He was ready when they came to take him
stepped out to the day as in a dream
and with a face unmourningly serene
entered the waiting palanquin!
How quickly passed his seventy years
he felt having spent not a year even
now on a ride on the bearers’ shoulders
his lips moved in prayer to heaven!
His heart was not weighed with grief
but a resignation deep and tranquil
there comes a day one has to leave
preordained by kind God’s will!
That way he had wanted it to be
when death came to knock on the door
would hear him say I am ready
won’t keep you waiting a moment more.
Through the hush when rang last bell
and to the wind his breath was free
echoed through the mourners’ wail
the untamed refrain *I am ready.
Maharaja Nandakumar was hanged on false charges by Warren Hastings. It was a ****** and not execution of justice. Hastings was later impeached by the British Parliament for this crime.
This poem is an adaptation from the eye witness account of Nandakumar’s last moments before his execution on August 5, 1775, recorded by Alexander Macrabie, the then Sheriff of Calcutta.
Nandakumar remained composed through the ordeal up to the gallows.