1. Welcome to my cyberhome in Cybercity. No, that's an ugly name. Let me call my city Sabhlokcity. There. Sounds better, doesn't it? You are now entering Sabhlokcity. (Cyberspace is the space for shameless megalomaniacs and demented schizophrenics, didn't you know? Next time, I think, I will buy out the site called sabhlokcity.com ... or .gov! Well, that was in 1996. Now, in 1999, I already have the first of these!).

2. I am an omnivorous, primarily land-based, male primate, with a hydro-philic penchant [read: love of the beach]. My "spirit" resides in these electronic bytes hurtling at reckless speed across cables and satellites criss-crossing the Blue Planet.

3. Please take a seat. That blue velvety cybersofa, there... Very soft, very mysteriously soft. Thanks. Please feel at home. Can I offer you some cyber coffee?

4. I am pleased to introduce you to my family through pictures. If you like, you can hear me welcoming you (with a helper application for .wav files for your browser: beware: this file is over 400 kb in size). While I get you the coffee you wanted, you could visit the digital art gallery that I am building as I tinker around with Adobe Photoshop. You can also play the music you like while I am gone.

5. There. I am back now. Here's your coffee... and pretzels (Hope you don't mind my monologue: that's what I always do with everyone, anyway. I am always looking for a captive audience).

6. I consider the World Wide Web to be primarily a place to forage for daily news. No longer do we need to munch trees (alias newsprint) every morning with breakfast. Further, I use my super-electronic powers of magic to retrieve wonderful things from all over the world.

7. Being abnormally crazed for knowledge and learning of all types, I am attracted to the internet by the ability to tap the cerebra of millions of good folk who have very generously placed their learning on the web for everyone to use. Consider the heap of pebbles (cyberskulls?) on the beach that I have commandeered. Don't touch these or I'll shoot! These are mine, mine, mine. Only mine...

8. OK. Now let me talk about myself for a while (as if I was talking about anyone else, anyway). I come from the great and ancient land of India where I last worked at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie as a Professor of Management. I was parented to the Assam-Meghalaya cadre of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) till 2000. One of the frequent questions I am asked by young Indian friends is about the IAS as a job. I thought it might be worthwhile to share with you some preliminary thoughts on why the IAS is still a career worth aspiring for, even though I thought it best to leave it finally, sickened by the political corruption in India.

9. Should you desire to know me better, you might find my academic and non-academic interests illuminating [! bulb !]. Take a peek into the things that I endorse (some of these things, at least.) Additionally, to introduce you to some studies that I have carried out at USC, I have placed some of my term papers on the web, as well as my dissertation proposal (pick my big fat brain!). While you are floating around, you might just care to meet some of my friends. Here is an article on sky-diving by my brother, Rajeev. He was also sole driver in the around the world attempt on a motorcycle, called the Freedom voyage, which unfortunately, could not be completed for various reasons.

10. Hope you are still enjoying the coffee. Oh! Its almost over. I had percolated more in my cyberkitchen. Let me get you some more! ...

11. Now for my main monologue yet. I offer you the rare privilege (aha!) of seeing a masterpiece being written directly by the masterpiecer. I invite you to consider the possibility of leafing through my very preliminary web-book: Becoming Rich and Powerful: A Primer for the Citizens of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, which is my attempt to compile a bunch of thoughts which I feel are critical for every young man and woman in these three nations to know. This basket of ideas is intended to wake these three nations from their slumber of decades and to enable them to control the world (!). This ambition sounds big, but nothing big ever got done unless it was attempted first. When you are done with the stuff, and are convinced that you have never before, in your entire life, seen a more powerful masterpiece being written, you can then pat me on my back

12. What! You don't care for the book I am writing? You sent me brickbats! In that case, would you care for some poetry? Oops! you are leaving! Stay! I will give you a 50% discount on charges for your guestroom, tonight (I charge all my guests for everything, including the coffee I gave you a little while ago).

