Happy birthday, Tara Dorji Ritsma

You don’t know us at all. For you, we are just a blur of images, which don’t register in your less than one year-old brain. Today, you are one year old.
Happy birthday, Tara! Which Tara are you? Green Tara or the White Tara? For us, you are Our Tara.
You are too small to even recognise us, let alone understand the feelings that we have for you. You are still some one we don’t know properly. As the years roll by, we shall get to know each other. After all, we are connected by destiny.
For starters, you don’t even know your grand father or your grand mother; or for that matter your uncles and aunts. I don’t blame you. Like I said we are just a blur of images.
After all, you were born in the land of the dikes and we live in the Himalayas. And you came back home after a month of your birth. While we thought you were too fair, some of your mother’s friends felt you were too dark. No problem, sweetheart.
The world is browning. But what does that matter. You are you and the others are them. We all have to live our life. And you have to live yours. Where and how, are still questions that only future will tell you.
I only hope I will be around to take you to the ball game. You know the girls play football nowadays. Your aunt Sangay is part of the school cricket team. I don’t know how she learnt to play it. We never had even a bat or a ball at home. I guess when there is a heart, every thing works out fine.
You are also some one who worked out fine. You were the result of the convergence of hearts. I feel that is what is missing out in the world. We have more divergence, then convergence.
We could do a lot with a little bit of love. As we become globalised, but love still has not gone global. It seems so with all the fighting in the world, despite all the peace talks that take place.
You know the world has become too noisy. No one wants to listen to any one. In between the saner and wiser voices are getting drowned in the sound of gun fires and cries of the wounded. We are willing to fight, loot and kill to make our point. But no one is listening when the other side is trying to make a point.
Well, why should we bother if no one comes to trample all over my backyard? Right?
Wrong.
If something is wrong with the world, the problem will come to your doorstep one day or the other. So look out for that day and prepare for it. We will not be around then. Of course, you may not even need this advice.
Now you don’t even have to feel embarrassed. This is what I want to say. To take it or leave it; it is up to you. By the time you learn to read, may be this piece of writing won’t be around, unless and until your father and mother save it in a diskette. But by then there might be many stories to tell about you and the world.
You will be a beautiful girl. I am not saying it just out of filial love for you. After all you have the beauty of tulip fields in the Netherlands and the ruggedness of the Himalayas in your blood.
East or west, home is where you like it best. It is for you to choose. For the world is your home. Happy birthday again.