WHEN Chairil Anwar wrote

I want to be free from everything

Independent

Also from Ida

he surely knew—or would quickly find out—that what he wanted was impossible. In the midst of a world that stores the traces of history, even the wildest of poets cannot be ‘free from everything’.

One could say that he did not believe in destiny, that he did not care about social norms around him. Yet still: he operated within ‘t