Arbit Choudhury turns 4 !!

Today is a very special day for me. Today Arbit Choudhury celebrates his 4th Birthday!!

The last 4 years have been an incredible journey for us. When we first conceived the idea way back in 2004 - it started as an attempt to create humor out of our B-school lifestyles, textbooks, syllabi and jargon. Today, the flavor of Arbit humor has expanded to cover corporate life, business lingo, management concepts, and occasionally even social happenings.

Comments, criticisms, encouraging mails and most importantly unwritten and unspoken support that fans have given Arbit over the last 4 years have kept us going.

To mark this special occasion, we have released a new version of the Arbit Choudhury website www.arbitmba.com today, replete with cool features like Tag Clouds, Rating Widgets etc.

This is in fact the 3rd version of the Arbit website. Today, let me go down memory lane and display the various versions of the Arbit Choudhury Website over the years..

Arbit Choudhury Website V1.0 (launched on 16th January 2005)

Arbit Choudhury Website V2.0 (launched on 5th September 2006)

Arbit Choudhury Website V3.0 (launched on 5th September 2008)

The Gmail Story of the ‘Arbit Choudhury’ Trio !!

Hemant vaguely remembers the 26th of June 2004 when he got an invite to create a Gmail ID from a batch mate at NITIE – a management school in Mumbai, India. He got so fascinated by Gmail that he soon invited Shubham and Nikhil – his closest pals – on 26th of August 2004. Those days of 2004 and these days of 2007; the trio haven’t looked back or anywhere else for email.

The refreshingly simple and innovative and clutter-free interface giving keyboard shortcuts (for key board freaks like us) swept all three of us off our feet and it was almost love at first sight. :-) The interface, the speed, the search capability, the labels, everything was truly extra-ordinary; besides the unimaginable 1GB of mailbox space it was giving those days – come to think of it; today it stands at about 6 GB (and we’ve got so habituated to the space that one of us has 45% of the 6GB consumed).

Gmail, which redefined web based email services, slowly become our nerve center. We moved all our contacts to it and made Gmail our single point of contact for all practical purposes. We did still have friends on hotmail and yahoo and other services, but they were also being infected by the Gmail-virus and gradually ‘converting’.

Together the 3 of us have shared the joy of working on Arbit Choudhury – The worlds first MBA comic character. We created Arbit Choudhury when we lived in the same campus, but post our MBA, we went on to join demanding jobs which took us to different parts of the world.

Gmail helped us stay in touch and seamlessly coordinate all our work and allied activities. A majority of our online communication, brainstorming and discussions shifted to Gmail, besides instant messengers. And when Gmail integrated a chat with mail, we gave up other messengers and migrated “full time” to Gmail. Amongst the three of us, conversations have been exchanged across 3 Continents (Asia, Europe and North America); 8 countries (India, Switzerland, UAE, UK, USA, Mauritius, Malaysia & Thailand) and 20 cities (Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bilaspur, Baroda, Bhopal, Geneva, Lucerne, Zurich, London, Norwich, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Dubai, Baltimore, Jersey City, Bangkok, Pattaya) over the last 3 years.

Arbit Choudhury comic strips are released every 15 days and all communication on this has been happening through Gmail over the last 3 years. Each comic idea is evaluated by 3 of us first and a panel formed out of 20-25 friends before it enters our ‘idea bank’.

Thereafter Shubham creates the pencil sketch, scans it and sends it by Gmail; and then refines the sketch based on feedback. Once the pencil sketch is finalized, Hemant colors it using an imaging tool and the final ‘comic’ again goes through a feedback routing on Gmail. Finally, the mail-text accompanying the comic also goes through a similar loop of discussions on Gmail, before the comic gets released to our mailing list.

Till date, over 100 comic strips (and emails) have been discussed, finalized and quality checks done through Gmail. In fact, in all our GMail boxes the labels around ‘Arbit’ are by far the heaviest.

Besides Gmail; allied services of Google are also used for ‘Arbit activities’; discussing Arbit plans on GChat, scheduling Arbit activities (like website backups) on Google Calender, simultaneously working on shared documents on Google Documents (previously Writely) etc.

