Bookshelves don’t just contain books. They house miracles.
Let me explain what I mean by that. When you pick up a book, the book you’re holding contains someone’s thoughts, someone who could be from a completely different time in history, who may have died hundreds of years ago. But with that book in your hands, the thoughts that she or he penned are immediately right there on those pages, waiting for you to read and reflect upon. And thanks to the hard work of a translator, those thoughts could have come from an author who spoke and used a different language than you. She or he could be from very different cultural, social and religious backgrounds than your own and may have lived in a part of the world that you’ll never get a chance to see yourself. All of this to me is nothing short of a miracle. As astronomer Carl Sagan once shared, “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of different epochs.” In ways similar to music, books can be shared and appreciated throughout the ages, irrespective of who, where, or when the writers and readers lived.
In the summer of 2012, my wife, two year old son and I moved to the small city of Damak, Nepal for my wife’s work with the UN refugee agency. Although Nepal is well known for its majestic Himalayan peaks, Damak is located in the far eastern corner of the country near the border of India, and instead of cold air and mountains, the city sits in the hot and humid lowlands (at an elevation lower than my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio!) with roads of various levels of bumpiness cutting through tea fields, neighborhoods, and locally-owned businesses. As Damak is fairly small, my family and I would either walk or bicycle to get anywhere, and very occasionally we would take a bicycle rickshaw to get back home if we were too tired to walk.
After having lived in the city for a couple of months, I was bicycling around the city’s main chowk (roundabout) on one particular muggy afternoon when I decided to get off the main road and explore a street I hadn’t been on before. As I cycled down the street, I happened to see a sign in front of what seemed to be someone’s home stating in all caps, “DAMAK PUBLIC LIBRARY.” Oh wow, a library! Damak has plenty of schools and small shops but it’s not a place with parks or places where you could just sit down and enjoy a book. I had to stop and remember feeling excited about the prospect of bringing my young son there, hoping they might have at least a few children’s books in English.
As I got off my bike, I met a young man who was working in the yard and after I introduced myself, he told me his name was Bibek. I asked him where the library was, wondering if it was out of sight behind the house, and he motioned for me to come inside. As I walked through the front door I realized I was walking through someone’s home, and Bibek showed me a space in the back which had two fairly full bookshelves fronted by a small table and chair. I looked down on the table and saw a Nepalese newspaper with a big photo of Neil Armstrong on the front page. The world famous astronaut had died recently, and here I was in a small city in eastern Nepal, looking at a picture of Armstrong in his Apollo 11 spacesuit, and it just struck me right there and then what a truly small world we really live in. I told my new friend that I was from the same state where Neil Armstrong was born, and that Armstrong had died in my hometown of Cincinnati.
A bit later, Bibek introduced me to another young man who was just coming from out of the back door using a wheelchair. I didn’t know it yet but this was the moment I would meet one of my dearest friends and one my biggest heroes. His name is Bhesraj Neupane.
I don’t remember much about what Bhesraj and I talked about on that first day, but I’ll never forget what I felt. Seeing Bhesraj move around his small home in a basic wheelchair, I felt an immediate sense of pity, wondering if he had always been in a wheelchair, and I started feeling sorry for him before he had even had a chance to open his mouth. It was a feeling that I very soon regretted, seeing his big smile and sensing a beautiful calm in his demeanor. As we talked I felt not only at ease but also really happy, seeing and sensing how kind and happy he was. I would learn that day that at 18 years old, Bhesraj had sustained a spinal cord injury from a freak fall from the balcony of his home. In that instant his life forever changed. I would also learn that despite his positive outlook Bhesraj had endured a tremendously dark time after his accident, and he still lives in pain each and every day because of his injury. But Bhesraj is not to be pitied and certainly has never sought pity. As I returned to the library the next day with my son, Bhesraj shared in more detail how devastated he felt when his doctor told him he would never walk again, mostly because he did not want to be a burden to his family. And he continued by sharing a story I’ll never forget: how a book saved his life.
While Bhesraj was recuperating in the hospital, a friend gave him a book to read so that he could pass the time. As he read he felt for the first time a sense of hope again. In a moment of awakening he realized that he was still fortunate because although he couldn’t move, he could still read. After he finished the book he started to ask his family, friends and neighbors to bring other books when they visited him, and by the end of his hospital stay, Bhesraj had read nearly 200 books! Reading, he told me, helped ease his pain, not by allowing him to escape it but by feeling that he still had value—that he could still contribute something to this world. Because of books, Bhesraj knew that he could still pursue his studies (he just recently completed his Master’s degree) and with about 200 books in his possession, he also knew he could do something for his community as well.
Realizing that there was no place for people in Damak to freely access books or even newspapers, he talked with his family and friends about his desire to start the city’s first public library. There were many barriers of course, including limited resources and his own limited mobility, but Bhesraj had an idea: he asked his parents if they could start the library in their home.
With their encouragement and support, his family cleaned out one of the rooms in their house and began the process of getting the library ready. He asked friends and schools to donate more books and asked community members to donate things like bookshelves. Bhesraj then organized a committee of people from the community who also liked the idea of establishing a public library and with them, he formed an official organization in the summer of 2012. By the end of the year, Damak Public Library was officially opened in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and my family and I invited colleagues and friends to join the community in celebrating the realization of Bhesraj’s beautiful idea. It was a day full of hope and one that is forever imprinted in my mind.
As they say, that was just the beginning. Bhesraj and I would become closer and closer by the day, and his family would welcome us over at their home/library anytime, sharing whatever food they had, and they invited us to join in on all of the holiday gatherings– Holi festival (the one with all the colorful powder thrown and applied liberally on faces), Dashain (the annual homecoming), and my personal favorite, Tihar (or Diwali, the festival of lights– a truly magical time with beautiful light displays, gorgeous homemade mandalas, special foods like the delicious sel roti “donuts”, and most especially the comradery of dancing and singing together in groups like the new Damak Public Library group, visiting neighbors late into the night with deusi performances).
I’ll share more next time about how Damak Public Library grew into a vibrant community center, but let me end today with saying that there are some people you could never imagine your life without, and for me Bhesraj is one of those very special people. In the title of this post I use the word “hero” and in Bhesraj I mean that in the deepest, truest sense of the word. Hero is a word that starts to seem a bit “too much” as we get older, and the funny thing about heroes is that the heroes themselves don’t think of themselves in that way. But I’m certain that many, many people think this way about my brother Bhesraj. He continues to inspire me and so many others in so many ways. In his humility, in his ambition, in his vulnerability, and in his active work to show people that you are the one who loses when you judge others because of what they look like or what they seemingly can’t do. Bhesraj has made his community a better, more hopeful place and his messages are now circulating throughout the country, through local and national media outlets and at public events where he shares his ideas . I am so incredibly proud of him and absolutely can’t wait to reunite with Bhesraj soon. And let me very happily share that Bhesraj is not only my friend, my brother, my hero… But as of last week, he’s also a father too. 💗
This is an incredible story of fate, perhaps but, most likely not. It is more about you and your love of books and people. You inherited a brother and he now has an absolute best friend in his life. Your relationships is so special as you both have inspired each other with all the things that matter most; love , respect, thoughtfulness and a bond that cannot be broken nor taken away.