Midnight weeping: The sociology of tragic vision in Badri Narayan’s poetry

By Ravi Ranjan* 

Badri Narayan, a distinguished Hindi poet and social scientist, occupies a unique position in contemporary Indian intellectual life by bridging the worlds of creative literature and critical social inquiry. His poetic journey began significantly with the 1993 collection 'Saca Sune Hue Kaï Dina Hue' (Truth Heard Many Days Ago). As a social historian and cultural anthropologist, Narayan pioneered a methodological shift away from elite archives toward the oral traditions and folk myths of marginalized communities. He eventually legitimized "folk-ethnography" as a rigorous academic discipline during his tenure as Director of the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute.  

His poem 'Adhī Rāta Mem Rulāī Kā Pātha' (Midnight Recitation of Weeping) serves as a remarkably multi-layered document of protest. The work elevates weeping far beyond mere sentimentality, establishing it as the primal sound of creation and a language of resistance. It opens with a resolve to conduct a recitation of weeping on a city street against its "entire splendour," announcing a public and disciplined act of defiance. This recitation is not a private tear but a collective philosophical revolt standing before the grand display of power.  

​The poet acknowledges the peril of this task, noting that "chroniclers of weeping" have been erased one by one. He observes that when a single word survives, "new methods have been forged" to give it an entirely different meaning. This reflects a Foucauldian understanding of power, where the apparatus of authority hijacks the language of pain to neutralize its revolutionary potential. In this vision, weeping is not an object to be studied but a force that absorbs its analyst; the poet, scientist, and philosopher all "become weeping" while trying to examine it.  

​The philosophical core of the poem lies in a radical reversal: "The primordial word of creation is not 'Om' but 'weeping'". In the Vedic tradition, 'Om' symbolizes peace and knowledge, but here it is supplanted by a pain-laden, oppositional sound that "spreads through vowels and consonants". Narayan further strips weeping of its physical necessity, asserting that it does not require tears, sighs, or gasps to exist. It is an abstract vibration—an ontological lament where creation vibrates in its own pain.  

​By weaving references to the 'Śulva Sūtra' and the 'Purāņas' into the text, Narayan enters the Vedic-historical tradition from within to turn sacred texts against themselves. He cites an anecdote where the weeping of a mute man brought down coral mountains, turning wordless pain into a powerful weapon. He also points to the weeping of deer whose skins were offered in sacrifice, revealing the hidden pain beneath the "sacred custom" of ritual slaughter. Even the 'dhruvatārā' (Pole Star), a symbol of stability, is depicted weeping against its own expulsion from the center of the sky.  

​This sociology of tragic vision is also evident in Narayan’s poem 'Mrta Ciriyā Kī Adhūrī Ākānkṣāem' (The Incomplete Aspirations of a Dead Bird). The poem tells of a man who arrives in the city with a "dead bird" from his village—a symbol of vanishing folk culture and rural pain. The urban elite exoticizes his suffering as "folk art" and "rhythmic expression" as long as it remains decorative. This illustrates the mechanism of the "culture industry," where human tragedy is commodified into an "aesthetic product" for drawing-room discussion.  

​The decisive turn occurs when the bird’s soul begins to stir with a "desire for revenge". As soon as this suppressed consciousness moves toward resistance, the elite’s sympathy evaporates, and they abruptly change the subject. This illustrates Gramscian "cultural hegemony," where the dominant class decides which suffering is considered "art" and which is dismissed as "noise". The "dead bird" represents a "return of the repressed" that shatters the aesthetic sensibilities of the dominant class.  

​Ultimately, Narayan’s work rejects a romanticized view of the "folk". Instead, it frames the subaltern experience as a site of smoldering political resistance, reminding readers that suppressed memories inevitably resurface to confront their "hunter". The formal beauty of his craft, such as the image of "weepings buried" in the earth, gives solid form to an abstract and continuous vibration. He leaves the reader on a midnight street where, before the city's splendour, only the recitation of weeping remains as a final truth.  

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*Professor & former Head (Retd.), Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author's original paper