My favorite TV shows

Off late, I have been thinking about some TV shows that I have loved watching over the years. These are shows I can watch again and again, whenever they are telecast on TV.

1. Yes Minister (and it's later Indian version "Ji Mantri Ji")- Classic British humor. For all you fans of "Friends" and other American sitcoms, I believe nothing comes anywhere close to the instantaneous bureaucracy bashing wit of this legendary British show. I loved the Indian version as well, but was disappointed that it turned out to be an exact copy of the original, whereas introduction of a few nuances of Indian politics into the script would have made it many times more relevant and interesting. Alas, the Indian version had too few episodes.

2. B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat - It was this epic TV series that kick-started my fascination with the story of Mahabharat. The production values and manner of story telling in this serial were far superior than the other mythological epic telecast on Doordarshan in the 1980's, Ramanant Sagar's Ramayan (Particularly infuriating were the repetative scenes where opponents used to hurl arrows at each other in war, and the arrows took almost the entire length of the episode to hit each other.). My fondness for the show also stems from the inherent beauty of the multi-leyered story line of this epic. Ekta Kapoor's recent Kahani Hamarey Mahabharat Ki is just a gaudy remake of the original.

3. Flop Show - This is unquestionably the best satirical comedy telecast on Indian television. No show before or after this, has been able to expose the idiosyncrasies of Indian society and the inefficiencies of Indian bureaucracy in the same laugh-out-laud way as this show. Office-Office is the only other show that comes close, but is not in the same league. Even Jaspal Bhatti has not been able to re-create the same magic in any other show since. The amount of humor packed into each episode o the show was truly incredible. Each episode which dealt with a different problem in the life of a common man, consisted of a small joke in the beginning, the main storyline in the middle, and a parody song in the end. Sheer genius!!

4. Star Trek - As a child with a fascination for sci-fi and space, Star Trek had to be one of my favorites. Apart from the sci-fi elements, I loved Captain Kirk's at times arrogant personality and Spock's funnily shaped ears!! "Beam Me Up, Scotty" is my all time favorite TV dialogue.

Worst movies I have seen..

I am not a great movie buff. I watch very few hindi movies. Hence, I am perhaps not the best person to write a blog post on this topic, as I have not seen a lot of gems like Love Story 2050, Bichchu, Oh Darling Yeh Hai India, Safari, Apne etc.

Yet, I have been lucky enough to watch a few landmark movies that will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst in the history of Indian cinema. I call myself lucky since I am sure the number of people who have seen the following films can be counted on fingertips. The idea was not to list poor movies, but the absolute worst of the lot.

1. RGV ki Aag (2007) - This film will almost certainly go down as the biggest disaster in Bollywood history, the greatest damp squib of all times. What strikes you most is the mockery it made of exceptional actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Mohan Lal. Absolutely none of the elements of the original Sholey, like the bond between Jai and Veeru, Thakur's internal angst, Gabbar's menace etc. get depicted anywhere near as well as the original. RGV might have been better off projecting his movie as a comic spoof of Sholey rather than a serious remake, as a majority of the audience came out laughing from the theater at this utterly ridiculous attempt at mimicking a classic.

2. Gajagamini (2000) - To call this movie "bad" is an injustice to it. "Incomprehensible" is a more apt description. Watching this movie was like staring at a Modern Art painting, trying to figure our the hidden meanings behind the abstract expressions. I am sure not many apart from Mr. M.F. Hussain have been able to figure them out. Even Hussain's muse Madhuri was so embarrassed that she did not turn up for the film's premier !!

3. Badhti Ka Naam Daadhi (1974) - This movie, which must have been conceived by Kishore Kumar during of of his eccentric fits, was an attempt to recreate the magic of the 50's hit "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi". The horrendous nature of the movie is aptly illustrated by the absurd premise of the story. A rich old man mentions in his will that he would give away his fortune to the person with the longest beard. The lucky man turns out to be Kishore Kumar, whose beard it longer than his height itself. the rest of the film has a few goons chasing him with scissors, and the Kishore Kumar dodging them successfully. The least one expected from a Kishore Kumar movie was some good music, but this film was a monumental let down on that front too.

