Cheekh (Cry) by S.L. Parasher

Parasher's Partition line drawings and sketches show the immediacy of his experience in the Baldev Nagar refugee camp in Ambala in 1947. Drawn largely on scraps of available paper at the camp, his sketches are a testament of all that was lost. In this sketch, a bare-chested man with a topknot, with shut eyes and an open mouth, raises an arm to his head. While the sketch might be silent, his mouth tells a devastating tale of anguish. These drawings functioned as snapshots of a moment in time in India's history. It was as if the artist knew that he was documenting the trauma revealed by a people being shaped into a nation.