GMail has frankly been the life blood of Arbit e-volution over the last 3 years. Today it is also playing a similar role while we are dreaming of our own start-up. It is the nerve centre of all out ideas, brainstorming and discussions. For us, Gmail, along with the allied services, proved to an ultimate collaborative tool to work on.

The extent of our dependence on GMail and it's related services was best summed up by Hemant, when he blogged about it in his own inimitable style, stating that our daily routines begin with "Google before Gargle". Also, it become apparent when Nikhil commented once that if someone wants to know us, he/she should read through our Gmail.

We believe that today, GMail has virtually reached the pedestal of the best e-mail service in the world. It has done so not by simply meeting customer expectations, but by giving them something they never imagined in their wildest dreams. And by doing this, it has left all competition playing a hopeless catch-up game. With all the wonderful innovations Google has brought so far, it has also raised the bar for itself in the future. Google users will continue to expect such extra-ordinary innovations in the future too. And we have no doubt they will succeed.

Come to think of it, we even discussed about participating in the Gmail story contest and discussed all about it over Gmail from 3 different cities across 2 countries. :-)

-- The “Arbit Choudhury” Trio

Here is our story on Google's GMail Stories website.

Arbit's social responsibility

Though Arbit Choudhury is all about humor, we do like to utilize Arbit’s popularity do your little bit for important social causes. From time to time, we extend our whole hearted support to various social projects and awareness campaigns.

Project WHY !

ProjectWHY is an organization aiming to provide under privileged children a means to learn, earn and live with dignity. The Project WHY resource center is located in the Giri Nagar slum in New Delhi. There are currently 600 children enrolled at WHY. Children at WHY are enrolled in local government or municipal schools.

We have released a special comic strip related support one of the initiatives taken by ProjectWHY

The entire Arbit Team (Arbit, his friends and his Creators) extend a helping hand to the under-privileged children by announcing their support to Project WHY. We would appreciate all the Arbit fans who would come forward and help such initiatives.

Project WHY Coordinators:

Mrs.Anuradha Bakshi (Contact No. +91 98 1142 4877)

Ms. Shamika Bakshi(Contact No. +91 98 1111 3420)

AIDS Awareness

The Arbit Choudhury Team is also a keen supporter of the AIDS awareness campaign. On World AIDS Day every year, we release a special comic strip dedicated to spreading awareness about AIDS.

If you think Arbit can help some other Social Responsibility Projects, we would like to hear from you about them. Write to us at arbit.mba@gmail.com

Arbit Choudhury- 100 not out !!

It was a sunny winter afternoon in 2004 - me, Hemant and Nikhil were sitting in the B-school hostel, enjoying the sunshine and chitchatting about random things when someone sent a huge collection of comics on the LAN. We flipped through some comics and were not particularly perked up - we did not particularly relate to the humour.

All of us mulled over the thought that nowadays it was much more fun to spoof management jargon which we learnt in class, in our day to day life. Why isn't there such a concept in comics - there is Archie which pokes at school life, Laxman's cartoons poking at social affairs, even Doonesbury poking at politics. As we wondered, the feeling grew upon us that Management Jargon was one of the most 'attractive' fields to poke at - and more so as you make fun of it - you indeed are also helping simplify its understanding.

These thoughts which were seeded in the winter of 2004, bore fruit in the summers and Arbit Choudhury was born, which we launched in September 2004. We have come a ling way since then till today, when we released the 100th comic strip in the Arbit Choudhury series. have enjoyed every moment of creating humour out of management jargon - and as feedback from Arbit fans keeps confirming time and again, we are sure fans across the world have been enjoying the same.

On this occasion, we thank all our fans - professionals, consultants, professors and students as much as we thank the management gurus who create the jargon for us to find humour in. The centenary comic strip celebrates the quintessential property of an MBA as a tribute to all our fans ;-).

We - the Arbit Choudhury team - wish that we keep enjoying this journey and celebrate many more such milestones!!!

Feedback / suggestions are welcome at arbit.mba@gmail.com

Arbit Choudhury: Rewind 2007

As another year in the life of Arbit Choudhury draws to a close, it is time we share some key Arbit happenings, achievements and challenges of 2007 with all of you.

2007 was a special year in more ways than one. During this year, Arbit Choudhury won the Manthan Award under the e-Entertainment category, for its contribution to developing the concept of micro-distribution.