4. Jaani Dushman - Ek Anokhi Kahaani (2002) - Raj Kumar Kohli's suicidal attempt to remake his 1976 hit Nagin and launch the acting career of his son Armaan Kohli. The saying "Money can't buy everything" is apt for this hopeless film. It is very apparent that the makers spent a fortune in trying to re-create special effects of major Hollywood blockbusters, but it seems that they completely forgot to make any attention to the storyline itself. How else can you justify the hero of the movie just having a couple of lines to speak, inspite of being present in almost half of the scenes. Anyone watching this film should not forget to catch Sonu Nigam doing some of the worst acting ever seen on the silver screen. No wonder no one has heard of Raj Kumar and Armaan Kohli ever since.

Note:- I have confined my selection to A list (big budget and leading star cast) films. I have not looked at B grade movies like countless Mithun-da flicks (Truck Driver Suraj, Kaliya, Chandaal to name a few) for my selection, since such movies are meant to be poor by definition.

I am sure readers of this post would recall many other equally horrible movies they have seen. Comments invited.

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)

I Bowled at Geoffrey Boycott :-)

Readers of this blog know that I am a big Cricinfo fan, and visit the site quite regularly to get my dose of Cricket news, articles and stats. A few days back, I had posted a question in the "Bowl at Boycs" section. Mr. Boycott has replied to the same here. (My question is the 4th in the list.)

Chakravyuha Demystified

As I have mentioned before, I have been fascinated by the epic tale of Mahabharata since childhood. I have frequently pondered over the numerous nuances of the story, trying to figure out how and why things happened as they did, and what was the hidden message behind it all.

One of my areas of interest has been the Chakravyuha formation used by Dronacharya to kill Abhimanyu. I have often wondered what the formation actually looked like, and why was it so difficult to breach? I have been trying to uncover the answers to some of my questions through some internet research. As with any epic that has been handed down through countless generations, the anecdotes from Mahabharata have been interpreted and presented in various ways by various people. Since I have encountered various interpretations of the Chakravyuha incident as well, I have tried to stitch together a theory that satisfies most of them.

Why was the Chakravyuha so difficult to breach?

The most plausible explanation I have encountered is as follows:-

The word Chakravyuha is made up of Chakra meaning circle or ring and Vyuha meaning formation.

Some sources describe the Chakravyuh is a formation consisting of 7 concentric circles of warriors rotating in unison[5]. This is supported by the way the formation is depicted in the famous TV series Mahabharat [7], by B.R.Chopra, as shown in the snapshots below -

Another representation of the formation is in the shape of a 7 layered rotating spiral. Images on the Wiki page for Chakravyuha illustrate this [1].

I personally feel that the spiral formation depicted in Wikipedia is more credible than the 7 ring formation, as it is also engraved in some ancient Indian temple sculptures.

The Chakravyuha was specially difficult to penetrate since the attacker is not able to focus on a still target in front as the targets keep changing with the rotation of the Chakras. Even if an attacker can penetrate one ring and get inside the Chakravyuha, the rotating nature of the vyuha makes sure that the ring he has penetrated closes behind him. As a result, the attacker is trapped within the Chakravyuha.

How did Abhimanyu come to know about the way to break the Chakravyuha?

It is well known that Abhimanyu learnt the method to enter the Chakravyuha while he was inside his mother's womb. But there is some confusion on who actually mentioned the method to Abhimanyu's mother Subhadra. While most versions mention that it was Arjun who was explaining the method to Subhadra, some versions mention that he heard the method from Krishna [6]. But the thing that is consistent across versions is that Subhadra fell asleep midway and hence Abhimanyu could not listen to the way one could exit from the Chakravyuha.

Now to the major question.

What exactly was the technique for breaking into the Chakravyuha?

Here are some of the inferences I have drawn based on my research.

The rotating Chakravyuha consisted of warriors of various caliber. The Other Pandavas were not able to breach it because of 2 reasons. 1. They attacked the stronger warriors in the ring and were repelled. 2. As soon as they started to get an upper hand on one warrior, the ring rotated and another Kaurava warrior confronted them.

Abhimanyu overcame this by attacking the warriors to the left and right of him, and not the ones directly in front. [2] . As the ring rotated, the gap he had created to his left or right came in front of him and he penetrated with Chakravyuha. He repeated the same for all the rings.

