{"id":1609,"date":"2009-09-05T20:50:54","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T15:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/?p=1609"},"modified":"2009-09-05T20:50:54","modified_gmt":"2009-09-05T15:50:54","slug":"inspirations-khalil-gibran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/2009\/09\/05\/inspirations-khalil-gibran\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirations – Khalil Gibran"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Inspirations \u2013 a series that is reproduction of interesting speeches and writings. It is not about a writer’s block \u2013 i keep battling those \u2013 but more because these are readings \/ writings that inspired me at a certain point in life \u2013 and they still resonate.)<\/em><\/p>\n

I discoverd Khalil Gibran via Robert Fisk’s book “Pity the Nation<\/a><\/strong>” – on the war in Lebanon. I was a student – in a society that was eclectic & multi ethnic. I had a flatmate who was Lebanese, another couple who were Coptic Egyptians, classmates who came from across the globe. Many of these were places with conflict – countries that had not yet recovered from colonialism and had not yet gotten used to the concept of Nation State. Identity was much more at the tribal, religious sect, ethnic or clan level.<\/p>\n

In those days, I was curious about conflict, nationalism and national identity, colonialism, post colonialism – all the things that are so terribly important to students \ud83d\ude42 And, somehow when i read this it struck a chord – i went back and pulped on Gibran – but none of it resonates as much as this – possibly because it was the first one !<\/p>\n

Funnily, many of my classmates believed it referred to their part of the world. Every so often i revisit this – somehow nothing seems to have changed.<\/p>\n

Pity the Nation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation that raises not its voice when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.<\/p>\n

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.<\/p>\n

Khalil Gibran
\nThe garden of the Prophet (1934)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Inspirations \u2013 a series that is reproduction of interesting speeches and writings. It is not about a writer’s block \u2013 i keep battling those \u2013 but more because these are readings \/ writings that inspired me at a certain point in life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,23,24],"tags":[628,899,1261],"class_list":["post-1609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-desi-pundit","category-india","category-inspirations","tag-garden-of-the-prophet","tag-khail-gibran","tag-pity-the-nation"],"yoast_head":"\nInspirations - Khalil Gibran - A PoV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/2009\/09\/05\/inspirations-khalil-gibran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inspirations - Khalil Gibran - A PoV\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Inspirations \u2013 a series that is reproduction of interesting speeches and writings. 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