Tushar Mangl

I am bit agitated. This is the time of the year, when father makes you help him in filing several forms of taxes. And then you switch on your TV set, only to watch, why we the humble Indians should always indulge in the tedious process of tax paying. Every news channel, worth its salt is covering different aspect of corruption in the common wealth games, 2010 to be held in Delhi. The usual intense competition amongst news channel is being helped by the Delhi Government and the organizing committee of the CWG. Hence, everyone is conducting their own investigations and everyone is stumbling upon a new truth. Headlines Today - Told its viewers, rather showed them about the pathetic conditions of the Stadiums on which crores and crores have been spent. NDTV - They are mostly focusing on medical equipment supply, I think. Something, which you could easily get in 30,000 rupees, is being bought by the govt for say, 1 lakh rupees. That too from suspicious looking firms. No prizes are

I am a city kid. Born, brought up in a city. Nowadays I get to hear a lot of positives of rapid urbanization of our lands. New, fancy buildings, cosmopolitan cultures, and heaps of aspirations. But one thing that I feel is being let down is our music. And the style and uniqueness of our music. In earlier times, every region had it's own dialects and hence its own unique music. You had people holding whatever they could gather, and prepare songs and all, almost spontaneously. Someone would get a dholak,another one would get hold of a harmonium and just like that, a band would be formed. We now call it, folk music. And it is almost dead. Now we have guitars in over priced coffee shops in large cities, and someone waiting to become center of attention would be singing an already popular song. All this, with little annoyance to the other clients of the same joint. Since we already have forgotten our own cultures and our own languages running so fast in this mega affair called life, our

I had been preparing and researching for a blog based on upcoming Hockey India elections. Vidya Stokes is one of the tallest leaders of Indian National Congress in the state of Himachal Pradesh. She is also President of Women's Hockey In India. She is 83 years old. And now wants to lead the entire Hockey bureaucracy in India. The Sports minister, another Congressman, says that you should be maximum 70 years old to contest the Hockey India elections, otherwise no funds or facilities or support from the Sports ministry would be provided. Hockey India says, to hell with government support, we need a 83 year old person to lead hockey today. Now, I wanted to write about this in detail, but news channels are showing some very sleazy pictures of a middle aged man smooching and making loving with some very white looking females. The videographer or video analyst as you may call him, has self clicked those pictures to perhaps tell we the Indians, how to up hold integrity of your Nation whe

Any Indian, who is a well informed citizen would know of the mess in which Karnataka is at the moment. One component of mess is Belgaum. The chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan, who owes his political career to a very famous politician of his time, YB Chavan; his father. But apparently the younger Chavan does so well in managing his large state and solving all its problems so quickly that now he wants Belgaum, which is a part of Karnataka. So, an issue has been raised, buses have been broken and not what. If the Congress was so concerned about Belgaum, then why not before they raised the issue? Why today? Speaking of Congress people. They have ruled Karnataka and Maharashtra both for most of the times of their existence. So when Belgaum was witnessing problems, the legislators of the party were busy in protesting the state government, led by the BJP on a corruption issue. Since, India is a hugely rich and princely country with enormous wealth and style ingrained in our psychi,

Soccer is one of the sports which you can easily state as truly international. The excitement, the thrill is exhilarating. FIFA, the international body that controls soccer, holds a World Cup every 4 years. The 2010 of the World Cup has recently concluded and three salient features I have noticed are 1) The vuezela's constant bugging sound ( pardon me, South Africans, I can understand your heritage afflictions) which frankly speaking was annoying. 2) Amazing camera work. The angles, the shots were very good. 3) Very sub standard quality refereeing. I think, the FIFA people should learn something from cricket and that is the concept of the third umpire. Sure, the match shall be slowed down a little, still quality and fair play will be ensured. Cricket and ICC in turn should also learn something from FIFA. That is, to keep politicians away from the sport. FIFA handles that part well. They even used their platform for promoting awareness against racism, which was kinda cool. Keerti, a

