Fame is a parasitic transaction. You trade your privacy for a mansion, your anonymity for a seat at the table, and your personal life for a blue checkmark that doesn't mean what it used to. But the debt collection is always brutal.

Sidharth Malhotra just lost his father. Sunil Malhotra, a man who spent his life in the merchant navy, passed away after a prolonged battle with health issues in a New Delhi hospital. In any functioning society, that would be a private family matter. A son, his wife Kiara Advani, and a quiet room to process the heavy, leaden weight of a parent’s absence.

But the internet doesn't do quiet. The algorithm doesn't do mourning. It does engagement.

The news broke like a floodgate opening. Immediately, the machinery of the Indian celebrity-industrial complex began to whir. It wasn’t enough that the man died; we needed to know the exact terminal gate where Sidharth and Kiara landed. We needed the grainy, high-ISO footage of them walking through the airport, shoulders slumped, hidden behind dark glasses. It’s a specific kind of digital voyeurism that turns a funeral into a live-streamed event, optimized for a 9:16 aspect ratio.

Let’s talk about the tech that enables this rot. We’re living in an era where mirrorless cameras can track an eye from fifty yards away, and a smartphone can upload a grieving man’s face to a global audience before he’s even reached the parking lot. The "paparazzi" accounts on Instagram—those digital middlemen who trade in human misery for likes—don't have an off switch. They see a tragedy and see a spike in their reach metrics.

There is a specific price tag on this intrusion. A "first look" at a grieving celebrity can net a freelance stringer anywhere from 50,000 to 2,00,000 rupees depending on the desperation of the outlet. That’s the trade-off. You want to be a Bollywood A-lister? You have to accept that your father’s passing is content for someone’s lunchtime scroll.

It’s gross. It’s efficient. It’s the world we’ve built with our clicks.

The actor is currently in Delhi, reportedly surrounded by family. Kiara Advani is by his side, fulfilling the role of the supportive spouse while the vultures circle the perimeter of their grief. We’ve reached a point where the "privacy" of a celebrity is a luxury item, something you have to buy with bodyguards and non-disclosure agreements, yet even those are no match for a 400mm lens and a Twitter account hungry for "updates."

I find myself wondering when we decided that "public figure" meant "property of the public." The digital footprint of this event is already massive. Thousands of comments under a paparazzi post—half offering condolences, the other half complaining about the actor's outfit or questioning why he isn’t crying enough for the camera. The data centers in Bangalore and Virginia are humming today, processing the metadata of a family’s worst nightmare.

What’s the ROI on a tear? To the platforms, it’s just another data point. To the fans, it’s a moment of parasocial connection. To Sidharth Malhotra, it’s just a father he’ll never speak to again.

The tech isn’t neutral here. The tools we’ve built—the instant sharing, the geotagging, the relentless "explore" page—are designed to strip away the friction of human decency. We want the information now. We want the photo now. We want the tragedy delivered to our lock screens with a push notification that makes our pockets buzz.

So, they’re in Delhi. The rituals will happen. The cameras will stay perched on the walls of the crematorium like metallic crows, waiting for that one shot of raw emotion that will perform well on Monday morning. We’ve turned mourning into a spectator sport, and we’re all holding season tickets.

If you’re waiting for a moment of collective realization where we all put our phones down and respect the sanctity of a funeral, you’re looking at the wrong century. We’ve optimized the soul out of the news cycle, and there’s no firmware update that can fix a lack of basic empathy.

How much of a human being do you have to lose before the algorithm finally decides it’s seen enough?