NEW DELHI: Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran and Rabindranath Tagore had a friendship that was based on understanding each other's words without having to talk too much. The two met many times between 1916 to 1921.
Nearly a century after their last physical meeting, an exhibition on the life and works of Tagore was organised at the Khalil Gibran Museum at Bsarri, Lebanon. Bsarri is where Khalil was born and laid to rest.
Tagore is no stranger in Bsaari. According to locals living there, one of the prayers in Bsaari is derived from Tagore’s writing.
"It was as though Gibran hosted Tagore. Both Gibran and Tagore represent Lebanon and India to the world and give a message of pluralism, diversity, tolerance and the values of freedom, justice, and testimony to the truth,’’ says India's ambassador to Lebanon, Dr SuhelAijaz Khan.
Amongst the exhibits was a painting of Tagore that Gibran had made himself. Gibran had a strong connection with India. Amongst the things on display was a book J Krishnamurti had presented to him and also a book on Gibran written by Osho.
"It is no secret that Gibran, after listening to one of Tagore's evenings in New York 1921, took the pencil and left him a souvenir that his museum still embraces, and said: Although Tagore's face was tired that evening, it remains what he represents, Greatest Living," said head of Gibran National Committee Joseph Feninos.
It is learnt that both Gibran and Tagore had mutual respect and admiration for each other. Gibran’s most celebrated work 'The Prophet’ has been translated into Hindi and Malayam.
There were many similarities between the two. Both wrote in English to address the western audience and both were from countries under foreign occupation. India under the British and Lebanon under the Ottomans.
"Both of them had seen suffering and pain of their people, especially due to famines. Yet they decided to give their people a message of hope, peace, freedom and enlightenment. Both of them had an impact on each other and unknowingly complemented and completed each other,’’ ambassador Khan said.
Between Tagore and Gibran there seemed to be an intellectual partnership. "At the level of expressions and the overlap of phrases, conventions and concepts both Gibran and Tagore express a subjective framework which was different from letters and words – a reflection to ones inner self,’’ Feninos added.