Articulation of loss

In the dark times

Will there also be singing?

Yes, there will also be singing.

About the dark times.

Bertolt Brecht’s words resonate across time, capturing the indomitable spirit of art that confronts grief, loss and upheaval with unflinching honesty. From William Kentridge’s shadowy processions to Joan Didion’s raw memoirs, from Dinabandhu Mitra’s incendiary plays to Saadat Hasan Manto’s piercing stories, and the multilingual narratives of the play ‘Hunkaro’ — artists have long wielded their craft as a mirror to reflect the chaos of human existence and a hammer to shape its meaning.

These works, spanning cultures and eras, transform personal and collective grief into stories that stir the soul, evoke resilience, and demand compassion. They remind us that art does not shy away from grief but dives into it, finding shared humanity in the wreckage.

South African artist William Kentridge masterfully explores themes of history, power, and migration through charcoal drawings, animated films, and multimedia installations. His work ‘More Sweetly Play the Dance’, which I experienced at the Kochi Biennale in 2018-2019, is an immersive multimedia installation that left an indelible mark. Projected onto a screen of white gauze, the piece features a processional frieze of moving silhouettes accompanied by a haunting brass band soundtrack. The shadowy figures — animated through light and shadow — evoke a caravan in motion, embodying displacement, loss, and grief. Kentridge’s use of performance art captures the socio-political narratives of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid legacies, rendering the weight of history palpable. The relentless movement of the figures mirrors the ceaseless struggles of those uprooted by systemic violence, their silhouettes a universal emblem of human endurance amid devastation.

This imagery of displacement and resilience echoes in the present struggles of Punjab, where scenes of flooding and loss dominate the media. Farmers wade through inundated fields, their homes ravaged, household goods adrift in watery graves. Haunting images linger: a man carrying trunks on his head, wading through swirling waters with his buffaloes, followed by family members clinging to each other for survival. Another stirs the soul: a young man diving into a swollen river to rescue a kitten, heedless of his own safety. These acts of compassion embody Punjab’s chardi kala, the rising spirit that refuses to bow to despair.

Across the globe, Joan Didion’s ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ (2005) offers a starkly introspective dissection of personal loss. Chronicling the year following the sudden death of her husband, Didion describes grief as an unpredictable force: “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be… Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.” Her concept of “magical thinking” captures her irrational hope that her husband might return, evident in her fixation on keeping his shoes because “he would need shoes if he was to return”.

Didion’s grief is not sentimental but analytical, exposing the tension between memory and loss. This raw narrative was adapted into a one-woman play, directed by David Hare and performed by Vanessa Redgrave, whose portrayal transformed Didion’s personal tragedy into a universal meditation on loss and death. The stage, stripped bare, mirrored the starkness of Didion’s prose, making grief both intimate and shared.

Stories of distress and grief, when channelled through art, strike with visceral force because they are real. Greek tragedies like ‘Oedipus Rex’ weave personal torment into universal fate, while Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ drips with existential distress, pulling readers into the mess of human suffering. These works resonate not by offering escape but by confronting pain head-on, revealing shared humanity in chaos.

In 19th-century Bengal, Dinabandhu Mitra’s ‘Neel Darpan’ (‘The Indigo Mirror’, 1858-59) harnessed this power to fuel the Indigo Revolt against British colonial exploitation. The play portrays the brutal oppression of Indian farmers forced to grow indigo for British planters, exposing the economic and social toll of colonialism. Mitra, a postmaster in rural Bengal and Orissa, based the play on real injustices, offering the “indigo mirror” to planters in the preface, urging them to confront their tyranny. Its directness — eschewing allegory for raw truth — ignited protests and early nationalist sentiment.

The British banned its performances, a testament to its subversive power. Unlike jingoistic nationalism, the radicalism of ‘Neel Darpan’ lies in its solidarity with the oppressed, aligning with Brecht’s view of art as a tool to challenge dominant powers.

Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories, born from the chaos of India’s 1947 Partition, embody a similar refusal to sanitise suffering. This isn’t just about a writer churning out tales; it’s about a man who stared into the abyss of loss — personal, cultural, and human, transforming his rage and grief into short stories and essays. His grief came from a fractured family, a fractured country, and a fractured self. And Partition became the ultimate betrayal of everything Manto held close to his heart. Bombay was his creative playground but as India split, so did his world. Communal riots tore through the city, and Manto, a Muslim, felt the sting of suspicion from neighbours and colleagues. Partition was his personal apocalypse, a tidal wave of violence that tore families apart and brutalised women. He wasn’t interested in patriotic stances or moral grandstanding; he wanted to show the world its own ugliness, devoid of moral filter. Works like ‘Toba Tek Singh’ and ‘Thanda Gosht’cut deep, giving voice to the voiceless and wresting hope from wretchedness.

Having dramatised Manto’s stories for the stage, I’ve witnessed their dramatic potency — rich with emotion, illuminating the resilience of the marginalised. Manto’s stories endure and do not seem dated, with the narratives and characters resonating as powerfully today as they did then.

The multilingual play ‘Hunkaro’, directed by Mohit Takalkar, weaves three stories of courage and resilience amid the despair of the Covid-19 pandemic. Performed in Marwari, Hindi, Haryanvi and Awadhi, the 85-minute play features six actors seated on red cushions, dressed in white, using minimal movement and no props. Storytelling, subtle gestures and voice modulations carry the narrative, linked by hope and affirmation.

The first story is ‘Asha Amar Dhan’ by Vijaydan Detha, a Marwari tale of a destitute farmer who, after losing his wife, is left with two children and barren land. Facing drought, the hostile stepmother decides to kill the children and flee to Mumbai for a better life. The father locks the children in a house with minimal food, hoping someone will rescue them, while the children cling to the hope of their parents’ return.

The second is ‘Gidhh’ (Awadhi) by Chirag Khandelwal. It traces a migrant worker’s gruelling journey during the lockdown, accompanied by a half-crow-half-vulture creature that symbolises both survival and death. The story highlights the struggle of the worker as he trudges homewards, assailed by hunger and exhaustion.

The third is ‘Maai’ by Arvind Charan, in Hindi and Haryanvi. It depicts two brothers leaving their physically-challenged mother in a Mumbai chawl to return to their village. A year later, ridden by guilt but with renewed dreams, they return home.

The underlying thread that binds the three stories together is hope and faith. Each story is rooted in the backdrop of grief and loss against the framework of Covid-19, that becomes the shared setting.

These stories transform grief into a powerful commentary on humanity’s resilience, echoing Brecht’s vision of art shaping reality. Kentridge, Didion, Mitra, Manto and ‘Hunkaro’ share a commitment to confronting disorder through art. Whether through shadowy processions, raw memoirs, incendiary plays, or piercing stories, they reject passive acceptance, aligning with Brecht’s view of art as “a hammer with which to shape reality”.

From Punjab’s chardi kala to the Indigo Revolt, from Partition’s wounds to the pandemic’s trials, these works sing of the dark times, forging hope in times of grief. They remind us that art does not merely reflect suffering — it transforms it, pulling us closer to our sense of shared humanity.

— The writer is a theatre director based in Chandigarh