J.S. RAWAT, born in Jalai, a remote village in Uttarakhand in the Lesser Himalayas, rose to become a very senior officer in the Geological Survey of India. He has done extensive field and laboratory work related to geotechnical investigations for about thirty-four years and is the author of several research papers and the books The Architect of Our Universe and Where, When, And How The Ancestral (Luca) To All Life Originated.