The Angel Who Walked Among Us- Ashok Mangotra, Former IAS, Tripura
Biswanath Bhattacharya
June 8, 2026
It was early 1980, or perhaps another year close to it—time, after all, has a way of blurring the edges of memory. Yet some images remain as vivid as yesterday, etched into the canvas of my mind. On that fateful day, my father, a diligent lawyer at Sonamura court, shared news that would come to define my recollections of that era. He spoke of an IAS officer named Ashok Mangotra, newly posted as the Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) in our subdivision of Sonamura. “An exceptionally intelligent officer,” my father declared, his tone one of unmistakable admiration. “His command over English is impeccable,” he added, as if gifting me a portrait of a man I could scarcely imagine.
The name Ashok Mangotra began to carry the weight of myth in my young mind. He was no mere officer; he was a presence, a figure that seemed larger than life. I recall seeing him for the first time, astride his Willy Jeep, with his driver, Maqbool Hossein, at the wheel, as they navigated the undulating roads of the subdivision. Yet it was not this image, striking as it was, that captured my imagination most deeply. It was the day I saw him walking.
He crossed a modest wooden bridge, his quarters behind him, his chamber ahead. There was a rhythm to his stride, steady yet purposeful, as if the bridge itself bowed to his presence. In that moment, he seemed to me like a celestial being descending briefly into our earthly realm. His appearance was nothing short of angelic—his rosy fair complexion, cheeks glowing with the vitality of life, and a sharp, sculpted nose lending his face a singular charisma. I was transfixed. Here was a man who seemed to embody grace and intellect in equal measure.
Five years later, in 1985, our paths crossed again, this time in Udaipur, where he served as the District Magistrate and Collector of undivided South Tripura. My awe for him had not diminished, though time had certainly left its mark upon him. The once slender figure now carried the fullness of years lived earnestly. His rounded belly seemed almost symbolic—a repository of experience, wisdom, and perhaps the inevitable indulgences of life. Yet, despite the fading of youthful beauty, he remained mesmerizing. His brilliance had not waned; if anything, it seemed to shine brighter, illuminating the spaces he occupied.
One day, during an exchange of legal discussions, he posed a question that would test my knowledge. “From which section does Security for Keeping the Peace and for Good Behavior in the CrPC begin?” he asked, fixing me with his sharp, probing eyes. “Section 106,” I replied without hesitation. A shadow of doubt crossed his face, and he countered with confidence, “No, it starts from Section 107.”
The air around us seemed to tighten with the weight of unspoken challenge. The CrPC of 1874—the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, 1874—was summoned, its pages opened like the petals of a flower revealing the truth within. Vindication was mine; I was correct. In that moment, I braced myself for rebuke, for the sting of wounded pride that so often accompanies authority. But Mangotra was different. With a magnanimity that left me astonished, he offered me praise—not in private whispers, but in the full glare of public acknowledgment. His words were not merely a testament to his character; they were a beacon of humility and grace.
His intellect was a force to behold, a veritable library contained within a single mind. On strike days, he would summon his subordinate officers to his chamber, his demeanour aflame with insights and ideas. I was captivated by the breadth of his knowledge, which ranged across vast horizons and reached into the smallest, most intricate details. Yet it was not only his intellect that set him apart. It was his heart.
He was, in the truest sense, a guardian of his junior officers. Authority never hardened him into distance; instead, it ripened into generosity. I would occasionally send him my humble write-ups—pieces which, to my own mind, seemed scarcely worthy of notice. I felt they were trifles, frail offerings before a man of such formidable intellect. Yet never once did he dismiss them, nor did he wound me with the cold silence that often extinguishes the timid flame of aspiration. On the contrary, he received them with patience, read them with care, and encouraged me with a largeness of spirit that I can never forget. Where another might have pointed only to flaws, he discerned effort; where another might have discouraged, he inspired. With a few gracious words, he could restore courage to a faltering mind. He did not merely comment upon my writing—he strengthened my faith in the very act of writing. In moments of self-doubt, his encouragement became a lamp; in moments of hesitation, it became a staff. If I persisted at all, it was in no small measure because he lifted my morale with the rare kindness of one who knew that to nurture a younger mind is itself a noble form of leadership.
Mangotra walked the breadth of his district, his presence a reassurance to those he served. He made it his mission to inquire into the welfare of the tribals, ensuring that their voices were heard and their needs met. His steps, though heavy with responsibility, carried the lightness of purpose. He was a man who understood that leadership was not a throne but a journey, one that demanded both vision and compassion.
And then, as all great figures must, he moved on. He left Tripura, his path leading him to serve the central government in roles that further elevated his stature. He later served closely with President APJ Abdul Kalam for the full five years of his presidency, a distinction that speaks quietly yet powerfully of the trust reposed in him.
In the twilight of my career, as the familiar corridors of service began to fade into memory, I encountered him one last time—a figure etched in brilliance yet cloaked in humility. As Principal Secretary of Planning, he carried an aura that drew men of culture and intellect to the Circuit House Annexe where he resided, transforming that temporary abode into a vibrant confluence of ideas, literature, and art. There, amid conversation and contemplation, he revealed himself not only as an administrator of uncommon merit but also as a voracious reader, a connoisseur of music, and a seeker of all things beautiful in life. He embodied a rare refinement, a connoisseurship that could elevate the ordinary into the memorable.