Arbit's important media mentions this year included a feature article on "Indian Webcomics" in Indian Express (Chennai Edition) on June 15th, mention in a Times of India article about the proposed creation of Arbit Choudhury on 12th March, and an Interview with the creators of the comic strip appearing in the popular management blog Management Informatika.

During the course of the year, we invited Arbit ideas from our fans, and converted the best of them into comic strips through our yearly Mastishk Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest (MAFIC). We also tested your knowledge on Arbit Choudhury through a special quiz hosted on our website, on the occasion of Arbit's 3rd Birthday.

In 2007, Arbit Choudhury also became a regular feature in Tango- The Cognizant Technology Solutions Newsletter circulated among Cognizant associates and B-schools across the country. We launched an Arbit Ideas Contest in the December edition of Tango, inviting humor doses from all recipients of the newsletter. Arbit Choudhury comic strips have appeared in the Satyam newsletter, GE CIS newsletter and BHEL "Caravan" newsletter over the years.

Apart from our regular comic strips, we released special comic strips on Valentine's Day, international Labour Day, Google's Birthday and World AIDS Day.

During 2007, the Arbit Choudhury creators created and released comic strips from 12 cities, 6 countries and 3 continents across the globe. Even as our professional commitments take us to different parts of the world, and make us work from different time zones, we have tried to provide Arbit Choudhury fans their regular dose of Arbit humor without fail. We will continue in this endeavor in the future too.

We promise to make 2008 equally enjoyable for you, if not more. Do keep writing to us 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.

Arbit Choudhury wins the Manthan Award !!

I would like to announce with great pleasure that Arbit Choudhury has been awarded the prestigious Manthan Award under the e-Entertainment category, for its contribution to developing the concept of micro-distribution. The Manthan Award is an initiative by Digital Empowerment Foundation , India as the National initiative of World Summit Award, to select and promote the best practices in e-Content and Creativity in India.

As the Award Jury put it – “Comic characters and ICT [Information Communication Technologies] offer immense possibilities for communicating serious thoughts quickly and to a large audience and in an interactive mode. [Others] could adopt Arbit's strategy of micro-distribution over a large geographical area to reach the target audience.”

You can read more about Arbit Choudhury's contribution on the Manthan Award website here

The list of all winners of the Manthan Award can be found here

We would wish to thank all our fans for their support which has kept us going and has brought us to this day when Arbit has been recognized as a concept with an impact farther than Management and B-schools.

Sabyasachi Ghosh, a close friend of mine, who was present in New Delhi, accepted the Manthan Award on our behalf.

Do send your messages in relation to the award along with feedback, suggestions and Arbit ideas to arbit.mba@gmail.com You can also join the Arbit Choudhury Mailing List by visiting this link, and clicking on the “Join This Group” button, or writing a mail to arbit.mba@gmail.com with the subject “Join”.

Arbit turns 3 today..

Today is a very special day for me as Arbit Choudhury celebrates his 3rd birthday!!

Arbit Choudhury opened his eyes to the world on 5th September 2004, and the world has embraced him with open arms since then. Over the last 3 years, Arbit Choudhury has reached out to fans across the world, captured multiple media credits and been appreciated by international experts in the creative sector. The future will hopefully see Arbit Choudhury appearing in multiple online and offline publications.

On this special occasion, we would like to share two very special things with all Arbit fans.

An interview with the creators of Arbit Choudhury was published on the management blog Management Informatika.

We also bring to you a special Arbit Choudhury Quiz to mark Arbit's 3rd birthday. You can test your knowledge about Arbit Choudhury by taking the quiz by visiting http://www.arbitmba.com/ . The quiz closes on 15th September 2007.

Hint:- Answers to all the quiz questions can be found in various sections of http://www.arbitmba.com/

Arbit features in Indian Express !!

Ever since inception in 2004, Arbit Choudhury has received frequent mentions in the print and online media.

Arbit Choudhury's latest media appearance happened on 15th June 2007, as part of a feature article on web-comics, published in Chennai edition of Indian Express.

