Ars Longa Vita Brevis: A Critical Study of Dattani’s Brief Candle

Human beings are merely playthings in the hands of Time and Death. They seem puny creatures in front of colossal Death. Even after that, men pursue their struggle for survival with much bravado. Dattani’s Brief Candle captures such a struggle of cancer patients who are on the verge of death in a hospice. The protagonist Vikas, a cancer patient, desires to be remembered by his beloved Deepika and fellow cancer patients after his demise. Consequently, he composes a play in which he aesthetically and poignantly treats the lives of his friends. He sticks to the Latin dictum of ‘Ars longa vita brevis’. He hopes that his creation will survive him. Interestingly, Vikas writes a comedy, not a tragedy, because in comedies no one dies. His passion for life and the effort to cherish that life even after death find vivid and deft delineation in Brief Candle.  Human beings are merely playthings in the hands of Time and Death. They seem puny creatures in front of colossal Death. Even after that, men pursue their struggle for survival with much bravado. Dattani’s Brief Candle captures such a struggle of cancer patients who are on the verge of death in a hospice. The protagonist Vikas, a cancer patient, desires to be remembered by his beloved Deepika and fellow cancer patients after his demise. Consequently, he composes a play in which he aesthetically and poignantly treats the lives of his friends. He sticks to the Latin dictum of ‘Ars longa vita brevis’. He hopes that his creation will survive him. Interestingly, Vikas writes a comedy, not a tragedy, because in comedies no one dies. His passion for life and the effort to cherish that life even after death find vivid and deft delineation in Brief Candle.