Another version of the story states that Arjuna had mentioned the "right time to enter" and the "right words to enter" the Chakravyuha to Abhimanyu [4]. This seems to indicate that there was some sort of key to the jigsaw puzzle using which Abhimanyu broke through the maze. The key perhaps indicated the weak points in the formation, which should be attacked in order to break through them.

As he broke through each ring, Abhimanyu defeated one great Kaurava warrior after another. He trounced Jayadratha, Dronacharya, Karna and Aswathama in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rings respectively[5]. It was after he had penetrated 6 rings did all Kaurava warriors join hands to attack him in unison, that resulted in his demise.

But there are some more questions that I am yet to find answers too. Like why could Abhimanyu not apply the same method that he used to enter the Chankravyuha, to exit from it as well? What was the difference in the method between entering and exiting the Chakravuyuha? Perhaps Kaurava’s joint attack into him could be the reason, as he didn’t even get a chance to apply the same logic of entering the Chakravyuha, in getting out of it. But this is just a guess from my side.

I suppose we will never be able to get exact answers to all these questions. As it is said in the Mahabharat, only 4 people; Abhimanyu, Arjuna, Krishna and Pradyumna; knew how to breach this formation. Since Ved Vyas, who recited the great epic, himself did not know the secret, how could he mention how it was supposed to be done in the story.

I have based this blog post on the limited amount of information I have been able to rummage through the Internet. For all you know, I might be completely off the mark in my conclusions. Anyone reading this blog post who can share more information about the Chakravyuha formation in Mahabharata that can help be refine this article is welcome to post a comment here.

References:-

1. The Wiki entry

2. Mahabharata - A Modern Rendering - Jayadratha's Moment

3. Mahabharata Summary - Abhimanyu

4. Chakravyuha - by Adil Jussawalla

5. The Crest Jewel: srimadbhagwata Mahapuran with Mahabharata

6. Master the Mind Monkey: Experience Your Excellence - By Anand Patkar

7. Chakravyuha Episode - in Mahabharat TV Series by B.R.Chopra

Nonsense Rhymes - XIII

A part of me wants..
To bury the past,
As I can neither change it nor bear the pain..
To overcome the angst,
As I can no longer withstand the strain..
To erase all traces of wounds,
and reboot with a new vein..

Yet.. another part wants..
To preserve the memories,
However painful they may be..
As they have helped me grow wiser,
They are a part of ME..
I want the scars to remain,
As a reminder of the battles fought and lost with destiny..

Unshutdownable - Part 2 (Comedies)

Unshutdownable - Part 1 is here.

Comedies have been the flavor of Bollywood in the last couple of years, with many of them like Singh is King, Welcome, Hey Baby, Golmaal, Kya Kool Hain Hum etc. doing well at the Box Office.

Here is a list of my favorite comedy films. None of the films in this list are either lewd or cheap. Perhaps that is why they are regarded as classics.

5. Padosan (1968) - I feel it was Kishore Kumar, in arguably his best screen performance, who elevated this film from a regular run-of-the-mill Mahmood comic flick (like "Bombay to Goa") to classic status. This film also deserves a place in this list as it contains the most hilarious song in the history of Indian Cinema "Ek Chatur Naar".

4. Hera Pheri (2000) - This is one of the very few genuinely comedies to come out in the last two decades, which have been littered with cheap Govinda style or lewd humor. This film established Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar's status as leading funny men in the industry, and they continue to entertain us with their comic roles till date. On the flip side though, I feel the second half of the movie was not half as funny as the first, and the songs were completely out of place.

3. Gol-Maal (1979) - Probably Hrishikesh Mukherjee's finest comedy, the movie exemplifies the fact that you dont need stupid histrionics to be funny. Unadulterated Nirmal Anand.

2. Andaaz Apna Apna (1994) - It is extremely rare to see a movie where almost character is as funny as the others. Though most of the goings-on in the film appear stupid, the comic timing of the actors and the simple yet funny dialogues (like "Yeh Teja Teja kya hai? Yeh Teja Teja?") make it an all time classic.

1. Jane Bhi Do Yaroon (1983) - The best political and social satire of all times. Period.

P.S.:- Since I have tried to put together a list of "pure" comedies here, I have not included a lot of other funny classics like Lagey Raho Munna Bhai and Dil Chahta Hai in this list.

