Families and mafia.

Apropos the Nawab Malik, Shah Rukh Khan, Sameer Wankhede saga, the whole thing's like some sequence from a mafia film: 'Look, amico. This is bussaness, OK? You leave famiglie alone. You toucha ma famiglia. I destroya yos. Capiche?'

As for the government agencies and media folk looking on, they're like the movie policeman shrugging his shoulders: 'Yeaaaah...as long as they're killing each other, should I really care? You tell me.'

We are all in a movie. Just that we are not the protagonists. We are not even the antagonists, who are at least important if not always on the winning side. We aren't part of the background crowd, parts of who may get shot or mowed down randomly, but are generally safe and going about their businesses without molestation. If anything, we are the hero's naive and constantly suffering sister. Just there to be tortured, assaulted, and murdered to provide cause for the main characters to get on with the larger narrative.

That's the story of our lives.