March 11, 1999, Thursday, sunny, 20-34C

 

[21:36 @ Rm.111, Kanha Jungle Lodge]

     Today is another a long day of work for Faiyaz, who left at 07:00 with Amar and didn’t come back till 18:30.  Tarun and I did some worrying about the nearly brakeless old Gypsy that they took.  Faiyaz managed to change the appointment of those panchayaters who were supposed to come tomorrow to a later date, and made many more new appointments.  And now, he has gone with Tarun to Baihar to make more phone calls to Mandla and send faxes.  He looked suitably tired at dinner even before they drove off to Baihar, but he will be bright and energetic again first thing tomorrow morning when he and Anne and I will depart from the lodge at 07:00 to go to Mandla to meet the government officials.

     The power was on all morning till noon, off in the afternoon and on again at 18:00 and will stay on for the rest of the evening and night until at least tomorrow at 06:00.  I wrote in my field journal on my laptop computer all morning, and edited some more of the e-mail slated to be sent to WCWC on March 16th when we go to Jabalpur for the media conference.  After the power had come off at noon, I let speed-reader Anne go through it.  She said afterwards, “WCWC will love it.” 

     In the afternoon, I read more of the Dian Fossey book - always a powerful experience (Craig Sholley’s counter-advice notwithstanding), although what I was reading today was not about Fossey herself, but the horrendous impact on wildlife of war.  At dinner, I was angry enough to say, “We all know how starved for tiger conservation funds we are, but guess what I read in the Times of India when I was in Delhi?  India is spending US$1.8 billion to build a Star Wars system to one-up Pakistani and China.  We don’t even need to fight a hot war to impact on wildlife.  A cold one will do.”

     “This just goes to show us how far from the organismization of the Earth we still are,” Faiyaz answered sadly.

     “What would it be like if and when the Earth does organismize, military-wise, I wonder,” asked Anne.

     “If Earth’s organismization does happens, the nations of Earth will have become the organs of planetary organism Earth, if they still exist as we know them.  Just as there are no need for defenses among the organs of the same body, there will be no weapons among the nations of the organismized Earth, if by then national boundaries still exist,” answered Raminothna.

     “So weapons will be eradicated on Earth?”

     “International weapons, yes, but not so planet-defense weapons, such as those capable of diverting and destroying incoming asteroids, and also weapons against such cancerous internal enemies such as terrorism.”

     “No weapons amongst nations?  That’d be the day.  As for now, the organismization of the Earth looks more and more remote by the minute, perhaps even unachievable,” Faiyaz said, shaking his head. 

     “There is one ray of light.”

     “In this deep gloom, even a spark will help,” said Anne. 

     “Let me ask you.  If we take the total destructive power of all weapons on Earth say in the Roman times, or the time of Alexander the Great, and compare it to the destructive power of all the weapons on Earth today, would you see an increase or decrease?”

     “A huge increase, of course,” said Faiyaz.

     “And if we compare the amount of actual destruction they have actually wrought, then and now, would you see an increase or decrease?”

     “Another huge increase yoo,” said Faiyaz.

     “So, where is this light you’re talking about?” challenged Anne.

     “Now, if we compare the ratio of actual destruction to the destructive potential of all the weapon, then and now, what do we see?”

     “A huge decrease,” said Faiyaz.

     “Thus, the light,” said Anne, optimistic again.