Arbit Accolades !!

Well !! Arbit seems to keep moving from one milestone to another faster than I can keep track of.. After appearing in Business World, Arbit has now featured in the Times.. Today's Bombay Times has a front page article on Arbit Choudhury.. I am pasting the contents of the article below..

When A meets B

Thought B schools were only about serious stuff? Not always! Arbit Choudhury, a city B school's comic character has his own legion of fans — worldwide!

RAUL DIAS Times News Network

Some would say that the alphabet 'B' and a B School are a perfect match. A marriage made in heaven. A lot of words beginning with 'B' spring quickly to the mind when associated with a B School. The most common being business, books, brains and dare we say... boring! Well, think again. The National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), one of Mumbai's premiere B Schools has decided to break this 'B' domination with a very cool 'A' — a comic strip character named Arbit Choudhury.

Initially serving as the mascot for NITIE's intercollegiate youth festival 'Prerana' and created by two NITIE students Shubham Choudhury and Hemantkumar Jain, Arbit is modelled on a typical MBA student. "The idea behind the concept was to shatter the popular belief that all that we B School students do is serious bookish stuff," says 24-year-old Shubham. "Arbit is your aver age dude who has big dreams and an even bigger mouth. His wisecracks are legendary among his friends who are amused by his penchant for blurting out business balderdash peppered with his so-called 'Arbitisms'."

Letting the world get a dose of this lovable 'business buffoon' was next on the agenda and so Shubham and co-creator Hemantkumar decided that it was high time Arbit had his very own abode in cyberspace. Says Shubham, "The Arbit Choudhury comic strips have become tremendously popular on our website. What is interesting is that not just our fellow stu dents, but even students from other B Schools, some even as far as Cypress are totally digging Arbit and his antics." For Associate Dean and festival co-ordinator Professor Ashok Pundir, such initiatives by students only go to show how multifaceted they can be. "I totally endorse the concept even though it is a bit different," says Prof Pundir. "I think it is very innovative and reflects the creators' immense talent. At NITIE we make it a point to encourage out-of-the-box thinking among our students, because this is that special spark which future employers are looking for and that's what an allrounder is all about."

NITIEians like Ashwin Jayasankar say that they can totally identify with Arbit. "Like us, he too often finds himself juggling with the concepts of strategy, logistics, marketing, finance etc and tries in vain to apply these in real life situations. It is these similarities between him and us that I suppose, have made him such a hit," says Ashwin. As for Arbit, he continues to grapple with the complexities of being a student armed with his greatest USP... his not so 'Arbit'rary sense of humour!