It also reminds one that at any point in time the truly religious are drawn to certain activities as they see in them something lost to gain something else. The extent to which man was prepared to sacrifice for the sake of a secure future can be seen in Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac--a sacrifice that was stopped by God at the last moment--to be replaced with that of a sheep. And later, even dispensing with the killing of animals, with Christ saying unleavened bread was his body and the wine his blood. With this we have come a long way from human sacrifice, to animal sacrifice and the Christian mass as symbolic sacrifice. And the Bible covers the whole process as millennia.

The changes are vital ones and should remind us that fundamentalism is only stagnant religion and stagnationbreeds nothing aesthetically pleasing. That is why I feel the freshness of children's art brings a sense of both simplicity and wonder back into a field of thought known more for its intolerance, dogmatism and decadence than anything else.

Children give religion a spontaneity and openness that it badly needs today. They also allow us to to see the ongoing human reality that is the backbone of all speculation. Children are attracted by phenomena like the Burning bush of Moses (Monica Philipose, 9, from Cochin), or C Sagaya Shylaja, 13, of Chennai, portraying the parting of the Red Sea waters to allow the fleeing Jews to escape. But behind most of these startling miracles are very ordinary events with a very human content: The Abraham episode highlighting the withdrawal from ritual murder; the Noah's Ark, the responsibility of the man to protect the environment; and the Red Sea episode or that of the Exodus as empathy with the victims of man's oppression of his fellow men. In fact, R Benice Karuna's approachto Eve ``Cheated by Satan'' reflects a transformation even from the Book of the Genesis, where Eve is ``tempted'' by Satan--a traditional approach to women as the source of all problems--to a much more logical one of the woman being equally the victim of a divine trickster, and shows that as long as people's lives get ahead, so must their beliefs and with them, religion.

This show organised by the Israeli Embassy and LTG Gallery, with judges like eminent artist Arpana Cour and others with varying credentials, is well selected and hung. Definitely worth a visit.

-- Suneet Chopra