Being Unavailable!

It works often!

Place the mobile on a 'silent' mode, switch it off.. etc..

'Chor-Police' ! A game that I had learnt from seniors at school... The phase was about 5 years, and lasted only till we reached 9th class, where the turn of teens drew its attention, for many of my friends, into more of 'dress' consciousness (suddenly they became too particular about narrow bottom, then 'bell-bottom' pants, the collar style was usually decided either by the ruling movie-star or that high-scoring test-cricketer... till then the ferociousness of our games took a toll on the shirt and knicker and its life too!)... For a while I felt 'left out' when this dress consciousness failed to impress me, but it did afford the attention being drawn a little deeper within (an incidental gift due to the situation... when all others looked into palm-held tiny mirrors, I learned to sit and stare into a blank empty space ahead of me, simply because, it provided the scope to 'look on and on'!)..

The concept of 'being unavailable' was getting crystallized during this immediate after-phase!... But the 'how'.... of the concept of 'being-unavailable' crept in, was perhaps.... due to the help of the game at school.

That game of 'chor-police' was a bit sacred one! There was no 'chori' (theft involved)!.. And we never gave a thought to it... when we did not 'steal' anything, why is the other kid who is chased, called a thief?... But then, why at all should he try and become 'unavailable' during the count of 1 to 50?... The thrill of the game never gave enough time to think of such logical questions! One fellow places his palms on both eyes, keeps his forehead touching a corner of a wall, and chants aloud his UKG arithmetic 'portion' of quarterly-exam... (the 'chanting' of the numerals, from 1 to 50).. Those kids...whose tongues can churn out the numbers faster will be required to chant up to 75 .. the other kids hide.. The first one to be discovered becomes the 'chanting priest' of the next round! (The worst part of it was, the kid who manages to hide at a good place, has to bear the brunt of loneliness, isolation, etc for a longer time, with the anxiety too, that the Second-bell after interval may not be audible.. The place of hiding is kept a secret, and periodical peeping out might add the vulnerability of being spotted by the next 'police-kid'... But that was the thrill...!!!)...

The need to find 'newer places to hide'... to become 'unavailable'... led me to take a look at our school's earliest water tank which provided drinking water!..

The water tank stood on a platform of about 2.5 to 3 feet, so as to enable tiny size taps all around its base, for kids to use it for drinking the water... the spill-water flows along a narrow canal 6 inches wide below this tap, all around the tank... The tank was located at the end of an open-corridor. Along the open corridor, soon after this tank (lengthwise), was the Chapel, then the 'office-room' which had a window that remains 'open' only for certain hours, more for 'fee'-flow than for the air-flow, inwards for ventilation!.. The next was the Principal's office (out of bounds for kids, except when summoned!)..

The corridor had a roof with a drop on the open side to shield from slant rain-shower... This 'drop' wall narrowed the space between the water tank's upper portion to just about 9 inches for a height of 3 feet! Where as, the other side of the lengthwise portion of the tank grew along the wall with a gap of 1 feet, so that kids can squeeze in that space, stand in front of the tap, and sip from the drool of that tiny tap (kids desisted from that 'side-length' of taps, just because their 'bottom' gets a pat from the wall, when they suddenly couch to reach the tap!).. The height of the water tank was kept almost touching the roof, short of height by just 6 or 8 inches!...

The 'search' for a new hiding place tempted me to climb on to that canal-railing, and reach for the roof of that tank, and pry into it, to 'see' if I can somehow squeeze in, to hide somewhere along the elbow of that tank's top portion where the drop began.... I was surprised when I managed to take a look at the water in the tank from its top... the head had to be twisted sideways, to reach inside the tank, to take a look, but the wall of the tank was a bit thicker than the length of my neck, and hence could not 'straighten' my head after that side-twist to push the head in! A compromise was the 'sly' look side-ways (the way we try when copying from the answer-sheet of the next kid during an examination/test-process!)... The dim lighting took a while to clear the visibility ... And the 'visuals' left me stupefied! I was looking at an 'ocean bed' like scene with lot of greenery at the base, (and was at once reminded of the 'explanation' of the puzzle, when I found tiny bits of green substances which occasionally landed on to our tiny palm while cupping the palm upturned, beneath the tiny tap to sip the water!)... There was nothing more to 'gain' from the visuals, and I struggled my way back, to the firm ground! (It was much later that I could 'guess' the reasons for this poor-design of this tank, which made any-cleaning almost impossible after it was erected... it also explained why this water caused a sore-throat occasionally when my throat was ..... 1) pre-ruptured due to shouting hard during our lunch-interval-game, and 2)also dust-coated by the playground mud, hanging in air... all over the place, suspended to a height of 5 feet for that 45 minute duration of interval..

Otherwise, this water never mattered (in terms of lack of cleaning the tank periodically... this was true for almost all of us kids.. that carrying of a 'water bottle' was unheard of during 1956 to 1970 at least!)... From my memory as an adult, the only explanation I found was that the body as a kid was good enough to expel almost all of the substances that got-in... like that water of school-tank's .. or.. 'that' which was not needed as a 'food' by the body!

At work place, the skill of becoming 'unavailable' had to turn a little more subtle... And here, I was only interested to learn it by observation, and never felt persuaded to 'practice it' (the whole idea of the terms of contract of employment was to be 'available' during the whole of working-hours, and any 'idea' of being unavailable meant a proportionately 'unearned wages'!... That was something not so compatible with my-frame-of-mind, ever!)...

At home, this un-availability takes dubious variations, mostly because we are 'relatively-related to the close-relatives of ours)...

With spiritual pursuit, the physical 'availability' turned to be inversely proportional to spirit's availability, for evolvement into spirituality! (Even to discover this, it took a pretty long time, for many of us, and therefore the 'sinking' in of the tools and techniques was groping for a slot through which to sink in, it also kept its search on at just the surface levels, leaving even the surface-benefits, popularly known as the 'incidental-health-benefits' to a chance-happening,... when the subtlety of 'resistance-within' itself was an inconspicuous hurdle!)....

Mind. It alone seems to decide the level and extent of our 'availability' within and out of physical realms! (When the being within.... gains a 'decisive ability', and decides to 'avail' the mind, its availability becomes a little flexible, with 'flexi-timings' ... the latest catch-word of techies of today!)

Availingly yours,

psn ( 26th March, 2014)