People scoff at coincidences in movies—pointing out that these are artificially designed events, the director forcing an outcome when they cannot make a story work organically, on its own merits.

Through last week, it was hard not to think of coincidences.  The demolitions in primarily Muslim bastis in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, held traces of an earlier demolition, that of the Babri masjid, with its chilling slogan, “ek dhakka aur do, Babar ki santaan ko”. That metaphorical violence seems to have become all too literal today.