indispensability

:-))

I don't know,
which one to start with...
a joke,
or the serious part of it :-))

The joke is a bit old one (but not famous, since it did happen 'along' with me in it :-))...}

A girl of about 11 or 12 asked me (it was some 45 years ago)... “What is the meaning of indispensable”?

She was in a school at a very remote village, and teachers were not too-vulnerable to being exposed for their ignorance.. They parry (deflect, like arrows are thwarted) such queries with a standard reply “look into the dictionary... when will you learn to use it?”

I looked into her eager eyes...
She had 'great expectations' out of me... (she and her younger sister used to enjoy the 'mind set' via accents, styles and dialogues of a city youth like me... for a rustic kid, it was ample entertainment).

So, I picked that 'route'...

I said, suppose you go to this toilet ...
(I have to briefly explain the 'this-toilet'... They had very recently 'housed' a modern toilet –flush type-- though Indian style of seating, and ... the search for a small place left them with no choice other than a tiny room adjoining a main hall, meant to be stuffed with junk toys, old items of disuse, etc... Their usual toilet was too simple... a large pit, with good stone pillars laid across, and a wall around it, with a tiled roof, about 100 metres away from the dwelling... water was carried from a well.. it was excellently hygienic, though of an old style... the 'collections' were regularly made into good manure, and no harmful germs/insects were allowed to thrive)...
“this toilet”.. I continued.. “ has a tap with a small water tank overhead, connected... somebody forgot to switch on the motor, and the tank is dry... Some guests are in the hall... you need water to wash, and then come out of the toilet... you can't shout, as-usual... 'mom, no-water...!!'... Now, tell me, don't you 'find' water to be 'indispensable'?”...
As expected, this tiny girl burst into an uncontrollable laughter, and I had to wait, till she finished with her laughing bouts.. (Something so-good about these simple village girls was, they are quite intense with their emotions... they thoroughly live-through every thought-process, and therefore the learning-curve was too-good!)...
Then she collected herself (the laughter session brought her mom, my aunt into the hall, leaving something burning on the wood-stove, at the old-style-kitchen!... She first stared bewildered, and then joined in the joke, to laugh together with her child....).
As if to amply reward me ... this girl declared, “Never again will I require to look at its meaning for the rest of my life!... I guess, I can even use this word all-by-myself, to its best potentials!!!”...

....

What I found was... most people around , due to sheer desperation of ensuring a 'decently-respected-survival' try to make even 'themselves'.... quite indispensable , at least at crucial or vital areas of activity...
It touches a ridiculous low... when a spouse says... “Without me, he can't even reach a towel by himself/ without me, she can't even ...... (I prefer to leave it blank.... readers may guess anything)..

At school... a clerk holds the management to ransom, by abruptly disappearing on 'fee-collection' day...
At work place... say banks... the annual closing phase, the year end... is a strict-no-absenteeism week...
The list is endless...

People are reluctant to share with their expertise, for fear of becoming redundant... once 'anybody' can do a job!

Unfortunately, spiritual concepts... when they are by-themselves so-mystic already, ... the aam aadmi finds it so-convenient to blame the fellow who is a bit familiar with its intricacies!...
Unlike empirical laws (its knowledge)... these concepts are 'purely-experiential'... we jump into the cauldron, like the chemicals we put inside a test-tube, and see-for-ourselves!... Yes, nature has been amply generous to give us the basic tools already... But we made/rendered ourselves into such a state, that even to 're-introduce' us to our own basic tools, a guide is needed (and therefore, the debate, ... whether a Guru is really needed!).

Recently somebody asked me, “This Shani temple entry... is it biologically not good for a woman?”..
Now, the word 'biologically' itself, assumes the 'asker's' own absolute-certainty, that no-other aspect is going to be vulnerable... the non-biological areas like the mind, its psychology, and the 'being' (by whatever name we call it, the prime energy that keeps ticking inside us as 'life')...

I had a choice...
I could have suggested: “Did you verify the credentials of that 'brigade' ?” (Some vested interests could have backed the protests, assuring some kind of highlighting, social fame etc.. Politicians are so-seriously upset, when one top politicians abruptly closed the pipelines of illegitimate income.. Aadhaar linking made the siphoning of 'subsidy' in the LPG cylinders difficult... Neem-coating of Urea made its cheap subsidized availability for industrial use impossible.. the cascading effect renders thousands of parasitical bureaucrats of even lower level to starve for their luxury expenses, out of unearned income!)...

I could have asked: “Did those protesters clearly spell out, what they lost-exactly, by being deprived of a prayer inside the sanctum?...” (it implies that the deity... is not 'really' as powerful as thought-of-to-be.. and the attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence etc are mere ornamental embellishments, and have nothing to do with existential applications :-)) it also implies that, a clear understanding about the process of consecration, etc is assumed)...

I granted the 'benefit' of doubt... and explained it 'my usual way'... (and I knew, even this is going to just render the asker out-of-stock, unless, the intent is to pursue me with irrelevant and side-tracking queries)...

It was my spiritual journey which reassured me that I was quite right about my choice (while practically, I found myself an odd-idiot, when I easily shared what ever I knew with almost anybody around, )... and my choice was based on a simple logic (maybe my own stupidity), that... when I make the next person do what I can, and especially if that person is 'branded' as a dumb-fellow, is it not an extension of 'myself', and therefore my functionality through my-extension, with the same dexterity, as that of mine, ... in doing that job?... Am I not being in Unison with the cosmic law, that everyone is closely knit, in their deep inter-dependence with everything and everyone around?