Bending the laws

Cricinfo is undoubtedly the best Cricket website by a light-year. The very best Cricket gurus, an unparalleled statistical database and articles of great analytical and literary quality make it a true Cricket fan's dream website. From time to time, they also come up with eclectic collections of events from the past, that give you great insights into the history and evolution of the game. Here is one such fantabulous collection, that lists how players and teams have tried to bend the rules in the past, with their actions resulting in many changes in the rules of the game. The snippets on declaring a one-day inning, placing a helmet at mid-wicket and dropping the bat while playing the ball are specially intriguing.

My Gmail Wishlist: 5 features I would like to see in Gmail..

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a huge Google and Gmail fan. Not only do I use Gmail very frequently[1][2], I also keep thinking of ways of making this fantastic service even better. Here is a list of 5 features that I feel Gmail should possess. Some of these features are already offered by other e-mail applications.

1. Delete / archive in one click. I believe this feature is present in AOL mail. When you mouse over a conversation, icons for deleting and archiving the conversation should appear automatically, and you should be able to delete or archive any conversation in one click (as opposed to 2 clicks- checking the check-box next to the conversation and clicking on Delete). The check-boxes next to the conversation can be used only when deleting a number of mails together.

2. Sorting. I know that Google believes in "Search. Don't sort." philosophy, but I would still like to be able to sort mails based on various criteria like sender, date, mail size etc.. I know that Google believes that you can perform "sorting" function through various combinations of search keywords, but that still involves remembering the search keywords etc.. Direct sorting is much easier, as it is just a matter of clicking the Sort button on sortable fields. Sorting can also be used along with Searching, in order to locate a mail faster.

Here is an example. You know that a friend of yours sent you a very large multimedia file many months back. You want to locate that mail, but do not have any idea when he sent it, what was the content or subject line of the mail and what was the title or size of the multimedia file. Plus you have 100s of mails from the friend in your mailbox, and looking for one particular mail sent by him by just searching for the friend's name or e-mail id is not feasible. If you have the sorting feature, you can search for all mails from your friend, and then sort the mails in descending order of attachment size. You will be able to find the mail you were looking for in the initial set of results.

I understand that implementation of sorting feature can create complications in a conversation based e-mail service like Gmail. A conversation can have multiple senders, multiple dates and multiple attachments. But I trust Google to find an innovative and intuitive way of doing this, if they ever decide to do so.

3. Video Chat. Just like the normal Gchat window appears as part of the Gmail window, it would be really cool to have a video chat window appear as part of Gchat. This would help a person video chat with one or more friends while he is composing other e-mails/ navigating within Gmail.

4. Save a mail in Drafts or Outbox and set the time of delivery. Suppose you need to send a mail to a friend on 14th of this month. But you know that you will be traveling and will not have access to Gmail on the 14th. You can then compose and save the mail in the draft section, and set the delivery date to 14th. I suppose this is similar to the existing reminders functionality. But giving this option as an email is also a nice to have feature. This feature is already present in MS Outlook. It is specially handy when you want to let your boss know that you are working late. You just need compose a mail to him and set the delivery timing as 1 AM :-)

5. Forward a bunch of mails together. Again, this is present in Outlook, and would be good if Gmail can provide this as well. There are times when you need to give a new joinee in your team a dump of all the conversations that took place before he joined. The Bulk forward feature can save time in such cases, as it takes away the time you would need to individually select a number of conversations and forward them one by one.

In case anyone reading this post has some other feature he would like to see in Gmail in his mind, I invite him to share his thoughts as a comment.

5 things I want to do before I die

1. Re-learn Sansktrit and study ancient Indian scriptures. I have mostly forgotten the Sanskrit I learnt at school. I have always been fascinated with the language and ancient Indian works. Studying them in the language they were written and drawing my own conclusions without being biased by any other interpreter, has been a childhood dream.

2. Author a book of fiction. I have always been fond of writing, and I wrote a number of short stories as a child. But somehow lost touch as I grew older. Would like to go back to writing fiction whenever possible.

3. Be a space tourist. Hoping space tourism becomes affordable within the next 3 or 4 decades.

4. Travel in a cruise liner. Travel by sea is a unique experience by itself. Would love to experience it first hand.

5. Make Arbit Choudhury a globally popular comic character. No explanation needed :-)

Tagging Nikhil, Abhishek and Manish again.

