Dear Manisha, I write this letter with much shame, as although The Rising Nepal has generously offered you its front page, I don't think you are worthy of much public discussion. The thing is, what you have said of Nepal's current political situation ought to be said because you are a citizen of the world, and as any other, you have both the right and the freedom to gift us with your two cents on our tragedy. However, you have been bestowed with the front page of the national newspaper?which has denied stories to families whose houses are being destroyed and whose children are being maimed?not because you are a person who is entitled to an opinion but because you are a public figure. Let me not shy away, then, from acknowledging that you are what the Rising Nepal has treated you as?a celebrity, whose face and name appear in our lives no matter how much we don't want them to. This acknowledgment eases my shame a little. I apologize, anyway, that I cannot completely quiet down my stern belief that you are also a person who, like any other, need not be silenced and deserves a decent amount of respect?which also eases my shame a little. Anyway, open letters are in, so I'm sure you will not mind my hipness; onward with my concerns, which?I must warn you?may be a complete waste of everyone's time. Having always admired your grandfather, for sometime I had been jealous that a part of him makes you, that his blood makes yours. But, of course, in all moments of sanity I'm not one to pay much attention to blood lines. I'm only embarrassed for your grandfather that the hatred for your political family far surpasses the love for him. There is love, nonetheless, despite the hatred, which might speak volumes on his own greatness. But he is no more, so I turn my attention to those who are here still?your family has become such a liability to our freedom. Any attempt to talk about freedom and justice is dismissed if your aunt makes an appearance, and any attempt to return to sanity, to seek modernity, is shunned as long as it is led by your granduncle and his pals. While I will take nothing you say too seriously?don't get me wrong, I have no problem with your drunken nights and well-paid Bollywood career (I hate to be represented by you, but I don't hold these things against you)?I wondered upon hearing the news of your front page story if it provided some false comfort to our people. After all, we are a country that shatters stores and vehicles over what Hritik Roshan did not say, so one can never underestimate what effects your words might have. My point is, along with your existing family members you, too, seem to be of little use to Nepal's preferable future, which I find fascinating only because it was your grandfather who envisioned grand modern things for us back in the fifties. But then again, I'm not into blood lines - http://samudaya.org/articles/archives/2005/06/dear_miss_koira.php