There is nothing extraordinary in the disappearing boundary between arts and sciences, especially when we had Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Vermeer. In contemporary Bengali literature, several times I have come across short stories and novels where the protagonist was a science professor — physics, mathematics or chemistry — and the writer had given enough illustration to convince the reader that it was indeed so. We do come across Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and Hazari Prasad Dwivedi writing about physics, though only in the context of religion, philosophy and science. Otherwise, for some strange reason, Indian artists in general shy away from science.

Anyway, let us return to 15 Park Avenue. As the third reason I share with you a scene from this movie where Shabana Azmi is introducing Schrodinger’s equation to her students. At the same time, back home her sister Konkona Sen Sharma who is suffering from mental illness is being ‘treated’ by a tantrik, at the behest of her mother Waheeda Rehman. This illustrates the conflict that India is fighting everyday in the 21st century. On one side she boasts of technological and scientific advances on various fronts, and on the other still fights with superstition, dogma and rituals. It is indeed distressing to see India, which once advocated reason and logic, being entangled in a mesh of ignorance and rituals. As Shabana’s voice intermingles with that of the maid, you begin to realize the complexity of Indian society. You begin to question whether it is at all possible to separate the two Indias from each other, and to transform the one which is holding the whole nation back. The inertia is too strong to fight, as this half does not want to be educated, illuminated or reformed — simply because it is convinced that there is nothing wrong in its methods.