PS:- Today is my birthday. This is perhaps the loneliest birthday I have ever had, with almost no near and dear one around to celebrate with me. Today, I am getting nostalgic about the best birthday celebration I have ever had, 4 years back.

Update:- Nikhil, Abhishek and Alex (through a tag relay) have responded.

Spirit of Cricket??

19th Feb 1999, Eden Gardens, Kolkata . India are 2 for 143, and in a solid position chasing a stiff target of 279 to win in the 4th innings of an edge-of-the-seat Indo-Pakistan Test Match. Sachin Tendulkar after punching Wasim Akram in the leg side, turns for the 3rd run and is about to make it comfortably, when this happens.

Wasim Akram, Captain, Pakistan appeals vociferously. Third umpire gives Sachin out.

25th June 2008, Oval, London. New Zealand are in the midst of a tense chase against England, when this happens.

Umpires confer and ask Paul Collingwood, the English Captain if we wants to uphold the appeal. He says yes, and Grant Elliot is given out.

Collingwood later apologizes and regrets not having withdrawn the appeal.

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.

Online Habits

My 5 Favorite Websites:-
1. Wikipedia
2. Cricinfo
3. Orkut
4. IBNLive
5. Moneycontrol

Favorite Browser:-
Mozilla Firefox

Google Tools and Services I use:-
1. Reader
2. Docs and Spreadsheets
3. Bookmark
4. Calendar
5. Picassa
6. Maps
7. Checkout
8. Gmail Mobile
9. Alert

Tagging Nikhil, Hemant, Manish and Abhishek to share their online habits.

Update:- Nikhil , Manish and Abhishek have responded to the tag.

Nonsense Rhymes - XIV

A part of me..
Wishes to forget the past..
Bury the angst..
Erase all traces of despair..
As some breaks are beyond repair..

Yet, another part..
Wants to preserve those memories..
However painful they may be..
As they have helped me grow..
They are a part of ME..

GBM

The other day, I was chatting with my cousin in the US over Skype. As she had to step out for some urgent work, she asked me to keep her 8 year old son busy by chatting with him till she came back. She set up the web-cam so that we could see each other while chatting and left. I chatted with the kid for about 45 minutes before his mother returned. On her return, she thanked me and said that this might be the first instant when someone sitting in India had been baby-sitting a kid in the US !!

Is this the next big thing in outsourcing?? :-)

GBM- Global Baby-sitting Model

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

"I was there"

History is not made every day. Those who get the opportunity of witnessing history being made should consider themselves very privileged indeed.

History does not repeat itself very often either. Hence, only an extreme bout of good fortune can make you witness history not once but twice.

The above logic applies on the cricket field too, where great feats are seldom repeated. And when they are, only a few lucky people are privileged to watch them happen on each occasion. Richard Stokes, a spectator who watched Jim Laker and Anil Kumble take all 10 wickets in an innings; and Bob Simpson, who played for and coached the Australian cricket team in the 2 tied test matches in Brisbane-1960 and Madras-1986, were two such fortunate people.

Through I have been an avid cricket fan since childhood; I have never had the opportunity to witness an international game on the field till now. Hence all my memories of great moments on the field emanate from the television set. Having watched cricket on TV for more than two decades, I have watched many great and record breaking moments on field. While all these could comprise of a full blog post, I would like to reflect on two instances of one particular record breaking moments that I was very “lucky” to catch on TV.

29th March, 2004. While the 1st Test of India’s tour to Pakistan was in progress in Multan, I was appearing for my module 3 exams in B-school. Sehwag had ended the previous day at 228 not out, and was looking all set to score many more, Though I desperately wanted to catch the match on the hostel tele, the pressure of appearing for two exams in a day, separated only by a 1.5 hour gap, 3 days in a row, was weighing on my mind. When I checked the score in the morning before rushing to the examination hall to see that Sehwag had begun the day in the same blistering fashion that he had ended the previous, I got a feeling that we might be in for something special here. But there was a good chance that I would not be able to catch the memorable moment on TV as it happened, because of the tight exam schedule. Never the less, I rushed straight to the hostel TV room as soon as I finished the morning exam. While others used the small time window available to grab a quick lunch and make some last minute preparations for the afternoon exam, I watched Sehwag send the ball sailing into the stands to complete the 1st ever triple century by an Indian!! And I rushed to my room immediately afterwards to revise some chapters.

