Tushar Mangl

Autumn is generally characterized as the season, where the dead leaves to start fall of the trees before the onset of the cold and dry winters. And it is really turning out to be the season of the dead . Veteran actor Shammi Kapoor is no more. Tiger Pataudi is dead. Steve Jobs has finished off his job on the Earth. We won't be hearing any new songs or ghazals from Jagjit Singh. And last but definitely not the least, the poster boy of world dictatorships, Colonel Gaddafi is now dead.Murdered to be precised. The World pledged and united to remove the evil out of Libya. And how do you prep up your image as peace loving heroes? Simply, by bombarding the fellow's houses and killing his grandchildren and children. Then by hunting him down, defenseless and unarmed. Recording this gruesome encounter on cellphones, gives us, the citizens of the planet and silent supporters of NATO a reputable credo. It makes us believe that what we did in Iraq was right. We are the ones who have the mor

As I trek along the rocky mountainous path, I take a pause and look around. On my right is a valley covered with lush green forests. In the horizon I can see another valley soaked with ice. Below, I can see water gushing out from glaciers which are situated distantly in this landscape. I turn to left and see a hill, covered with green grass and flowers of colors yellow and lavender. I look above, as if searching for something divine, but all I can see is a beautiful blue sky, patched up with clouds that never ever looked so enchanting in 24 years of my life. And it is then it dawns upon me once again; I am in Kashmir. Kashmir, of whose beauty, lengths have been written, movies have been filmed. Kashmir, that is supposed to be so beautiful that so many countries have territory disputes over it. I have been to a lot many hill stations and have had my own experiences of them. Most of the times, they look all the same to me now. Markets selling over priced souvenirs, guides and touts all o

So I watched 'Shaitan', which is supposedly directed by Beejoy Nambiar but looks so much an Anurag Kashyap product (he is only the producer apparently), that i suspect most of the direction must have been done by Mr. Kashyap and thank GOD for that. Coming back to the topic, the movie led me to think of awesome cop's portrayed on screen in bollywood. Here is my list Jimmy Shergill from 'A Wednesday' Rajeev Khandelwal from 'Shaitan' Aamir Khan from 'Sarfarosh' Nana Patekar from 'Ab tak chappan'

Morality in Indian politics is decreasing, incidentally with the rise of women power in the arena. Call me a chauvinist or just another cynic, but I cannot fake to enjoy in the glory in which Indians are enjoying themselves. First lady PM, - Indira Gandhi was and will remain for a long time, one of the most influential women politicians.  She also introduced us to dictatorship and threatened the very democracy which is our strength. Rabri Devi ruled Bihar for a long time - women there are still backward and by the time she left the state leadership, the whole state was falling, quite badly. Pratibha Patil is the first women President of India. One, whose husband and family (including herself) has been involved in several not so noble deeds like land grabbing, bank frauds etc. The world is all deja vu on Mamta Banerjee becoming chief minister of West Bengal. While railways has gone from worse to worst under her control, her strikes, opposition to factories, and sympa

As the nation, rejoices and gets happy over what Anna Hazare has done, by blackmailing the government over fast unto death, I find the whole event as shallow and hollow as the great Indian society's mindset today. It all began with the media circus. Reminding me of the movie Peepli Live, where all media journos start thrusting mikes here and their for sound bytes and the TRPs. They all started to act as champions of corruptions as if they themselves are aloof to them. If A. Raja with the backing of Manmohan Singh, created a huge telecom scam, how can I forget, that it was a senior journalist who had lobbied hard to get him that post. Then comes the politician bashing thing. Anna Hazare and his strategized the whole affair well. Everyone started hitting it out to politicians, shifting the blame of corruption on the entire political class. As if, politicians just exchange bribes within themselves. Further, they branded themselves as the civil society. Hence, it became a match b

I stand at my balcony and watch the unfortunate (no not unfortunate) events unfold 2 floors down. Dadi (grandmother) has fallen to the ground and is crying, my mother has a face of steel, its frozen into a blank stare; I know this state, I have seen it before, she is controlling herself showing a brave and proud wife to the world. She is helping dadi. Uncle keeps pointing past the gate and is shouting something at dada (grandfather). Dada has just locked the gate and is walking back to the house. Past the gate I can see a group of people all clad in white, surrounding something lying on the ground covered with a white cloth. My governess Shobhadi stands next to me holding me, afraid that I'll run downstairs into the scene unfolding. She and and the servants have been given strict orders that I can not be allowed downstairs. Dada thinks I do not understand what is happening, he thinks I cannot comprehend what is going on, but I do. The year is 1940, my name is Sandip, I'm 10 y

Sitting on a desk, having gone through hundreds of profiles and tens of interviews, literally pulling his hair out he gives up for the day. On his way back home, driving through the little deserted streets of the city he ponders upon his plight. He rues the scarcity of capable people in his country. Its been days and he hasn't been able to find them. Where are they? Where are these illustrious Indians he wonders. "Have I gone blind or is it a nationwide conspiracy to bring down my venture?" He sits back on his chair and ponders on his laptop screen superficially going through the social lives of his "friends" on social networking sites. He comes across articles of how proud we should be that X% of Indians are in the NASA, on the moon in a NASA mission, in the pentagon and hell one of them( his acquaintances) has joined the US marines!!! The updates start to irk till he comes across one where a "fellow countryman" is talking about the various scams t