Ashoke Sen, the Bengali physicist, has become the first Indian to win the Oskar Klein Medal. His path-breaking work on duality demonstrates how two very different mathematical descriptions can describe the same underlying physical reality, under certain conditions.
Now, something loosely similar happens in the world of smells. Hydrogen cyanide is known for its bitter almond-like odour, while marzipan derives its characteristic almond-like aroma from benzaldehyde. In other words, different chemicals can produce very similar sensory experiences.
Now let us turn to literature. Two entirely different stories, with very different characters and plots, can evoke the same aesthetic experience, or rasa. Whether the feeling is wonder, sorrow, love, bliss, ecstasy, or even boredom, we may arrive at it through two very different narratives.
This analogy, itself, is no scientific evidence. And it doesn’t imply some equivalence between science and literature, either. It simply gestures towards a question: can two very different paths lead us to the same experience? And what does that reveal about the mysteriously deep ways in which we experience reality?
