Freedom From What? Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair

The British ruled us Indians
We wanted freedom
It was given but then
Hot-heads who looked
Towards the Soviets
And then to Mao said

That is not enough
We need freedom
From oppression
Don't you see the exploitation
Of the downtrodden
The sweating unfortunate
The milling proletariat?

We went to the jungles
Learnt guerrilla tactics
Adored heroes
Who had died fighting
In distant Bolivia, Cuba
And Latin America

We despised the West
Thought they were the pest
Adorned gore on our face
Didn't matter who that we killed
As long as it was freedom
That we thought we fought for
Till we realized
The fight never had an end

Then came a wise man my way
Wise because he had a beard
Asked me what was it from which
I needed myself to be free

With a drink raised in my hand
My eyes myopic
I told him I wanted all that
That would let me and the world live
Free from economic grief

He said my wish was granted
I walked a strident gait
My bag full of wealth
That made Bill Gates jealous

Then I shuddered
There was one second to me
'Yon Cassius, he has a hungry look'
He would any moment
Strangle my neck
And be the number one
In this nasty money game

I spent sleepless nights
When at last the bearded guy
Appeared before me and asked
What was it that
I needed then
My long-lasting freedom from

I forgot Cassius
For I knew he would go my unhappy way
Answered I feared death
I would have me wisdom unfetter
From the fear of dying forever

The cunning bearded sage
Said it was done
I was then ninety
Sagging on a stick
An anachronism of flesh and bones
That communicated with none
With no contemporaries around
To share my teeming thoughts

What would be my state
If I hit two hundred without death
A wrinkled mass worse
Than the famed Rip Wan Winkle
All alone in a world
Where I didn't actually belong?

Freedom from death
Then was not
My want, what was freedom
If my habit is want?
Wanting idiot I am
How is that I can
Rid me off the desire for want?

The grey of the beard
Laughed and said
All that you need
Is freedom from want
It is granted
'Here you look,
Life is a sojourn, know you not
How you began, how you will end,
Or, if you began and will end at all,
All are just a given
Granted by whom know we not'

'Live in peace why you don't
Without wants accept
With your head ever bent
To whoever the one keeps giving on
Aren't you then free,
Aren't you then the freedom sought? '

'Aren't you then the stars
The breeze, rain and sky
All that crawl and all that fly
What is the freedom that you seek
If you are freedom ever-free
Unbound by horizons, the illusory sky? '