My friend Salil Naik asked me to write a letter to his daughter on her birthday. Hence you can say that this is a commissioned post. So in the style of “A Letter to Abhishek“, I offer this letter to Aalisha.

My dear Abhishek,
You are a sentient human being who is capable of using symbols.
There is one fact that distinguishes us from the rest of creation: our ability to use language. Or to put it another way, our ability to do abstract symbol manipulation. That ability, more than anything else, allows us to call ourselves members of the species homo sapiens sapiens. All our best attributes flow from that unique faculty. How did our brains diverge from the brains of our pre-human ancestors? What were the evolutionary forces which molded …

My Dear Abhishek:
You, like everything else, are a little bundle of energy, aren’t you!
Let me tell you a story. It was a very long time ago, by some estimates about 15 to 18 billion years ago, this universe we inhabit was born. Why it came into existence nobody knows. Where did it come from? From Absolute Nothingness. You may ask: how can Something arise from Absolute Nothingness? Here is my conjecture. You start with Absolute Nothingness and represent it with a 0 (zero). Some call it “Shunyata” (Emptiness). Then you …

My Dear Abhishek:
You, like all newborns, are a Little Buddha.
Welcome to the world and may you have a long and happy stay here. In this letter I will try to tell you a few things that may help you along.
You are just a month old. The universe you are born into is infinitely older than you. I hope someday you would learn what the relation between you and the universe is and appreciate the unique place you occupy within it. You will spend quite a bit of time …