If I don’t catch a film on its opening weekend, I am convinced I have sinned. Not done, not done. Truth be told, actually it’s not difficult for a movieholic to reduce at least the size of his or her pegs. From Patialas it is possible to go to Puducherries.

In my case, this has manifested itself in feeling more than okay about skipping Chaalis Chaurasi (though I do like to see Atul Kulkarni... Ravi Kissen I am not sure about). I could also avoid Mujhse Fraanship Karoge, Rascals, Game and any Vinay Pathak as-hero-film like the bubonic plague. Yup, there’s no issue at all in cutting down on the number. It’s the need for a fix at least once or twice... er thrice... that’s the problem. The last time I was at a ‘plex, I was in and out of The Dirty Picture (repeat viewing), J Edgar and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A packed, satisfying day.

So even as I have self-exiled myself to a location without any multiplexes and TV sets, I am breaking into a celluloid sweat. Wonder why. Probably because I truly, madly and deeply cannot find an alternative. At this isolated Himalayan spot, from where I am laptopping this account of my no-movies-experiment, the daily meditation and lecture series haven’t worked for me.

I see the goings-yawn as a plot which could be turned into one helluva boring but award-winning film on the meaning of existence. Hmm, who could direct it? Probably myself if the producer signs a contract.

Quite often they don’t and make you pay even for the tea and bhajias during the shooting. Umm, so a meditation drama is certainly not an option.

Theatre should be a wonderful escape from the ‘plexes. I’ve tried my damndest to get to that stage, going to the extent of even directing a play. I’m sure theatre is the most creative and demanding of art forms but let me tell you of a recent evening when I just didn’t comprehend why the audience was loving a political allegory set in Bagdad of all places. It was an adaptation of a famous play and all that, but why should I be interested in Bagdadi strife. I’d rather learn about what’s immediately relevant to me. And er... it had... a character who was supposedly bisexual. Okay, so what’s the big deal? It happens.

Retreat centres and theatre can’t replace cinema for me. So, what can? Art as in paintings, installations and sculpture.

Well, I tried that too before the Himalayan retreat. I hung out at Delhi’s mammoth Art Fair hoping to find that one Gone with the Paint Brush or Mughal-e-Canvas. Sorry again, it was the masters who were way ahead the most engrossing and wondrous. The canvases of M F Husain, Souza, Ram Kumar and Akbar Padamsee rocked. Damien Hirst limited edition prints were divine. The small works of Dali, Chagall and Miro, were clearly omigawd. But what to say of a tall fashion model wearing a dress made of old neckties? He wasn’t fashion challenged, he was... cross my heart... an art installation! So that’s it. Someone get me out of here right here righ now. As soon as I land in Mumbai, I’ll head straight for Agneepath. I have to see Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra. I’m not so sure about and Katrina Kaif lighting up a bidi. Now she must quit smoking but I must never quit movie watching. If anyone has succeeded in kicking up this habit, do let me know... please.