    What! You won't even stay at my virtual inn? Hold it! I'll give you a deal. If you'll listen to my free advice and free (whee!!) teachings of my Wisdom (!) then I'll let you have your lodging and your coffee for free! How about that as a deal?

13. Even these don't tempt you? Then how about joining my virtual political party and taking over as its leader? A party existing only in the form of electrons and virtual images, of course! I always felt that just as we must all have at least one child, we must each give birth to at least one political party during one's lifetime... What's better than wishing for the Victory of India at every step? At least in the virtual world we can create an India that would be a pleasure to live in.

14. You know how to change India? You even have plans and strategies! You are not just a "cribber," complaining about this and that! Aha! Just the person I was looking for. Come, we can actually talk. India desperately needs you. There is a hot soup of super-intelligent and super-decent people who are already beginning to talk (as a consequence of the "hot soup" method of torture perfected in India!). About how we can jointly change India. Join the discussion group India_Policy. Completely ruinous waste of time, I assure you. But something after your heart. To let you know what is going on, a publicly searchable web site for this list has been made available. Feel free to browse through it and if you then feel you wish to talk, jump into the pot and get hot! I assure you, your involvement can only do good to the final flavor.

15. Financial info is the key to money power (how mundane!). My good friend Dave Hsia and I were discussing a few general things and Dave came up with this concept which I call the discipline of Human Finance (akin to Corporte Finance). Under this concept, a human being should be able, given technological and contractual niceties, to sell shares in his or her own output. For example, instead of taking loans to go to college, a person would be able to sell shares in himself and the buyer of these shares would take the risk of the outcome. If one managed to get hold of a couple of shares of Bill Gates, that would be a good and lucky break, indeed!

    (By the way, a great book to read is "Dangerous Company" by James O'Shea and Charles Madigan. Will tell you how companies work.)

16. These oil portraits on the wall? These are the pictures of the only three living chaps in the world who meet my stringent standards of living a full life: (1) Bill Gates, (2) Dr. Verghese Kurien, and (3) Me (of course!). [Are you disappointed that your portrait does not hang here? Too bad you didn't build this city].

17. If you are a student at USC but don't have a car, you might find it useful to go through some personal notes on bus travel around USC that I had compiled while I did not have a car. Now of course, I have a leather lined, gold plated, cyber-Mercedes which cost me.... (Well, not quite ... I have an old, second-hand, but nice, station wagon. But methinks it is a gold plated one. Who is Don Quixote? Do I know the guy on that funny small donkey waving a long pole at those huge cut-outs of our "great" leaders? Of course not! But you know, actually ... I am a Don. A real Don. You can call me Don Sabhlok the Greatest James Bond. But hush ... don't tell anyone about my 18th personality.)

18. All right. You are almost done. Prepare to die (OK. Just prepare to leave). No. This Dungeon is off limits to my guests. Only King Sabhlok can enter this eerie, bat-filled, wind-whistling underground dungeon. That's where I unsheath my fangs at night. But since you are still hanging around, awaiting my final sign to let you off my city's gates (those guys standing around you, in case you were not clear so far, are my slaves who have shut all exits to this city), let me tell you some interesting facts about USC.

19. Finally, I would like to thank you for visiting my Palace in cyberworld, a place where the big primates of the world (real Presidents and Kings ...) reside a mere click away from minor primates (fake Kings ...) like me.

20. I hope you enjoyed your coffee... The invoice for the coffee will be mailed to your cyberhome ... Unless you were shrewd enough to listen politely to my wisdom and to my poems, and did not say one bad thing about me to anyone in the entire universe while my slaves chopped off your head. And by the way, don't forget to screw your head back in my head-fixing factory, as you leave.

Yours sincerely, (Sanjeev Sabhlok) This way to my research page Wanna be a winner? Then follow this

Brickbats and Bouquets, unmitigated