Ring Once, Wait Two Minutes

A conversation between Moon and Abhinav on movies, matcha and the lost art of patience

Festive season edition, 2026

Setting: a corner table at a matcha cafe, a few weeks before Diwali. Moon has watched far too many films this year because of one project collab. Abhinav has opinions and a phone with the release calendar open. Nobody has rung anybody’s bell. Yet.

1. The Release Calendar Is Doing Numbers

Abhinav: Okay, be honest. How many films have you watched this year?

Moon: I stopped counting after the collab project swallowed my calendar. Every week there was a screening, a reference film, a “you must see this before the meeting” film. I went in as a casual viewer and came out with a film degree and a bad back.

Abhinav: So you are tired of movies?

Moon: Never. It made me greedy. And the next few weeks look unreal. Drishyam The Conclusion lands on 2 October with Ajay Devgn. I have been waiting to see how they close that family’s lie, because that franchise taught India that a good alibi is also a good plot.

Abhinav: Then Jailer 2 on 15 October. Rajinikanth walks into a room and the room reorganises itself.

Moon: Then Dhoom 4 is listed for 31 October, and I am choosing to believe that date with the confidence of a man who has never been burned by a release calendar. After that, Ramayana Part 1 arrives around Diwali on 6 November, in 3D. Festive lights outside, epic on the screen, sweets in both hands. That is a complete personality.

Abhinav: And the year closes with Avengers: Doomsday on 18 December.

Moon: A year that starts with deadlines and ends with a multiverse. Poetic.

Release dates come from public listings at the time of writing and can shift. Check before you book.

Moon: Here is my real wish. I would pay a lot to attend early screenings with people I actually care to talk about the film with. Cozy theatre, good seats, updated takes on snacks, and a proper argument in the parking lot afterwards. The film is half the experience. The other half is who you are sitting next to when the credits roll.

Abhinav: Updated takes on snacks. You mean something other than popcorn that costs as much as a small flat?

Moon: Exactly. Give me a samosa that has seen the world. Give me a cold coffee that respects me.

2. The Doorbell Doctrine

Abhinav: You said something on the way here about patience. You had the look.

Moon: I always have the look. Indians seriously have no patience. Someone comes to your house and rings the bell. You do not open the door within 10 seconds. They ring again. Another 10 seconds. RING RING RING.

Abhinav: That is a fire alarm with manners.

Moon: At least wait two minutes before ringing again. Maybe I am in the bathroom. Maybe I am on a call. Maybe I live in a house where the main door is not next to my bed.

Abhinav: And it is not only doorbells.

Moon: Never. At traffic lights, people start honking before the light turns green. In queues, someone always jumps ahead like the line is a suggestion. At the lift, someone has already pressed the button and the light is on. Then another person arrives and presses it again. Twice! As if the lift responds to emotional pressure.

Abhinav: Maybe the second press is for confidence.

Moon: Sab jaldi mein hain, but koi time par nahi pahunch raha. That is my entire thesis. We are all in a hurry, and somehow nobody is on time.

3. Juice, Watches and Magic

Moon: I saw something recently that broke my brain in a good way. Someone asked me, “Will you have orange juice?” I said yes. He walked to one of those robot juicer machines and paid for two juices with Apple Pay on his watch. Two juices. A watch. I said, “????” Magic.

Abhinav: That is just tap and pay.

Moon: Let me enjoy this. I cannot wait to pay for juice on MY watch in India. A robot squeezes oranges, my wrist says thank you, and I have not spoken to a single human or found exact change.

Abhinav: So your dream is frictionless juice.

Moon: My dream is a country where convenience arrives before impatience does.

4. Indian SaaS, Indian AI and the Fake Jobs Club

Abhinav: You also have a spicy take on tech. Go on.

Moon: My overarching belief is that Indian SaaS sold globally because it prioritised cost minimisation over value creation. That is specifically why Indian AI will struggle. If your edge is being cheaper, the market will always find someone cheaper. If your edge is being indispensable, the market pays you to stay.

Abhinav: That will upset a few founders.

Moon: Some of them will nod quietly and then pretend they did not. Also, we need to take ourselves less seriously. We all have fake jobs. If we have met, you have probably heard me say this, lol.

Abhinav: Define fake job.

Moon: A job where the worst outcome of a bad day is a delayed campaign, a moved presentation or a slightly annoyed Slack thread. Real jobs involve someone’s life. Ours involve someone’s deck.

Moon and Abhinav agree on the following, and they would like it entered into the record.

On movies: The next ten weeks are a gift. Drishyam The Conclusion, Jailer 2, Dhoom 4, Ramayana Part 1 and Avengers: Doomsday make a schedule worth buying tickets for early. Watch with people you love to argue with, eat something better than stale popcorn, and stay seated until the credits end.

On patience: India’s favourite sport is pressing things twice. The doorbell, the lift, the horn and the queue all reward the person who waits two calm minutes. Nobody has ever arrived earlier by ringing louder.

On work: Most of our jobs are fake in the gentlest sense of the word. Delayed campaigns are inconvenient, not tragic. Build value, not just low prices, and do not let a slipped deal become the worst day of your life.

On matcha: Excellent. Five stars. Being a hot guy helps, but the whisking is what heals.

Wait the extra two minutes, and keep your bad days in proportion. The door will open, the lift will come, and your stress is probably smaller than it feels.

Patience is not passivity. It is respect for other people’s lives, which we rarely see from outside their doors. The person who has not answered your bell is living a day you know nothing about. The person across from you in traffic, in the queue or in a hospital corridor is carrying something you cannot see. Take the work seriously, take yourself lightly, and take the time to be kind.

Arrival is a rented room, never a purchased house. The titles, the salaries and the corner offices are all leased, and the landlord, as always, is time. Moon and Abhinav did not renounce ambition, and they were wise not to. They only refused to let it sign the lease on their whole lives.

What they kept, the Sunday call, the parent who remembers the sparrow, the mother who bans conquest before dinner, cannot be promoted, downsized or reorganised. It is the only address that does not change when the quarter ends.

Enough is not a number. It is the day your ambition stops eating your dinner. Read the fine print on every victory, choose to be known over being merely admired, and measure your success by who you can call at seven in the evening. The world is patient. Dinner is not.