Arshi is a housewife who writes poetry about her life in her small Gulistan-i-Jauhar apartment. When her husband announced he had married another woman, her world fell apart. Her weapon of choice became poetry — ba tarranum nazms and ghazals, sung in her melodious voice to her husband, who is sternly instructed to sit on the sofa and listen.

The primary function of the arts is their ability to communicate the complexity of human emotions, either communicating a message or sharing a response to events. Anger is one of the least understood of human emotions, mainly because it is difficult to control, can be destructive and the display of anger presents a fearful ugliness. But when Francis Bacon lashes paint on to his canvases, creating screaming, mangled and often bloodied humans, we can look anger in the eye and try to understand it from a place of safety.

Expressing anger through art, music or literature has a long tradition. While the everyday expression of anger may involve the exchange of insults or physical violence, art creates subtle narratives that leave a lasting imprint. Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade outlasted newspaper reporting of the Crimean war. To many, Manto’s Partition stories define the human impact of 1947.

Shah Jahan commissioned the artist Bichitir to paint Emperor Akbar handing the crown to his grandson Shah Jahan, while his son Jahangir is overlooked. Although Jahangir did in fact succeed Akbar, Shah Jahan, who disliked his father and stepmother, Nur Jehan — fearing she would place her son Shaharyar on the throne — commissioned this painting in triumphant anger three years after he became emperor, having first ensured Shaharyar was put to death.

From protest anthems and songs to paintings and inventions, the anger of individuals has often shaped art, justice and technology

Blues singer Billie Holliday made history by singing Strange Fruit on the stage of Café Society in New York in 1939, a metaphor for lynched black people left hanging from trees, paving the way for Nina Simone’s 1964 Mississippi Goddam — a song written after the killing of four young black girls, which she said was “like throwing ten bullets back at them.”

Habib Jalib recited his protest poem to a Lahore crowd: “Aisay dastoor ko, Subh-i-beynoor ko, Main nahin maanta, Main nahin jaanta [This constitution, This dawn without light, I refuse to accept, I refuse to acknowledge]”, which became an anthem of rebellion, as did the veiled threat of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “Lazim hai ke hum bhi dekhain gey [It’s certain that we, too, shall see]”, along with its rendition by singer Iqbal Bano, who appeared defiantly on stage wearing black. Anwar Maqsood disguises his defiance in humour, while the Pakistani public does so through farcical memes.

Growing out of the West African Griot tradition of storytellers, poets and musicians, Rage Rap became a music genre of the USA and Caribbean, reflecting the anger of black youth experiencing deep inequalities and racism, even spreading into Lyari as an alternative to gang warfare.

There are many levels of anger, from temper tantrums to moral outrage. Public anger emerges from a place of care, a longing for a better life, an attempt to lead society back to compassion. The absence of that anger would be apathy — a far more destructive state. The key to productive anger is to replace impulsive action with thoughtful action. Posters, poems and songs awaken the conscience of those who would dismiss the genocide of Palestinians, long after the marches are over.

Even at a personal level, anger can be the pivot of change. Studies show that anger can enable creative breakthroughs, partly because we break our own rules as the usual mind pathways are disrupted, making individuals more likely to brainstorm in an unstructured way, leading to new solutions.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Shuji Nakamura says, “Anger is the mother of invention.” Potato chips were the result of an angry New York chef, George Crum, whose customer kept sending back the potatoes because they were “too thick.” Josephine Cochrane, annoyed that her china tableware was being chipped when washed by hand, invented the dishwasher.

Anger is often generated by powerlessness, waiting for someone else to fix things. But when the adrenaline that accompanies anger is harnessed, people find they are able to do things they never imagined they could. Maya Angelou said, “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” For Angelou, it was poetry, for others it may be music, dance, the catharsis of acting, or drumming. Art that is shared enables a witness to your emotion.

Trauma counsellor Tim Fletcher suggests we ask ourselves, “If my anger had a voice, what would it be trying to tell me?”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at
durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 6th, 2025