One can only sincerely wish the Dalai Lama a very long life at the service of world peace.
His presence is much required today on the planet, notes Claude Arpi, who has known His Holiness for more than half a century.
The Dalai Lama will be 90 years old on July 6.
Personally, it is an occasion for me to look back and realise the luck (or good karma) that I have had to meet him over the years. Let me start at the beginning of my 'Tibetan adventure.
The year was 1971. That summer I decided to visit Afghanistan during my university holidays.
In July, while I was in Kabul I heard some hippies speaking about what they called a 'cool' place called 'Manali.' I was also told that 'cool' Tibetan refugees were living there.
I did manage to come to India the very next year, and though I could hardly speak English, I decided to make the trip to Manali. I reached Palam airport early in the morning, jumped into a cab for the old Delhi railway station and boarded the first available train (and then bus) to the North.
It was on the road between Kulu and Manali that I saw my first Tibetan. This encounter was to change my life.
In India or in Tibet for that matter, everything that happens can be explained by one word -- 'karma.' It must have been my karma to meet this Tibetan!
The more I met with these peculiar people, the more I became interested in their way of being as well as their history.
They had lost everything: Their country, their wealth, very often members of their family and still they could stand on the side of the road that they were building and smile.
How could someone educated in a Cartesian country with a modern utilitarian education understand this bizarre phenomenon?
We are taught that if one loses everything important and dear in life, one must be sad and grim-faced, there are no two ways about it.
In the beginning I wondered whether the experience of the Chinese invasion and the destruction of their thousand-year-old civilisation had been too much for them and that something had cracked in their brains. It was not the case.
My First Encounter in July 1972
While in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, I met their leader, the Dalai Lama and I began to understand something that I had not so far understood: These people had a different set of values than the Westerners have.
In seeing this 'simple monk', as he prefers to call himself, I saw that inner strength and the power of compassion are qualities which are practically unknown today in the world.
This monk seemed the embodiment of a wisdom which was part of the spiritual and cultural heritage of a nation that had spent most of its time looking 'within', into the heart of man.
World Interest in Tibet
Today there is an explosion of interest in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama is central to this interest, especially at a time when the planet is plunged in violence and chaos.
This interest has multiplied after the Dalai Lama reached India in 1959 and was granted asylum by the Government of India.
Suddenly Tibet was no more the last 'hidden' kingdom of the planet and the 'God-King' could be approached.
The Dalai Lama and Auroville
In recent years, my main contact with the Tibetan leader has been through Auroville.
Since January 1973, when the Dalai Lama spent two days in Auroville and Pondicherry (on January 17, he met the Mother in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram), the exchanges between the community of Auroville and the Tibetan refugees and their leader have been frequent and regular.
In 1978, a group of us met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala where he encouraged us to start a Tibetan Pavilion in the International Zone of Auroville.
In December 1991, the Pavilion of Tibetan Culture officially became part of Auroville Foundation thanks to a resolution of the Auroville governing board under Dr Karan Singh and Dr Kapila Vatsyayan, the famous art and Tibetan scholar.
In January 1993, His Holiness agreed to be the Patron of the Pavilion.
Later in the year, the Dalai Lama came to Auroville to lay the foundation stone of the Pavilion and in January 2009, he returned to inaugurate the building.
Some anecdotes
Fifty-three years after my first encounter with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, what can one say about him?
Too many things, of course, to fit into an article, but his sense of humour, his down-to-earth attitude, and his capacity to bring together opposites in a world often torn apart by different faiths, different religions or different cultures, stand out.
When I met him for the first time in 1972, he was truly an 'ordinary monk' walking freely out of his 'palace' (Z+ security cover was not yet necessary at that time); he used to visit construction sites or the main temple (known as Tsuglhakang) for prayers or pujas.
He then had a Land Rover that he would share with his two teachers, Ling and Trichang Rinpoches.
In the early 1970s, there were hardly two and three cars in McLeod Ganj (then known as 'Upper Dharamsala'); of course, there were no traffic jams like today.
Whenever Tibetans would hear the sound of a car approaching, they would bend low in reverence, not daring to look up; it was sure to be either 'His Holiness' or one of his gurus.
To see such devotion was deeply touching for my Cartesian mind.
I have to admit that during that first year, I did not ask for a private audience as my English was more than limited and I would not have known what to say.
The Dalai Lama travelled for the first time to Europe in September/October 1973. I managed to go to the airport in Geneva (he was to arrive from Italy where he met the Pope).
There was hardly anybody to receive him; however I was thrilled when he told one of his attendants: "I have seen him in Dharamsala".
Unfortunately, the photos of his arrival in Geneva have been lost.
His sense of humour
In the late 1990s, I had gone to Hunsur, Karnataka to interview him for my first book The Fate of Tibet, (he granted me three long interviews to clarify some points of Tibet's modern history).
One senior police officer who was not given a room near the Tibetan leader was very upset; he told the Dalai Lama's attendants that he would take revenge.
I arrived just then for the interview. He stopped me from going to meet the Dalai Lama; it took a good half an hour for the Dalai Lama's secretaries to finally 'negotiate' my release.
During all this time the Dalai Lama was waiting in his apartments.
When I reached I profusely apologised; he then said: "It is fine, they [the police] are aware that most of the French are terrorists" and he kept on laughing!
A couple of years later, The Fate of Tibet was released by him in Delhi; once the function ended, I bragged and several times said 'Thuk-je-che' (Thank you); he immediately cut me: "You don't know Tibetan. I know as much French as you know Tibetan, Merci beaucoup monsieur."
My face went red.
Tawang
During the series of interviews, I once asked the Dalai Lama if the Tibetan government had not committed a great blunder at the time of India's Independence, when it refused to immediately acknowledge the 1914 border agreement and the Simla Convention.
He thought about it and told this this story which took place just before independence, he said: "About Mon (Tawang) in NEFA area, I remember that around 1945/45, at that time I had no responsibility. I heard and noticed that a special Tibetan national assembly took place as a British [Indian] mission came to see the Kashag [Tibetan cabinet] in the Potala.
"Mr H. Richardson [later head of the Indian Mission in Lhasa] was one of them. From my window in Potala, I noticed that and I was told that the Tibetan national assembly was taking place; the session was going on because the British army wanted to enter Tawang area and the Tibetan government wanted to protest. ...
"At that time, because Tawang and these areas had been in possession of the Tibetans [in the past], and the [national assembly] wanted to hold on to these areas although in 1914 at the Simla Convention the border had already been demarcated and [the McMahon Line] was agreed by the Tibetan government.
"But most of the Tibetans did not know that (laughing). But they did not know that the government had already decided in 1914 [about the border between Tibet and India].
"So they did not know what had been decided [in 1914, i.e. the McMahon Line]." The Dalai Lama could stop laughing, "such a wonderful government!" he repeated.
This truthfulness, this straightforwardness, this capacity to be able to make fun of oneself or those close is extremely rare for a head of a State.
One can only sincerely wish the Dalai Lama a very long life at the service of world peace. His presence is much required today on the planet.
Claude Arpi is Distinguished Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi.
Mr Arpi is a long-time contributor to Rediff and you can read his earlier columns here.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff