Holy Hypothesis: Faith, Facts and Flair

Art's got this congenital flair, an innate magic that sets it apart from other domains of knowledge. It's this natural congeniality that draws kids to art during their formative years. You see, in art, there's no absolute right or wrong, just attempts. Every mark, every brushstroke, is a small step in the grand, elusive dance toward "the" truth.

Religion loves its commandments, laying down the law on good and evil, forbidden and sacred rituals. Bhagavad Gita says, "सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज।अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः।।18.66।।" "Forsake all religions and take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver thee from all sins; grieve not." Science, for all its pretended objectivity, isn't far off. It cloaks religious morals in the garb of "truths and fallacies." There are methods, etched in stone, that echo the commandments of old. Both religion and science have their prophets and followers. Heisenberg said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.” Even science can’t quite shake the divine.

While science and religion play in black and white, art invents a new shade of grey every time. Sure, art has its influencers, but the seismic shifts in its paradigms every decade? That's pure Mother Nature! No guarantees, just sudden, merciless expiry dates. It's hard to ignore the grand dance of art. Schopenhauer once swimmingly uttered, "The task is, not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought, about that which everybody sees." Art does this every time it breathes.

Take Heidegger, for example. He dismantled 2,500 years of philosophical tradition with a leap back to pre-ontology. Art does this every few decades, casually reinventing its axioms and constants. No wonder Plato didn't want artists in his ideal Republic. They were banned, plain and simple. Come the Enlightenment, art was merely ignored, deemed impractical. The modernists embraced formalism's partial logic, and the postmodernists? They reveled in art's uncanny ability to shatter institutions and the status quo.

Art is like a faithful shadow, never leaving the human mind. It stretches in the night, contracts by day, but it never disappears from sight. It stays, stubborn and true. As Einstein once said, "Creativity is intelligence having fun." And maybe, just maybe, that's why art, with all its unpredictability, remains forever entwined with us.

Remember when Grandma used to say, "You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails"? That's art for you. It shifts shape and form, like water, as Bruce Lee would put it, “Be water, my friend.” Art, with its scandalous dalliances with science and religion, finds its way, fluid and ever-changing. Thomas Merton captures it well: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” It indeed is the proxy for inner connection and communion.

It keeps us on our toes. It's a relentless dance partner, always spinning us around, never letting us settle into a predictable rhythm. And like a good South Asian wedding, where the chaos is part of the charm, art's double date with science and religion is a wild, unpredictable affair. You can't help but be swept up in the madness, and just when you think you've got it figured out, art changes the tune.