Arbit Choudhury fans would recall that this is the 2nd time that Arbit Choudhury has appeared in Indian Express. Apart from this, Arbit has also appeared 3 times in Times of India and once in Business World, over the last 3 years.

Arbit in Times.. for the 3rd time !!

I would like to inform all Arbit Choudhury fans about his latest media appearance. On the 12th March 2007, Arbit Choudhury got a mention in Times of India for the third time. The mention appeared in relation to the proposed creation of Arbit Choudhury merchandise by the management students of NITIE through their student managed company.

Veteran Arbit fans would recall that Arbit appeared on the front page of Bombay and Kolkata Times on October 18th 2005, as well as received a mention in an Education Times article on October 21st 2004. Arbit Choudhury has also grabbed mentions in other leading publications like Business World , and Indian Express over the years. More details about Arbit's media appearances can be found on http://www.arbitmba.com/

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

Google Before Gargle :-)

In 1996, two university students were cutting their meal expenses in order to save money to be invested in their research project - BackRub. Back then people started their research work from libraries; 'BackRub' changed the way research is begun - today research starts at Google.

In the past couple of years, Google has become a phenomenon - a noun, which is now a verb, being synonymous with search.

I am a self-professed Google Maniac. I use more than 10 different Google services daily. As I have mentioned before, the growth of Arbit Choudhury owes a lot to Google. Google has helped me, Hemant and Nikhil seamlessly co-ordinate and synchronies our activities from 3 different parts of the world. Archiving truckloads of fan mails on GMail, discussing Arbit plans on GChat, scheduling Arbit activities on Google Calender, simultaneously working on Arbit documents on Writely, and reaching out to Arbit fans through Orkut, Google has been the life blood of Arbit e-volution.

And we are not alone. Google, with it’s innovation and imagination, as won over the hearts of net-izans across the world. Google’s core strength lies in offering users products and services way beyond their expectations, and in doing so, transforming the entire landscape of the industry. Right from creating the revolutionary PageRank algorithm for search, to providing virtually unlimited storage and handy conversation based GMail, to seamlessly integrating Messenger services with e-mail, Google has constantly given it’s user more than they ever hoped for. And by doing this, it has left all competition playing a hopeless catch-up game.

With all the wonderful innovations Google has brought so far, it has also raised the bar for itself in the future. Google users will continue to expect such extra-ordinary innovations in the future too. Quoting a famous Sidhuism, “The best way to make people remember good deeds is to keep repeating them”, Google will have to continue surprising people with wonderful products and services in future too. And I have no doubt they will succeed.

In it’s birthday month, here is Arbit Choudhury’s tribute to the phenomenon called Google..

P.S.:- Click on the phrase to know more about "Google Before Gargle" :-)

Happy Birthday Arbit !!

Yes, Arbit Choudhury turns 2 today. It was on September 5th 2004, that the World’s 1st B-school (MBA) Comic Character was born. Little did I know at that time, that I would still be involved with him 2 years down the line; that me, Hemant and Nikhil would work across international boundaries and time-zones, to keep him active; that the Arbit Choudhury Yahoo Group will become one of the largest Yahoo Groups in the Comic Strips category; and that people from across sectors, backgrounds and countries would love him so much.

On the occasion of his 2nd birthday, we have decided to give a special gift to all Arbit Choudhury fans across the globe. We have launched the new and improved Arbit Choudhury Website today.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all Arbit fans who have loved reading Arbit Comic Strips, forwarded them to their friends, batchmates and colleagues, and sent us their ideas and feedback on Arbit. We promise to keep bringing you more of Arbit’s brand of Management Masti and B-school Balderdash in the future too.

Arbit e-volution !!

I was talking to Nikhil the other day, when he refered to Arbit Choudhury as a "New Generation Comic Character". His words have been resonating inside me ever since. Arbit is indeed a 21st Century comic character, one who has completly been born and brought up Online. Arbit Choudhury was first launched in MastishK, an Online Management Games Extravaganza. Then, Arbit reached thousands of fans through e-mail forwards. The latest Arbit Choudhury strips are now released on the regular basis through the Arbit Yahoo Group and Website. Arbit Choudhury jokes are also available on India Times 8888 SMS service, under the keyword 'MBA', which is perhaps another 1st for any comic character. Going forward, we plan to take Arbit Choudhury to his fans thorugh other new-age communication channels like RSS feeds, Pod casting and Animation Films, thus covering the entire gamut of electronic media.

