e-arth !!

As I had written about one and half years back, the Web is increasingly becoming an irreplaceable and irrepressible part of our lives. This post takes the argument a bit further and dares to imagine what might lie in store in the e-ons ahead.
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I have noticed that over the last few years, my handwriting has progressively deteriorated. While trying to decipher the reason for this, I realized that I am now writing much lesser than what I used to earlier. I type almost everything I need to write, in the form of e-mails, documents, presentations etc. Perhaps the only time in the day when I need to pick up the pen is when I need to sign anything. As a result of all this, I am slowly LOOSING the habit of writing!!

Now let us take this line of thought forward. Children of today are being exposed to computers at increasingly younger ages. They are typing more than we ever did during our childhoods. Soon, assignments in school will be submitted in softcopies (like it happens in higher education). And then, perhaps one day, even exams will be held over a LAN, where school students log into shared machines and type their answers. In the years to come, people will carry laptops/palmtops/PDAs with them all the time, and will key in all the information they need. There would be no hand written signatures either. Every signature will be digital, in the form of fingerprint or retina recognition, or something even smarter.

Hence, the need to WRITE anything with a pen will be completely eliminated!! As a result, humans would completely forget the art of writing, and future generations might only learn to “READ and TYPE”, and not “READ and WRITE”!!
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How would thought leaders of the future work? How would they spread their ideas and vision to trillions across the world? As expected, it would be simpler than ever before.

I can imagine a 21st Century Swami Vivekananda, meditating on a lone rock, off the coast of Kanyakumari, the southern most tip of India. He would have a laptop with a wireless data card on his lap, which he would use to publish his ideas about humanity on this blog. Billions and billions of people would have subscribed to his blog around the world through RSS and Atom feeds. As soon as the Swami would make a blog post, his billions of followers would swarm their PCs. Each blog post would get millions of comments, not only from devotees appreciating the Swami’s thoughts, but from other thought leaders of the world, debating them. He would no longer have to travel half way across the world, to deliver a speech in the Parliament of Religions. All he would do is record his speech on his web cam, and share it with the world on Youtube!!
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Nonsense Rhymes - VIII (The Fading Past..)

Well, here is the Eighth Edition of Nonsense Rhymes. What started off as a one off attempt at rhyme without reason, is becoming a regular routine. So much so that I am tempted to call it my hobby now.

I was the onlooker,
As the milestones rolled.

I was the witness,
Who saw events unfold.

I was the audience,
To the story being told.

Yet.. as I rewind my life,
I can hardly recognize,
The road I once strolled.

Statutory Warning:- Reading nonsense poetry is injurious to mental health.

A Year in the Life of Arbit Choudhury

Another year in the life of Arbit Choudhury has concluded. 2006 has been a memorable year for Arbit in more ways than one.
We have now successfully completed the 2nd continuous year of regular Arbit Comics release. When we had released the 1st Arbit Choudhury comic strip on the Arbit Choudhury Mailing List, way back on 1st January 2005, we knew that providing Arbit fans across the world their regular dose of Arbit humor would be a challenge.

Over the last 2 years, we have almost created our own version of the Global Delivery Model for Arbit, with the Arbit creators working from different geographies and time zones. In 2006 alone, Arbit work has been done from Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Bilaspur, Bhopal, Geneva and London.

If 2005 was a year in which Arbit Choudhury received unprecedented media coverage (featuring in Times of India and Business World), in 2006, Arbit reached out to fans across the globe through diverse means of communication. 2006 saw the launch of Arbit on SMS and RSS feeds and the launch of a new website.

We also started the Arbit Choudhury Fan Club on Orkut, and Arbit was enlisted at other portals like onlinecomics.net.
Arbit now reaches his fans through multiple channels -
- The Official Arbit Choudhury Mailing List
- The Arbit Choudhury website
- E-mail forwards
- SMS jokes (SMS "MBA" to 8888)
- RSS feeds.

Arbit Choudhury was selected as one of the few bright ideas for the Creative Future of India program. Out of more than 1000 entries, Arbit Choudhury was among the top 60 and received praise from the international expert panel. The program was organized by the British Council, in collaboration with IIM Bangalore.

