“You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.”
Today’s Lebanon is reflected in these words of Kahlil Gibran.
NDTV reporter Nazir Masoodi reached Khalil Gibran’s village Bashri. The same place where the great poet, philosopher and artist Khalil Gibran was born, and where his final resting place i.e. mausoleum is present. This same Bsharri still stands silently among the snow-capped mountains, almost untouched by the war that is shaking the rest of Lebanon.
There is a museum of Kahlil Gibran here, his tomb, and also a statue of the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in the same premises. Lebanon’s Cultural Ministry unveiled the statue in September as a symbol of the friendship and mutual respect between these two literary greats. Both knew each other in America, and this friendship of ideas is still alive here.
Kahlil Gibran spent his life in America, but before he died, he made a will that he should be buried in his own village, Bashari. He also wrote that the royalties received from his books, poems and paintings should not be given to his family, but to Bashari village.
Today, every year the royalty of about ₹ 3,00,000 is spent on education, hospital and children’s scholarship in the village. Gibran wrote the poem after seeing famine, hunger and death in Lebanon during World War I.
“Dead are my people.”
The lines he wrote a century ago stand as the reality of today’s Lebanon.
From the serene mountains of Bsharri it seems as if Kahlil Gibran is still looking at Lebanon. His words, his sentiments and his warnings remain as true today.
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