Hemant and Me have now passed out of NITIE, and work from locations as far apart as Hyderabad, India, and Geneva, Switzerland. With it, the Making of Arbit has also gone fully online. This is where Arbit Choudhury owes a lot to tools like GMail, GTalk, and Writely. While we collaborate and synchronise our operations across geographies, I can't, at times, help but feel pleasently amused by our own Global Delivery Model. Just the other day, we were symultaneously working on a document on Writely, and discussing the same over GTalk Voice Chat, my mike when bust. I could hear Hemant, but he could not hear me. So, we ended up setting a new Voice vs. Text Communication Paradigm, as Hemant spoke and I replied in text !!

The extent of our IT dependence is best summed up by Hemant, when he says, in his own inimitable style, that our daily routines begin with "Google before Gargle", and that the 3 basic necessities of our lives have become "Bread, Butter and Broadband" :)

When I ruminate over Arbit Choudhury's evolution as a Comic Character, I cannot help but feel that Arbit Choudhury owes his success completely to the Internet Age. It would have been virtually impossible to take a new-born comic character so quickly to afficianados across the world, before the advent of the web.

Tim Barners Lee, I owe you a treat :)

P.S.:- Today, I complete two years on Blog World. Thanks to Sallu for introducing me to this wonderful arena. Blogs represent the final frontier in "Freedom of Expression", by giving anyone who wants to say something, a public platform to do so. What will be the next revolution hitting Blog Land? Keep checking this space for more :)

Arbit on SMS !!

Here is the latest news from Arbit Choudhury's Desk.
After entertaining fans across the world though the Web, Arbit has now forayed into the Mobile Space.

Arbit Choudhury Jokes are now available on India Times 8888 SMS Service !!

To access, just type "MBA" and send to 8888.

Now, for another recent Arbit Milestone:-

Wikipedia has recently recognised Arbit Choudhury as the World's 1st B-school (MBA) Comic Character

To receieve the latest Arbit Choudhury strips by e-mail, visit here and click on the "Join This Group" button. Or else, just send a mail with the subject "Join" to arbit.mba@gmail.com

Click here, to know more about Arbit. or Visit Arbit at Orkut

Woh pahli baar.. Jab hum mile..

Valentine's Day has a special place in my life.. Not because of obvious reasons though.. ;)

But because, it was on this day, in 2004, that I first embarked on a journey that would lead to two of the most creative and enjoyable experiences of my life.. It was on 14 th February 2004, that I teamed up with Nikhil and Hemant for the first time.. A team that would be inseparable ever since.. and would work on many diverse projects.. some that hit the bulls-eye, and some that never moved out of incubation.. But the results of our efforts have never dented our friendship..

The students of the erstwhile batch in B-school had decided to celebrate Valentine's Day 2004, in their own unique way.. We had decided to have some fun programmes to mark the day.. like Proposal Writing Competitions, Best Pair Awards, and some Skits/Plays etc.. Nikhil and Hemant, who had done some skits during their student life, decided to do one here too.. After weeks of planning, they had progressed just like any typical project..... They were clueless on the final day.. Even 2 hours before the show, they were nowhere.. the fellow batchmates they had approached for the roles in the play had ditched them at the last moment.. and the script they had been working on was deemed unfit for the occasion.. Suddenly, a brainwave hit them.. They somehow cooked up a script.. and drafted me in to play one of the roles.. Nikhil and Hemant would play the other two characters.. Another batchmate was asked to become the playback singer.. But at Zero hour, we still did not have anyone to play the role of a solitary female.. With minutes to go, we somehow managed to cajole a female batchmate to help us out.. And thus, one of the shoddiest plays of all time (which had an equally shoddy title "To do or not to do? What to do?") finally hit the stage..

The play was about 2 hopeless YFMs (played by me and Hemant), desperately wanting to kick-start their non-existent love-lives. When all their efforts to propose to their crush (played by a female batchmate) fail, they approach a learned saint (played by Nikhil) with a last ditch plea for help.. The saint offers some divine advice, charges a load of money for the same.. In the end, the poor fellows realize that even the saint had tricked them, and they were back to square one..

