March 9, 1999, Tuesday, sunny, 19-34C

 

[23:25 @ Rm.111, Kanha Jungle Lodge]

     Today I gave one of my best slideshow presentations to 7 panchayat leaders.  Yet another one of whom expressed keen interest in the solar oven, and another, for the first time ever, remarked, “You should show this slideshow to our entire village.  For me to go back and tell them I saw this and that would not be as convincing.”  I said I would be pleased to come to their village one evening before I leave.  He will contact us after he has consulted his brethren.

     When I saw the gleam in his eyes as we lifted the lid of the solar oven, then the lid of the rice pot, I said that before our meeting is over, I would like to make an arrangement with him to provide two or three ovens to him on a trial basis.  Upon saying this, I heard Anne say to Faiyaz, “Do not translate this.”  Her concern was that I was making a promise they may not be able to keep once I’m gone, due to Pradeep.  Later, while on the park drive Faiyaz told me that he modified what I said to a possible subsequent “subsidy”, which to me is harder to keep since it is a long term open-ended commitment to give more. On my end, I have no problem giving a few trial units away, without a long term commitment to give more.  With the $60,000 CIDA budget, or even the donations Tiger Trust has received that I know of due to the slideshow I gave to the Peter Harrison group, we can afford to give away dozens of trial units.  Even Pradeep cannot turn this down, since it was based on us not having installed solar ovens in only two villages that he called our work a “total failure”.  After the last few days’ occasional turn-downs by villagers, Anne should be ecstatic to have someone interested enough to say they were willing to try it.  Again, it was Pradeep’s insincerity, inactivity and non-commitment or perhaps even opposition that chilled her.   

     Speaking of Pradeep, Tarun took the opportunity to call him.  Now I’m told that he will attend the panchayat conference after all.  Well, well, well.  He also wants to observe one of my sessions with the Panchayats.  Observe?  Or is it his favourite ‘monitor’?  Observing is fine, but “monitoring’ is not.  Get this through your head, Pradeep.  If you don’t like it, you can bloody well do it yourself.

     I can mull over this interpersonal crap for only so long.  The way to be rid of it is to go cosmic.  And Faiyaz had just the right question to get us on to that plane.

     “When you said, ‘May Cosmic Egg Earth hatch on time’, you spoke as if the Earth was a real egg instead of a metaphoric one.  You were even talking as if this Geo-Embryo had a real, predetermined gestation period.”

     “I did, and it does,” Raminothna said.

     “Are you serious?” said Anne.

     “Not only does the Geo-Embryo have a predetermined gestation period, it also undergoes several stages of metamorphosis according to a more or less fixed metamorphic schedule, failing to meet which the Geo-Embryo would be still-born.”

     “I find this hard to believe, even if true,” she said, her facial expression matching her words.  “Do you have any evidence to back this up?”

     “Alright, tell me.  When was inorganic physical matter first formed?”

     Anne looked at Faiyaz, who is more science oriented.  Faiyaz answered, “Well, most if not all of the hydrogen atoms and some of the helium atoms in the Universe were formed at the Big Bang.  The heavier elements were formed by means of nucleosynthesis in the interiors of stars.  When these stars died, most exploded and dispersed the heavier elements into interstellar space.  Where these interstellar clouds collided and went beyond a certain density, they could gravitationally collapse into subsequent generation stars with solid planets where the molecules would also develop.  I would say that physical matter was originally formed at the Big Bang some 15-18 billion years ago.”

     “When were unicellular organisms first formed in this part of the Universe?  In other words, when did the Cellular Level of Organization first materialize on Earth?”

     “The Earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago, and, as I recall, the first cells were formed about 3 billion years ago.”

     “When were multicellular Metabion organisms first formed?”

     “The Metabion Level first materialized on Earth about 500-600 million years ago, in the form of sponge-like or hydra-like or worm-like creatures.”

     “When were animal societies on the Tribal level first formed?”      

     “I would say that the first animal societies would be in the form of insects societies, which first arose I would say about 100 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs.”

     “And when were the multi-tribal cities first formed?”

     “About 10,000 years ago as we have formerly discussed.”  After a moment, he added, “Well this refers to human cities only.  If ‘city’ is taken to mean a society of animal societies, I would say that certain other vertebrate species may have beat us to it.  The whales and dolphins, for example, have had about 20 million years’ in the oceans, and they could have formed inter-pod societies say 15 million years ago, albeit rudimentary ones.  The Humpbacks today, for instances, disperses worldwide to feed, but converges around Hawaii to inter-breed.”

     “Do these numbers mean anything to you?”

     “Numbers?  Oh, you mean 17 billion, 3 billion; 600 million, 100 million and 15 million?”

     “You could drop some zeros.”

     His eyes were wide as he stared at the piece of paper on which he had written down the numbers.  “My God!  Either my numbers are wrong, or this is yet another colossal coincidence, or your planetary metamorphic schedule is real.  If you adjust these numbers but slightly, you’d get 17, 100, 550, 3000, 16500, which is a precise exponential series with a consistent factor of 5.5!”

     “Each OSES Cycle is one stage in the metamorphosis of the Geo-Embryo.”

     “Well, Anthony, will you ever stop to amaze me?”

     “As you said, it could be just a big coincidence,” I conceded for the both of us.

     “So, if the metamorphic schedule of the Geo-Embryo is indeed preset, when will the final metamorphosis – the organismization of the Earth – occur?” asked Anne, her eyes wide too.

     “Soon, geologically speaking,” I said, “if successful.”

     “How soon?”

     “Right now, all I can say for sure is that the gestation period of the Geo-Embryo is 4.6 billion years,” I repeated what Raminothna said to me in Africa more than two decades ago.