It had been a good afternoon, I thought on a winter evening in 1979 while walking the three-odd kilometers from the fast, clear stream flowing down from the Himalayan glaciers through the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, passing my favorite fishing spot to emerge into the Brahmaputra Valley where it lost its pure, sparkling, joyously tumultuous nature to join the murky, slow whirling eddies of the mighty Brahmaputra. Adjusting the bamboo handle of the landing net resting on my shoulder, I glanced back at the net weighed down by two red and one golden mahseer weighing two to three kilograms each, mahseer being my favorite sporting fish, in this case inhabiting the fast streams of Arunachal Pradesh.
I arrived at the wooden gate providing entry into the small Air Force camp at the edge of the Dulangmukh air-to-ground firing range of the Indian Air Force, a facility in the Eastern region of the country providing firing practice to the IAF fighter squadrons based in the area. About 250 kilometers from my squadron at Tezpur, I was doing a short four-day stint as Range Safety Officer at Dulangmukh Range, it being my duty to ensure the availability of the various target systems on the range and exercising close control over the aircraft visiting the range to practice their marksmanship using bombs, rocket and guns. The range was active only during the first half of the day due to weather and other considerations, which left me free till early the next morning. Handing over my catch to Thapa, the grinning cook who met me at the gate and ran the small Unit Kitchen to cater for the culinary needs of the twenty odd men and me, the only officer, at the camp, I made my way back to my room to shower and freshen up, remembering to apply anti-mosquito cream all over the exposed parts of my body.
An hour later I was sitting in the darkness on a camp chair reeking of Odomos with a glass of rum & lime by my side, peering through my 4.5-inch reflector telescope which I had brought with me in the Chetak helicopter which transported me from Tezpur to Dulangmukh Range. The view of the night sky was spectacular due the clear air at the wilderness, but mainly due the remote location of the Range, at least a hundred kilometers from the nearest town. The sky above was ablaze with millions of stars, a sight rarely seen by most people. Looking at the expanse of the Milky Way stretching across the sky, I visualized the position of Earth in one of the spiral arms of our galaxy, knowing that I was looking at the Milky Way edge-ways. Looking at some of the 100-odd billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and scanning for familiar “old friends”, I saw the constellation of Orion with the red giant “Betelgeuse” in one corner with the “sword of Orion” in the center of the constellation and the fuzzy blotch of the nebula of Orion forming the third star of the belt.
Idly thinking of the words I would use to explain the scene above to a friend unfamiliar with even the basics of astronomy, I’m not sure when my mind swung around to the idea of writing a non-fiction book explaining the cosmos and all it contained in easy to understand, layman’s language. I started with the many concepts of time and, inevitably, the question of Creation. Having my own views on the subject I looked for ways whereby I could discuss every aspect of time, eternity, the infinity of the Universe restricting oneself to scientific theories and avoiding other theories implying Divine intervention, creationism etc. Three days later I returned to y squadron with a glimmer of a theme which had more or less created itself from the myriad facts, possibilities and theories churning around in my mind.
The weeks, months and years ahead went by in long periods without thinking about these theories and concepts, followed by spells of intense activity. A noteworthy fact was that, regardless of the length of time periods between spells of cerebral activity, I never had any problem picking up the line of thought where I had left it, in remarkable contrast to mental activity concerning other subjects. By about the year 2000 I had resigned myself to the fact that this chain of thought was a tenuous abstract process not necessarily having a definitive conclusion; I think it was this concept bereft of any expectation that prevented any self-inflicted pressure to work towards a firm storyline and well-defined plot with a firm, unequivocal conclusion.
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