There is scurried activity at home, as Mummy and Amu go about preparing to host a dinner for some friends later today. I, however have not been part of any scurried activity. I have spent most of the morning lazing around reading the Sunday morning newspaper at leisure, lying down staring at the ceiling and watching highlights of a cricket match on TV (I have no idea why sports channels show highlights of such inconsequential matches - NZ scored 163 and SA chase it down for the loss of 6 wkts in 43 overs). This time though, nobody asked me to do any chores and this induced some guilt which led me to the long pending task of cleaning up the book shelf. The return on investment of time spent is this - 1) I get to show that I have done some work 2) I get to pick out books to give my friend, who is collecting books for kids at her school in Kashmir As I was lining up books by authors and height order I came across some really old Archie, Flintstones, 'Diamond Comics' comic books,

Why is Aman's mother crying and wailing? Just because she lost her son? Or because he was just eight years old? So what, if it was only a minor looking injury? So what, if the hospital was just nearby to your house? You got to understand, Aman's mother, it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had graced your city with his presence. You got to understand, Manmohan Singh's life value is much much higher than your son's. Don't you know, you should not disturb the security people by begging and pleading Don't you know, PM's movement is much more important than reaching a dying person to the hospital. You are writing letters to Sonia Gandhi, for you also perhaps know, that Mr. Singh can never do any thing, not even sympathize with you. You asked for a compensation of ten lakh, They have refuted the charge, that your son could not have died due to their negligence. They don't seem to mind, that your teenage daughter shall always live with the fact that his b

I never knew, Indian politicians are flown by IAF planes, until one day, I read the news about model code of conduct being imposed by the election commission of India, for purposes of the General elections of 2004. L.K. Advani, the then Deputy Prime Minister was en route to some place in South India, in an IAF plane. The moment he came to know about the news of the election commission, he immediately landed his plane in Pune I think, and sought private arrangements to be made for his trip, for it would be improper to use the IAF plane. In the midst of loss of civility by Parliamentarians, greedy for money and power, to come across such an anecdote, made quite an impression on me. Now let's come down to 2010. 6 years down the lane, use of IAF planes has surfaced yet again in news. Former Prime Minister of India, HD Deve Gowda owes the Indian Air Force around 54 lakhs, sixty one thousand and four hundred, ninety seven rupees. He has shifted blame to his party, but is ready t

She looked up through the window, gazing at the horizon. The lights coming out of the buildings nearby, seemed fuzzy yet beautiful as rains lashed out heavily. After looking out for a minute, as if making up her mind to face the inevitable, she dishes out the cell phone from her bag, and dials the number "Hey Mom, I would be late, so shall stay over at Nancy's through the night." The glaring sound of TV from the next door, could not let her to listen to the response of her statement. Pressing the red button, she dabs a paper napkin over her eyes, and gets ready for her task. As soon as she enters the next room, the three guys sitting immediately look upon her, excitement dancing in their eyes. The switch off the TV, and ask her to dance. One of them puts on a music track and heightens the volume. She dances and strips, does everything they command her to do. She is numb to their reactions, for her thoughts are only for him. He for whom she could have given her life for.

In India, rapes and molestations are quite common and frequent, so much so, when I heard about the case of a 14 year old girl filed complaint against a 73 year old man, I just flipped out the channel, ignoring yet another molestation case . Happens each hour of the day, what is new in them? Although am bit amazed always that I am never shocked or surprised, over such happenings, I have long concluded these news as an Indian way of life. Rapes and molestations have become a part of the Indian Psychi now. Guess what, we may be after all a very pervert society. So, why am I writing about this case , other than waking up my friends in the society to do something? This case is particularly queer. A guardian of a 14 year old, Bhutanese girl files a complaint of molestation against ML Brite, a senior citizen of 73 years age and the girl's school principal. Naturally, the old man has denied it but interesting facts are coming out in this case like 1) The girl turns out not to be