The Beauty In Ugly

Not everyone appreciates the beauty of frustration; at least not when they are going through it. The realisation never seems to hit that the anger and the disappointment clawing at your gut and honing all of your insecurities into stripping your every resolve from you are the very same that kick you out of inactivity, forcing you to take charge of your life... I should know, because in the name of all that’s holy! – it’s been a very frustrating ride of late.

I know I’m not really the genius that people make me out to be (though you are welcome to believe them!), but I am reasonably intelligent enough to know that I wanted to pursue a Masters course. Ergo I applied to JNU, who figured out that I wasn’t Leftist enough for them and to IIMC, where the professors probably decided that I already knew everything they had to teach. So, when a little bit of research led me back to the University of Pune and their Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, I was game for more rejection.

Horror of horrors!!! I made it to the course. There is was – No. 25 – Manita Deo. I should have listened to the little voice in my head that told me this was far too good to be true. And here I am, four months after the course started; with less than 1/3rd of the syllabus complete for three out of the four subjects (our HOD finished his entire syllabus in three marathon lectures) and the examination looming large on the 30th of this month; with blank stares meeting my submission of assignments because of the good PhD. holding lecturers forgetting about the assigned tasks; and regular incidents of waiting over three hours a day for a lecture they forgot they said they’d conduct. Now, in all fairness, the HOD, Dr. Shrikant Pranjape, is a really amazing man. I learnt more in his three lectures than I have learnt in my entire C.B.S.E History curriculum. But I cannot for the life of me figure out why the other lecturers in the department won’t take him (or us) seriously.

The perks have been that a retired Lt. General did come in for a couple of guest lectures, but I wonder why he kept giving us fundas about earning our first lakh and moving on to crores... I honestly thought the whole Chinese incursion issue would have been more interesting (especially with the similarities that emerge when you analyze the pre-1962 Chinese Debacle incidents); Mr. Michael Newbil from the U.S Embassy at Mumbai who came in to talk about post-Cold War Indo-U.S relations but ended up talking about foreign policy instead (and tried to convince us in the bargain that Pakistan is not the enemy – China is... Surprise, surprise!!!); and my very favourite, the Gen. B.C Joshi Memorial Lecture by the Chief of Army Staff (Gen. Deepak Kapoor, for the uninitiated) for which I really don’t have anything remotely sarcastic to say (possibly because after the Navy Chief’s press conference, sticking to the type-written sheet is a good idea).

Yes, I am disappointed. The point of putting you through the gibberish above, dear reader, is to show you just how much. Hence, I have hatched a nefarious plan. I am going to get a job!

Gasp!

Did she just say that?

No!

She wrote it.

Let’s go back and read it again...

I am going to get a job! I am sick and tired and angry. I am frustrated; and I am sick and tired and angry at being frustrated. I am determined to get myself out of this mess to the point where I have my resume ready and waiting for someone – anyone – who will recommend me to everyone who can possibly offer me a job that will include writing and copy editing because this is something that I am not only good at, but also something that comes naturally to me. So I shall be absolutely shameless and ask for you to help me be “discovered” and I promise in turn to update my blog regularly. You see, life hasn’t really been kind of late. She hardly ever is, but there have been times when I have found pure joy – the undiluted kind that goes straight to your head like the finest whisky and I’m hoping that some of that magic might make itself felt now. It can’t possibly be right that one person should have to go through it all, and come out alive, only to be handed a consolation prize, right?

You see, frustration is a beautiful thing. But not everyone stops to take a closer look at her. She isn’t very glaringly obvious – like love, happiness, or say – utter dejection. She has a quiet charm of her own, a quaint smile that unfurls when you least expect it and find yourself suddenly transfixed because it is striking in its simplicity. It is what brings about revolutions and change. Sure, it is painful and sometimes bloody, but it is what makes the difference between the many important men and the truly great one. It is what makes me great too; because frustration, my darlings, teaches me to hope.