His reading was not the shallow accumulation of titles, but the deep companionship of books that enlarge the mind, chasten vanity, and discipline the spirit. He recommended books not as a pedant displays learning, but as a generous soul shares light. From the great shelves of the world’s intellectual inheritance, he would suggest works of enduring majesty—The Republic, The Odyssey, The Story of Philosophy, Freedom at Midnight, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Hamlet, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, 1984, and Glimpses of World History—books before which generations have stood in awe, and from which generation after generation has drawn wisdom, sorrow, courage, and moral depth. In his company, one felt that books were not mute objects bound in paper, but living presences—counsellors, judges, companions, and secret architects of the inner life. He read voraciously because he lived inwardly as well as outwardly; and he recommended books because he believed that a mind fed on noble thought becomes itself nobler, steadier, and more capacious in the service of men.
He was also a connoisseur of songs and music. During his tenure as Principal Secretary, Planning, while he stayed at the Circuit House Annexe, that modest residence underwent a strange and beautiful transfiguration. It ceased to be merely a government annexe; it became the very seat of songs and music, a sanctuary where melody found habitation and the air itself seemed tuned to a finer order of feeling. Evening after evening, one had the sense that the commonplace walls had withdrawn into insignificance, and something older, gentler, and more regal had descended upon the place. He was also a connoisseur of songs and music, a man whose soul seemed tuned to the subtle vibrations of melody. During his tenure as Principal Secretary, Planning, he resided in the Circuit House Annexed That modest annexe, under his presence, transformed into a sanctum of rhythm and harmony. Evening after evening, strains of classical ragas, ghazals, and timeless melodies floated through its corridors, as if the walls themselves had learned to breathe music. It is immaterial where a king sits; it is the king who sanctifies the seat. Wherever Mangotra sat—be it a simple wooden chair or a cushioned sofa—that place became a royal throne, illuminated by the quiet majesty of his taste and temperament. Such was the sovereign force of his presence that the Annexe, humble in structure though it was, assumed the dignity of a court.
Under his influence, rooms were transfigured into chambers of culture, corridors into avenues of thought, and the ordinary hush of official quarters into an almost sacred expectancy, as though music itself were waiting to be received. He did not need pomp to create grandeur; grandeur followed him as fragrance follows a flower. And thus the Annexe, by the mere fact of his inhabiting it, became not simply a place of residence, but a realm of resonance—a little kingdom of song, conversation, memory, and grace, where beauty sat enthroned without proclamation. That is the mystery of certain rare human beings: they do not occupy space; they consecrate it.
His pepper-and-salt beard whispered of wisdom earned and storms weathered, a map of time etched in silver and charcoal. It framed his face like a landscape in twilight, where every strand seemed to hold a story untold.
Our final exchange, however, was marked by a somber irony. On the eve of my retirement, he entrusted me with the solemn task of submitting pre-retirement feedback on the Planning Department—an opportunity, I believed, to leave a small yet meaningful imprint. I fulfilled this duty with all the sincerity I could muster, but the effort met an unkind fate. The haughty Chief Minister, with an air of knowing superiority, dismissed it with a wave of indifference, relegating it to the wastepaper basket. To him, it seemed, the world could offer no wisdom beyond his own.
The erstwhile Chief Minister fancied himself a sage atop a grand pedestal, surveying a kingdom of wisdom he had never truly inhabited. Though his household remained blissfully untouched by the cries of infants, he dispensed unsolicited advice on parenting with the fervour of a veteran patriarch. His sermons on cuddles and cradle discipline were delivered with such assurance that one might imagine he had raised a thousand cherubs—or, at the very least, an exceptionally obedient goldfish.
Yet, even in that arrogant dismissal, I found a lesson. The value of my offering was not diminished by its rejection, for it had borne witness to the diligence and care with which it was crafted. And as for the Principal Secretary, who had once amazed me with his intellect and grace, he remained an enduring symbol of what leadership could be: thoughtful, cultured, and profoundly human.
To describe Mangotra as merely an officer would be a disservice to the legacy he left behind. He was a thinker, a guide, a man who walked among us but seemed to belong to another plane of existence. In my memory, he remains as vivid as that day in 1980 when I first heard his name—a name that has since become synonymfous with integrity, brilliance, and the quiet strength of a life lived in service of others. He was, and will always be, the angel who walked among us.
And now, when the long corridors of memory fall silent and the dust of years drifts softly over vanished days, his figure returns not as an official entry in the ledger of administration, but as a lingering radiance—half-memory, half-benediction. Men like him do not entirely depart. They recede, perhaps, beyond the visible threshold, yet leave behind an afterglow that haunts the spirit. One remembers not merely his office, nor even his words, but the atmosphere of elevation that gathered wherever he stood—the sudden sense that life could be finer, conduct nobler, thought deeper, and service more humane. In that sense he remains with us still: like the echo of a distant song heard after the singer has gone, like the last lamp burning in a great house after all the footsteps have faded. Time may take away the man, but it cannot wholly extinguish the light he kindled in other souls. And so he abides in memory with an almost unearthly persistence—an angel once glimpsed upon the earth, and then withdrawn, leaving behind the ache of beauty, the authority of goodness, and the haunting certainty that we had, for a brief blessed while, lived in the presence of someone rare.
In the end, it is not the approval of the moment but the character of the journey that defines us. As I stepped away from the corridors of service, I carried with me the memory of his unwavering brilliance and the quiet dignity with which he lived. And so, in my mind, he stands eternal—a man who, even in fleeting encounters, left behind an indelible legacy.
(Tripurainfo)
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