Recognition also came from Wikipedia – the world’s largest free encyclopedia. The Wikipedia entry for Arbit Choudhury recognized it as the 'World's 1st' MBA Comic Character. Arbit was also featured in the 'Do You Know' section on Wikipedia’s homepage.

Fan mails kept pouring into our mailboxes throughout the year (mostly bouquets, and a few brickbats as well :)). It was this feedback and encouragement from Arbit fans which keeps Arbit going.

Arbit Choudhury comics is a relatively young entrant in the Comics space, but we realize our social responsibilities from the beginning.
We started out this year by extending your support to ProjectWHY, an NGO working for underprivileged children.
We also released a comic strip based on AIDS awareness, on the occasion of World AIDS Day.
We hope to continue such initiatives in the next year and welcome ideas and comments on these from our fans.

This year we launched a new version of our official website. The new website has improved navigation; improved, wholesome and more meaningful content and better visibility for latest alerts and events. Arbit Fans can find all that they want to know about Arbit on the site, as well as download loads of exciting stuff like Arbit’s Wallpapers, Avatars and posters.

Along with the website, we also tried out newer experiments with our Comics format. As a departure from established Comics practices we introduced ‘Real’ Backgrounds in some of the Comics during the 2006. We also attempted to improve the overall quality of the Comics.

In addition, we also introduced Arbit fans to all the other characters in Arbit World and added a new character ‘Perplex Singh’ to the Arbit Family.

The association of Arbit and MastishK is congenital; MastishK’04 served as a launch pad for Arbit and has been associated with it through MastishK Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest (MAFIC) ever since. So continuing the tradition, we conducted MastishK Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest (MAFIC) 2006 as a part of MastishK 2006. The contest invited Comic ideas for Arbit Choudhury Comic strips. The best 3 ideas were converted into Arbit Choudhury Comic Strips and subsequently rated by other participants of MastishK 2006.

Further, we continued to accept and publish Comics based on Fan ideas during 2006. The conceivers of the ideas were acknowledged in the Comic Strip itself. So do keep sending your ideas to arbit.mba@gmail.com and you can hope to find your own name on an Arbit Comic!

We also ran a special visitor content in 2006, wherein special visitors (based on hit counter) to the Arbit Choudhury website were rewarded by a mention of their names on the website and emails. This contest was launched to commemorate the occasion of the website hits reaching a milestone of 10,000 hits. The hit counter had clocked 20,155 hits when the year 2006 culminated. Notably, the second 10K hits took just 6 months to come by – thanks to fans’ support.

Another major milestone during 2006, was the Arbit Choudhury Mailing List becoming the 3rd largest Yahoo Group in the Comic Strips category, with more than 2200 members.
All in all, it has been a momentous year for Arbit Choudhury and your appreciation through emails, IM chats and even phone calls has strengthened our resolve to take Arbit Comics to newer heights.

Our major focus next year will be to catapult Arbit Choudhury Comics to the publishing space in print as well as online. If you have any ideas or suggestions to help towards the same– fire us an email at arbit.mba@gmail.com.

To receive the latest Arbit Choudhury comic strip straight into your mailbox, join the Arbit Yahoo Group / Mailing List . If you want to join the Arbit Yahoo Group but cannot do so, Please send a mail to arbit.mba@gmail.com with the subject “Join”- Your id will be added to our mailing list directly.

Do tell us how much you liked “Arbit Choudhury”, Your feedback and appreciation is our only reward. Send your comments / suggestions / feedback to arbit.mba@gmail.com

Nonsense Rhymes - Part VII

Though this one does not technically qualify as a 'Nonsense Rhyme', I am putting it under the same heading for sake of convenience.

Have you ever met a person,
Who has all that he wishes in life?
To achieve anything in this world,
One must put something else at strife.

The world is not perfect,
Nor is any person.
Whining about life,
Will never take you to a destination.

Know what you need,
Know what you need more.
Prioritize your goals,
Then set right the score.

If you can change something for the better,
Do it with all your might.
But never waste your time,
Worrying about things you cannot set right.

Think twice, think thrice,
Before giving anything a try.
But never look back,
To moan on a milestone gone by.

The Complete Collection of "Nonsense Rhymes" can be found here.