He was due to retire on superannuation. A common gossip among staff was that he was at least 15 years older than his declared age.

One day I asked, “Chungal, what is your actual date of birth?” Instantly he melted in disarming smile only to get frozen – next moment -- into serious business, “Sir, my mother said, it was drizzling outside when I was born.”

Can anybody refute the authenticity of the fact? In decades past, in this   thinly populated hilly terrain -- steeped in rural tradition, untouched by modernity – the concept of calendar was absent. The notion of birth certificate was irrelevant.  His mother exactly remembers, it was drizzling when her son was born.

But, an astrologer, if asked to prepare his horoscope, will be simply blinking. Still, the earth never stopped spinning on its axis and Chungal Ram’s life went on as usual without batting an eyelid.     

Similarly, there are many such fascinating stories of the origin of the Universe tucked away in almost all religious and mythological lore, spread over all times and climes. Even today, the tribal people, wherever they exist in various parts of the world, have their own versions of the history of origin of the Universe. For example, according to the Bakuba tribe of Congo, the Universe was born when a white giant deity Mbombo vomited, after feeling pain in the stomach.

World mythology is full of such bewitching tales of creation. All -- they believe -- are authentic as the drizzling birthday of my chowkidar.

In what way the modern version is different?

In the beginning the Universe was a tiniest of a ball. You cannot imagine how little it was. But, the Sun, Earth and the billions of stars were compressed into that teeny pinpoint. How it was so tightly compacted in such an insignificant dot we don’t know. There are about 90 naturally occurring elements with varying density. None of them can be squeezed in such a minuscule point. How it happened? No explanation is available. It was infinitely hot – so hot we cannot dream even. Why or how – none can tell. And suddenly, there was a Big Bang – what caused the Bang?  --  exploding the infinitesimally minute orb into billions of splinters giving birth to trillions of bewildering size stars and innumerable celestial objects populating the vast sweeping space without any imaginable boundary – leaving in its trail myriads of ‘whys’ and ‘hows’, unanswered.

Suppose, for the sake of economy of imagination, we subscribe to the Bakuba vomiting theory of creation, what happens to the Universe or Multiverse -- as the astrophysicists claim there could be more than one Universe? 

17/01/2001