And thus, this horrendous performance marked the beginning of our life as a team.. A team that would go on to conceptualize MastishK 2004 (It was Nikhil and Hemant who played a major role in this, I was just an assistant).. and then create Arbit Choudhury (with Me working on ideas and sketches, Hemant weaving his Photoshop magic, and Nikhil sorting out the technical nitti-gritties).. We have had our fair share of failures along the way too.. most notable being ShoOOonya Talkies (a brainchild of Hemant and Nikhil).. Though we have often had differences of opinion, but we have never stopped dreaming..

We have since passed out of B-school, and now work from various locations across the globe.. But we continue to coordinate and brainstorm over the net.. generating, refining and implementing our myriad ideas..

Arbit Choudhury- 2005 Collection

Phew!! Today is a big day for us. Today, we have completed a full year of uninterrupted release of Arbit Choudhury- the World’s 1st B-school (MBA) cartoon character. It has been a tough year in more ways than one, with me and Hemant working to tight schedules from different parts of the India and abroad, with Arbit strips being released from Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bilaspur, Bhopal and Geneva. Nikhil has been a perpetual man-for-crisis, managing Arbit with the same guile as Information Risk. This year has been one of many Arbit milestones, the launch of Arbit Choudhury website, MastishK Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest, Arbit’s appearance in Times of India and Business World to name a few. While truckloads of fan mails, from CEOs to B-school students, continue to flood our mail boxes, we are now preparing to take Arbit to the next level. More on that soon......

Meanwhile, here is Complete Collection of Arbit Choudhury strips released in 2005.

Click here to join the Arbit Choudhury mailing list and receive the latest Arbit strips every 15 days

Agony Uncle !!

Reading and replying to Arbit Choudhury fan mails is as much part of my daily routine as reading the sports page of the newspaper is. While most of those mails just mention how they like (and in some cases, dislike) Arbit, every now and then, some rather unusual mails also land up in my mailbox.

Following is one of the most thought provoking mails that I have received about Arbit. So much so that Nikhil wants me to post it on my blog. --

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hello

this is xyz from abc company.

i came across ur mba mascot arbit choudhury.

though i am impressed with his wit, he left me confused.

i am thinking of doing mba after two years of work ex , it came as a surprise to know abt culture of a top b-school.

i would like u to brief me more about him n the ground reality of todays b-schools.

honestly expecting a reply from u.

regards

xyz

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Here is an excerpt from my reply to the person--

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arbit choudhury was created to have a peek into the lighter side of management.. as they say, the best surd jokes are cracked by surds themselves.. so, me and hemant, MBA students ourselves, were able to look into some humorous aspects of B-school education in greater depth.. although we mock the goings-on in the sphere of management, we do not want to demean the management or B-school fraternity.. an MBA from a top B-school can not only help u immensely in your career, but also make u more mature person.. much of the learning in a top b-school comes from outside the classroom, through interaction with batch mates and other extra curricular activities.. in short, in spite of its lacunae, MBA from a top b-school is definitely worth going for..

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And this is what Nikhil says on this issue--

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Cartoons and caricatures are a way of expressing ones desire for change in a humorous manner. Experts like RK Laxman was for long waged a war against corruption, nepotism and dirty politics through their cartoons. They are still doing it - but does this mean that India has not changed in the intervening years? No, changes take place and there is further scope for improvement. Similarly while it is true that MBA is filled with Jargon - there are conscious efforts on to simplify it. B-school education is a great boon, but like eveything else there are some gaps and some falacies. We are just trying to caricaturize these through our comic strip. Nevertheless there are many a positive aspects of B-school education which you will discover when you join a top 10 school.

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"Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind." -Gilbert Seldes

Forward Marketing

MastishK 2004 had just concluded. The enormous appreciation Arbit Choudhury- the 1st B-school cartoon had received during the event had made us decide to continue creating Arbit post MastishK’04. But we were unsure how to go about it. We knew, in spite of it’s popularity during MastishK’04, Arbit had just touched the tip of the iceberg. Arbit was yet to reach out to the vast majority of it’s target audience. We needed a vehicle to make that happen. Cartoon strips usually require a platform like a newspaper or a periodical journal, to reach out to it’s readers. Arbit had no such means. We had to come up with an innovative method to spread Arbit in the management fraternity.

