Life's Strange Ways...!!!

In the 2025 TV series 'Paradise' (Season 2, Episode 3), there’s a conversation between Dr. Louge and Samantha Redmond aka. Sinatra, the tech billionaire, about the imminent apocalypse on earth, that feels less like fiction and more like prophecy. Sinatra, insists that she can shield her family from the apocalypse: “ I have the motive and the resources to do whatever it takes. ”   Dr. Louge listens, almost amused. He replies: “ Billionaires are amazing. You think your money gives you superpowers. You don’t like traffic, you buy a helicopter. You don’t like strangers, you buy an island. There’s only one thing that can fix this. And it’s the one thing even you can’t buy. ” Sinatra asks, “ And what’s that? ”   Dr. Louge replies, “ Time .”   Time,  the simplest word, the hardest truth. Because isn’t that the paradox of our age? We live in a world where money bends reality—shrinks distances, builds fortresses, buys convenience. Yet, when it comes to the most...

The other day, I stumbled upon an Instagram reel that transported me back to the late 90s. It was a clip from 'Movers and Shakers', the late-night talk show hosted by Shekhar Suman that aired on Sony TV between 1997 and 2001. For those who remember, it was one of those shows that carried both wit and warmth, a cultural marker of its time.   This particular reel featured actor Ashutosh Rana, narrating his early struggles in the world of cinema. He recalled a piece of advice someone had given him:   " Ek cheez dhyaan rakhna. Kaam… kaam hota hai. Kaam chota, bada nahin hota. Aur avasar hamesha chote hote hai. Aur parinaam uske vilakshan hote hai. Vilakshan parinaam ke liye, tum bade avasar ki talaash mat karna. Ishwar ka sanket chota hee hota hai, kyuki wo bahut bada hai ."  Translated, it means: “Keep one thing in mind. Work is work. No job is small or big. Opportunities are always small, but their results are extraordinary. For extraordinary results, don’t go sea...

 In Season 3, Episode 5 of the web series  'Tehran',  Eric Peterson, the nuclear scientist, sits in the safehouse, freshly freed from captivity, yet burdened by a deeper captivity of thought. He tells Tamar: “I feel like leaving Iran, with unfinished business. We don’t really control the course of our lives…do we? How can a person escape from what is written? How can he flee his destiny ?”. The words are borrowed from Ferdowsi’s 'Shahnameh', where kings and warriors wrestled with the same truth: “ How shall a man escape from that which is written? How shall he flee from his destiny ?”. What fascinates me is how a modern spy thriller pauses to let an ancient Persian truth seep through its narrative. The rebels, the Mossad agents, the scientist — all pawns in a larger game. Yet beneath the geopolitics lies the same question that haunted kings and warriors a thousand years ago: " is fate a script, we merely perform? "  Fate, in Ferdowsi’s telling, is not a chain ...