It wasn't planned. It was a Sunday evening, and with a steaming cup of coffee, I simply clicked play.
By the time I finished watching, I refreshed my phone and realised something surreal had happened.
Notifications were pouring in: "Satluj was removed from ZEE5 just two days after its release."
The film I had just watched had already disappeared.
Before I could call my movie-loving friends to recommend it or critique it, it was gone. For millions of Indians, it instantly became a film they couldn't watch.
For me, it became something stranger: a film I had accidentally seen just before it vanished.
As journalists, we usually report after something happens.
This time, history unfolded while I was watching.
That's why this isn't a review of Satluj.
It's about what happens when a film disappears before most people even get the chance to decide whether they like it.
The first question people asked wasn't:
"Was the film any good?"
It was:
"Did you get a chance to watch it?"
That's perhaps the most revealing part.
When a film disappears, the conversation rarely remains about cinema.
It becomes about power.
Who objected?
Who complained?
Who decided?
Who gets to decide what millions of people should or shouldn't be allowed to watch?
Whether one agrees with Satluj or not almost becomes secondary.
Because disagreement is exactly what cinema is supposed to invite.
Art isn't valuable because everyone agrees with it.
It's valuable because people don't.
A controversial film should spark conversations, not disappear before they begin.
Indian cinema has been here before.
Udta Punjab was asked to make dozens of cuts before its release.
Lipstick Under My Burkha was initially denied certification for being "lady-oriented" before eventually reaching theatres after legal appeals.
Unfreedom never received a theatrical release in India.
Punjab 95, now Satluj, based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, has spent years navigating certification disputes.
Each case is different.
Each has its own legal context.
But together, they raise the same uncomfortable question:
Is India's biggest challenge in cinema making films, or ensuring people can actually watch them?
As journalists, we spend our careers defending access: access to government files, access to court documents, access to information that allows citizens to form their own opinions.
Shouldn't access to art matter too?
Because the moment a film disappears, audiences lose something fundamental.
Their ability to decide for themselves.
Instead, opinions are outsourced.
To politicians.
To pressure groups.
To social media.
To headlines.
Suddenly, people are debating a film they've never seen.
Ironically, taking a film down often gives it a second life.
Not on streaming platforms, but in whispers.
On Reddit threads.
On Telegram links.
In pirated files.
In political debates.
The film stops being cinema and becomes a symbol.
A symbol of censorship, resistance and offence.
Rarely is it allowed to simply remain a film.
I don't know whether Satluj will return.
Also Read: Why Satluj Was Removed in India: The Story Behind Diljit Dosanjh's Film
Maybe it will.
Maybe it won't.
But what stayed with me wasn't just the story on screen.
It was the fact that if I had opened ZEE5 half an hour later, my opinion of the film wouldn't have been my own.
It would have been shaped by everyone else's.
That's what disappears first when creative freedom is constrained.
Not the film.
The audience's choice.
Creative freedom isn't tested by films everyone agrees with.
It's tested by films that divide us.
Because democracy isn't measured by how we treat comfortable ideas.
It's measured by whether uncomfortable ones are allowed to exist.
You don't have to love every film.
Also Watch: He predicted it and hours later it did happen…
You don't even have to like it.
But before we argue over whether a story deserves to stay on our screens, perhaps the first question should be:
Did we ever allow the audience to watch it in the first place?