Then one day, an idea struck us. We made a pdf containing all Arbit strips released during MastishK’04, put my and Hemant’s ids at the bottom, and sent the same to all our friends. This ignited the most mind-boggling chain reaction, one which is still going on and on for more than a year now, and one which has taken Arbit forwards to zillions of mailboxes across the globe. Through the appreciation mails that keep flooding our mailboxes, we are able to somewhat guage the far and wide places that our little forward has reached.

Although we subsequently launched the Arbit Choudhury yahoo group and website, that small Arbit forward sent more than a year back, is still the major driver behind Arbit’s overwhelming popularity.

This brings me to the unique marketing concept, which I call “Forward Marketing”. In today’s cyber-era, where the web is altering every known business paradigm, new and innovative net-marketing strategies have become the order of the day. With almost everyone having e-mail, forwards have become an inseparable part of our lives. It is this power of forwards which can be leveraged as a marketing weapon. Forwards are different from spam, in the sense that a forward comes to you from someone you know, whereas spam comes from an unknown source. This is the primary reason why spam marketing has failed. And this is exactly why forward marketing can succeed.

So, all you marketing professionals out there, if you have a great concept or product which needs to be marketed online, all you have to do is prepare a universally likable forward revolving around the product/concept you want to market, and just send it across to all our contacts. If you get lucky, you might be onto a very successful marketing campaign.

In the next edition of Kotler’s “Marketing Management”, we might just find a chapter titled “Forward Marketing”

Mind-Games !!

MastishK 2005- India’s Biggest Fully Online Business Challenge, organized by the management students of NITIE, Mumbai, has just concluded. This was the 2nd edition of MastishK. If MastishK 2004 was a hit (with 2500 registrations, and 17,500 hits from 21 countries), MastishK 2005 was a block-buster (with 5000 registrations, and 50,000 hits from 25 countries). As part of the core team which was involved with the initial conception of the event, I feel absolutely elated.

The idea of creating a fully online management games extravaganza, was the brain child of one man, Nikhil Kulkarni. Although, Hemant, me and several others joined in later, it was his initial vision that resulted in the birth of MastishK. During our initial steps, hardly anyone believed a novel idea like this would see the light of day. Their skepticism was valid too, since we were planning to do everything, from the conceptualization of the games, to writing the code and developing the website, inhouse. This was a Herculean task, never attempted before. But we had no alternative, as we had no money in our pockets to be able to outsource any part of our effort to an external agency. And no sponsor was willing to back such an untested concept. At times, even I has doubts about the viability of our efforts. But as they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. Not only did MastishK 2004 lift off, but it moved into stratosphere !

If in MastishK 2004, we faced the challenge of getting an innovative concept on the ground, in MastishK 2005, our juniors faced the challenge of taking it to the next level. After the success of MastishK 2004, they had to make sure that MastishK 2005 was an even bigger hit. They knew, if MastishK 2005 fails, there may not be any MastishK 2006 next year. But the roaring success of MastishK 2005 has not only ensured the event’s future, but also placed it as an important fixture in every B-school calendar.

Oday, my mind goes back to one of those early days, when we were in the process of coming up with an appropriate title for India’s 1st fully online management games event. Nikhil and Hemant, who had been rummaging through truckloads of exotic names in the net for over a week, had prepared an extensive list of the same. One night, the core team met to decide the final title. One by one, each name was discussed, and rejected. After exhausting the whole list, each of us decided to come up with ingenious titles of our own, in a last ditch attempt to find the most suitable one. Suddenly, someone amongst us blurted out, “Hey! How about ‘Mastishk’?” (I cannot recall who has the person who 1 suggested this. Was it me? Or KC? Or someone else? Nikhil, if you remember, let me know). All of us knew in an instant, we had got the title we wanted. Nikhil, Hemant and me spent the rest of the night designing the logo for the title. Soon, Hemant discovered the image of a human head, with gears rotating inside the brain, which was to become the proverbial ‘face’ of MastishK. Soon afterwards, Arbit Choudhury was born......

...... And the rest, as they say, is history !!

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!