A good book does not just transport you to distant lands; it gives you something to think about. Ayn Rand's “Anthem” is one such book that implores reason, condemns the collectivity of a society and emphasizes on individuality. It is a book that leaves a sweet taste of bitter reality in one’s mouth, almost begging one to look at reality more critically.

The book was written in 1937 but takes place at an unspecified future date. The story is about one such person called Equality living in the “Dark age” that is characterized by socialism and collectivity to the extent where it becomes impossible for anyone to even breathe, without prior approval.

The society is seen under the light of dystopia where no one is allowed to do what they want to, whether it is eating food or choosing what career to pursue or who to marry. There is absence of individuality to the extent that people have the same names as the others. Amidst all this, keeping the society compact and compressed is a group of members, a form of Government called the World council that is made up of intellectuals that allocate each individual his job, based on their abilities.

Following the same principle, Equality 7-2521 is given the job of a street sweeper because of his ‘curse’ of curiosity and questioning. Equality 7-2521 who narrates the story from a tunnel writes about his desire to become an intellectual and inventor too like those in the World Council. Unable to fulfill his desire, he takes to exploring in his isolated tunnel under the ground where he discovers Electricity.

When he approaches the World Council to explain his discovery, the council gets furious and orders his arrest before which, Equality runs away to the forbidden forest where he meets Liberty – a beautiful girl who he eventually falls in love with. It is in this forest that he finds “Freedom” away from the city life. This in many ways is metaphorical to the busy corporate, city culture we're habituated to. The usage of forest in the story subtly insinuates the freedom that exists in places not taken over by man or society yet.

Throughout the process of reading, one discovers stark similarities between their life and Equality 7-2521's life. The fact that there exists a crude social order with a million rules in place negate the intrinsic meaning of “Freedom” that we think we have. The book also dismisses claims that socialism is the next Utopia.

The book is an excellent read because it simply stimulates questioning; it forces one to draw parallels between the society that Equality 7-2521 lived in and the one we live in. In many ways, the book paints a picture of a Socialist society & how fragile such a society is. In an age when Ego is considered as a bad thing en masse, Anthem shrugs off the claim and makes one realize the importance of Ego and the word “I” that is shunned in a socialist set up. The book begins with an interesting quote that one tends to go back to in the end: “...I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my land, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom."

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