Whatever... I did not feel having lost anything much out of keeping aside that fear of becoming redundant, when I abstain from attempting my-own-indispensability... instead, maybe ... I learnt something more... about that very expertise... plus... the other person, whether it is his ability to learn, or otherwise :-))

dispensably yours,

psn(18th April, 2016)

Tehzeeb

Oh!
I lack even the stature to talk about this word...(though I am still at it... trying to evolve into it.. till-my-last :-) I like it so much!....)

Even the climb was arduous for me... from Teh-Jeeb to that fuzzy sounding 'Z' (now we have the Z in 'Zee Movies' , to assist us )....

It is not that I try to escape from making a mention about what it means to the uninitiated ones into grace of Urdu language...
The popular sense of it oscillates between manners, etiquettes, and the like ones...

Though not picked as a 'best' answer,
somebody gave an answer, which I found a liking for....

(quote)

https://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090709095408AAusam9

“It's an Arabic word which literally means trimming or cutting out the bad, harmful, useless, obscene parts of the looks, speech, behavior etc. So it's used to denote editing (written literature), training, promoting good manners, and discipline and so on..”

unquote...

This 'Tehzeeb'... seems to be losing out its popularity , of late...
Speed, or the fast-pace of life is making it unaffordable, to a large extent...

By itself... it doesn't even seem to make any logical sense, ... it gives a certain kind of 'feel-good-factor' to the recipient... Logic doesn't support patronising it , any further! (maybe that's one of the reasons of its losing-out to 'traditionalism', a limb of perpetuating values!

'Perpetuating values'...?
Oops! I tripped on a live-wire ... (I guess :-)...}

Other life forms do not seem to look at 'values' ... the way we humans do... maybe they weren't designed to 'accommodate' it... and the 'science' might argue that they don't even need such values, being superior in some-way-or-other, in terms of capabilities at sensory levels, (for reasons of self-preservation/perpetuation etc.. of the species).. ...

We humans, seek to 'evolve'... this is evident, from the quixotic adventures we undertake often, when such exercise has nothing to do with 'basic-survival' :-)

Now, to 'evolve'... we obviously need to 'contain' a few 'natural tendencies'... a bit sensibly, a bit intelligently... (like, we forego a good sleep on the eve of a public exam, we miss the TV serials, etc.. A neuro-surgeon of the 'west' is 'alledged' to be abstaining even tea/coffee, a week ahead of the brain surgery... so that his hands remain steady, and the tiny nerves come under his firm grip while suturing)....
we seem to undertake 'self-imposed' restrictions, while we attempt to evolve (some of us call it 'discipline' too!)...

This 'tehzeeb' , ... when it doesn't mean a thing, in existential terms... (it doesn't actually 'promote' any kind of material productivity, and such allied benefits)...
at subtle levels, it does seem to assist us to 'hold-on' to values... in a very 'round-about' manner!

(By itself, 'values' do seem to seek external 'support' till its breaking-point, when we hold on to values on-our-own)

In a simple example (if we attempt to say it).. it acts as a kind of 'speed-breaker' to our impulsive tendencies, those of which are negative in nature... (Tehzeeb curtails a spurt of anger, abusive-outburst, pre-judgmental-inclinations/orientations... etc)...... 

If it 'really' does that... (the speed-breaker-wala business...), ain't it good enough?

Well, I did not really miss any 'romance-phase' of life...
Just that I romanced with those 'evasive-values' which were too subtle to even allow a glimpse, leave alone a grasp-of-it.. at tender childhood age!..
Maybe it was therefore that , I found it worth while to indulge in a romance with this amazing urdu word 'Tehzeeb'... and so much that... I even use it with people who are utter strangers to that language, and then proceed to elaborate its equal terms, in a known language, while the reason was mere 're-living' yet again with an old romance-partner of mine :-)

My 'tehzeeb' prompts me... close this burdensome narrative, before it tells upon the patience of the reader!

Yours tehzeeb-ly,

psn(13th April, 2016)

Post script: Oh yes! I was not entirely-without any kind of material benefit, this quixotic adventure or romance with tehzeeb... I just move-out-of the other's way so graciously, once they give a hint, that I am being a nuisance! (To me, the only criteria being... can I survive, without causing a 'nuisance' to them, thus?. Don't I owe at least this much to my co-humans?.... Leaving it as 'their' problem, to figure it out... as to what they-miss, when I play-dead, in their experience!).. To me, it just means more-freedom, from my Tehzeeb/ed-concept, that I am interdependent with 'everyone&everything' around me :-)
It leaves me free to pursue spiritual path, with a little greater-intensity!

Dumb Voters!

I liked this 'forward' :-))

Corruption, and its by-products abound...

Yet India survived, and now, even seems to progress!

The secret of our having survived thus far, as an ancient culture, an ancient society, having managed to even retain a demonstrable sample of spiritual essence, was perhaps the foresight of our ancients that we would turn into 'dumb voters' :)

And they quietly injected a few vital ingredients into the 'way of life' that they bequeathed (in)to us, that would survive and outlive even our worst stupidities :-))

We keep voting blindly....
For inept politicians,

unscruplous people at the helm of affairs that affect almost all facets of society, including even education,

and along with all these, we also 'vote' to some extent for a few rituals and traditions, without even understanding as to why we subscribe for them :-))

It works!

And it sustains, and survives... paving way for a revival, in a big way!

I even managed to 'coin' a question , when the Yahoo people persuaded me to participate in that forum...

But, a few of us do try to look at 'do we need to vote thus, so blindly?'... And when this question of a conscious vote crops up with respect to spirituality.... there is no going back! (maye that's how I got trapped into it!)

Dumb voter, yours,

psn (6th April, 2016)