FIRST OF ALL A WARNING: this quick-fix guide is not meant for the faint hearted. In order to follow the irrefutable laws propounded here or even read them simply, you must be a hard-nosed, street smart and extremely unscrupulous person. In other words, you are a crook with no moral baggage to hinder your ambitions, or at least a person with a desire to become one such gentleman later.

Also, while this author has taken considerable pain in revealing the elusive secrets that rich people so zealously guard from poor people like you and me, just knowing them will however not guarantee your way to wealth. That is because there are lots of variables involved, like your ability to dupe credulous people, level of social skill to bribe people and be bribed, how well you can bend the rules to suit your purpose and so on (more on this later). So, the effectiveness of this guide will vary from person to person and depend to a great extent on which rules the aspirant chooses to follow to enrich himself.

Anyway, here are my one-million-dollar ways to become rich. Apply them at your own risk and only in Manipur.

1. Be very greedy:

Greed is the mother of your desire to accumulate unlimited filthy lucre. By any means, acquire it, cultivate it and nurture it to its full bloom in your thought system if you fancy a chance to become rich. Without greed you can’t be motivated sufficiently to make that killing move to mint the extra money. Greed overrides the calls of your conscience and makes the worst form of chicanery seem a saintly deed. Before greed all relationships, formalities, norms and proprietary are insignificant. So what, if it means to throw the last stone to your brother to snatch that tiny piece of land from him by using raw force. Armed with greed, forgery seems just another necessary sin to appropriate your father’s pension. If possible, rob your own loss making state transport corporation. (Just look at the body parts of the rickety vehicles like tires for inspiration). And if you get a thikaa for koilaash-ing a strip of road, your greedier sense will not fail to teach you the art of minimalistic use of raw materials like pebbles, soil, sand, etc., to extract the maximum profits possible from the given matrix. Don’t worry if the matelled (koilash-ed) road buckles down under the weight of the lightest two wheelers after two days. The point is: who cares? You have made your money and others are too busy making their own in their own inscrutable ways to even raise as much as an eyelid to you. Greed sure is a virtue.

2. Master the art of bribery:

I now know why my father has never been able to get his children into government jobs. His personal principles might have militated against such a convenient practice of bribery or simply he didn’t know how to pass the damn thing under the table. With all respect to my dear father, he is a pitiful misfit in this bribe-happy world. If he had the knack for luring people to the influence of bribes, at least one of my brothers would have been sitting in a cozy air-conditioned government office and whiling away the time counting the bribes of the day coming his way. And I would have been secure in the knowledge that when my time for biding comes for a similar job, he would be there to offer me that great lift at others’ expense. It is a secure life missed. But you need not make my father’s mistake. Forget all the wrong illusions about bribery. Remember, bribery is the lubricant for getting your things done smoothly and quickly. It is all about cutting a long story short and saving you tremendous time and effort. Bribe and be bribed as much as possible under your circumstances. Don’t think twice before greasing the palm of the health minister to assure your daughter of a seat in the medical college. Chances are that the honourable minister is doing the same for his own daughter; so he will understand your concern perfectly. Bribe the peon to move your files sooner than later. Bribe the public works department to give you a lucrative koilashing contract. Bribe the concerned official to land you the Jawahar Rozgar Yozana kind of loan which you will use to buy a car and never repay. Bribe every bribe-able man or woman. Who says there is no short cut to success?

3. Get close to an influential person

This part may be difficult, but if you have the will nothing is impossible. To be in the good books of an influential person like a minister or government babu, you have to be a pucca sycophant. Grovel before your object of attention like a slave if need be, praise him like you would a fairy tale king and do even the menial jobs for him. Everybody likes to feel important and be pampered. You only need to fulfill his regular needs for ego boosting therapy. To do this, shall I still tell you have to be at your most insincere, brazen and servile best? Understandably, this may be a little far fetched an idea to be of your comfort, but then don’t lose sight of the BIG picture. If it would make things easier for you, imagine how happy and proud you will be when you break the news to your wife that you have been shortlisted for sugar/kerosene distribution in your locality. It might be the only chance to redeem yourself in front of your neighbours, friends and family. Without doubt it’s worth being a bootlicker.

4. Join politics

If all the above arsenals fail or unfortunately you do not have the natural inclination to employ them to your advantage, then try this: join politics. No role playing of slave here, instead you will be the master from the word GO. Break into the coterie of some political party and make your mark there with your innovative theories of mis-governamce, efficient funneling of taxpayers’ money and effective scams’ cover-up. Your party bosses will be obviously impressed and before you can even say election, they will field you as the party hopeful in your constituency. I can’t guarantee your winning the contest, but your chances of it will increase if you can fool the voters with believable promises. Having done this successfully, don’t forget to keep a copy of your winning promises so that you can repeat them at the next election campaigning (you know the public has a notoriously short memory). Once elected, what are you waiting for? Kick the butt of your original party, jump into the party most likely to form the government and wallow in the ill-gotten money and perks while the sun shines.

5. Hide your wealth

Having amassed a fortune by all the above means, it is time to enjoy all the pleasures and creature comfort of life that money can offer. Wrong. Remember this is Manipur. (How I hate to tell you this but this really is the anticlimax to all your worldly achievements). Even if you are sitting on top of a bottomless pile of cash, you are advised to live like a wretched man for your own safety and that of your dirty treasure trove. Live in a hut even if you can afford a bungalow. Forget buying that trendy car which is the motivation behind your hard work in the first place. Postpone indefinitely all your plans that might attract people’s attention to your bottomline. It is another matter if you are a compulsive showy person, and want to go ahead with all the things that I have warned you against. If such is the case with you, then be ready to face these barrage of new changes in your life: interminable phone calls from mysterious callers, eerie knocks on the door in the midnight, letters from sundry organizations, and so on. Being a poor guy as I am, I am tempted to tell you this is just a small price to pay for your enviable economic state, but I am sure wiser people would differ. They would suggest you to leave all your worries behind and migrate to another city like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, etc., to invest in real estate, apartments, cars and jewellery with penchant. And all the while never forgetting to milk the dying cow that is called Manipur.

Happy money making.