28th March, 2008. The 1st Test of South Africa’s tour to India was in progress in Chennai, and I was travelling by train. I had been checking the score on my mobile and was aware of the fact that Sehwag was nearing another triple hundred in tests. And having seen him achieve this feat previously, I was desperate to reach home as soon as possible to get a chance to see him repeat the feat (in case he managed to do it). But Indian Railways seemed adamant to de-rail my plans this time around, and the train was delayed by a good 2 to 3 hours. Yet, I some how managed to scamper home just in time to see Sehwag flick the ball away to fine leg and celebrate yet again!! Sehwag now joined Don Bradman and Brian Lara as the only batsmen to have hit 3 triple hundreds in tests. Though not physically present at the ground, I too can now say that “I was there” when Sehwag re-wrote the record books, twice.

Update - 4th December 2009. 3rd day of the 3rd test between India and Sri Lanka. Sehwag had ended day 2 on a mind numbing 284* (all scored in just 78 overs of India's batting). At the beginning of day 3, everyone was holding their breaths to find out if Sehwag would become the 1st man in Test Cricket history to score 3 triple hundreds. Having seen his previous 2 feats live, I was surely not going to give up the chance of watching him do it for the 3rd time. Unfortunately, I was out of India and did not have access to a TV channel that showed the match live. But the die-hard cricket fan in me found a way to see the match live through a video streaming website. I held my breath as Sehwag pinched singles one by one and inched closer and closer.

But it was not to be. He fell to an tame dismissal in the hands of Murlidharan. Sehwag's shot at cricketing immortality was missed. So was my change of being witness to it...

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

Jai Hanuman !!

One of the most controversial and exciting Test series in recent times concluded a few days back. While the clash between the top 2 ranked cricket teams in the world, Australia and India, lived up to the expectation of a combative on-field contest, some other unforeseen "Monkey" business that transpired on the field has left the entire cricket fraternity befuddled. I had been itching to write about the series for a while, but decided to wait it all the fun was over before posting my thoughts. I will take all the "hot" topics one by one.

Preparing for the worst

No one in the world with the slightest knowledge of the game would have concurred with the tour itinerary agreed upon by BCCI for this test series. Having only one warm up game before taking on the World Champions in their own den was almost as daft a decision as going out to bat against Brett Lee with no protective gear. It was bound to hurt India. Like countless decisions in the past, the bosses of the richest cricket board in the world proved that they know absolutely nothing about the game, with this decision. And what's worse, is that they don't seem to give a damn about it either. For long, the BCCI has been treating Indian cricket as a caged animal in a zoo, using it to rake in as much moolah as possible, while never caring for it's well being. The trend started during the Dalmiya era has only got worse in the current regime. Indian cricket has been doing well, not because of the board, but inspite of it.

Buck-was Umpiring

It can be safely said that the umpiring during the Sydney Test was one of the worst seen in recent times. While it is true that the recent advances in technology have exposed the umpires like never before, some of the erroneous decisions made during the test were even apparent to the naked eye. It was harsh in Bucknor to be removed from the subsequent test match, but most people know that his umpiring has been on the down slide over the last few years. As Bob Willis mentions in this article, Steve Bucknor is really past his prime, and at 61 years of age, should retire before he faces further embarrassment on the field.

ICC is not helping matters by having only 10 members in the elite panel, and making them travel for more than half of the year around the world. Every test match is umpired by two members of the elite panel not belonging to either playing nations, and every ODI by one of them. An umpire's job is almost as hard as the players themselves, as they need to be on the field for the entire duration of the match, and need to concentrate on each and every ball. They need to be physically fit and mentally sharp at all times. Hence, over work can easily lead to umpiring errors, like the ones seen in Sydney. The ICC needs to seriously contemplate increasing the number of umpires in the elite panel, so that they travel less, and stay fresh for the matches they officiate in. I also feel that the ICC look at inducting younger umpires into the panel, given the fact that the two best umpires on the panel, Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar, are also the youngest of the lot.

Sledge-Hammer

Andrew Symonds believes Harbhajan called him a "Monkey", and hence, he is a racist. Now while it will never be proven if Harbhajan actually called him a "Monkey", or if he was just abusing him with the common Punjabi slur "Teri Maa Ki", this incident should be looked in the light of many other facts, which have been conveniently ignored by most of the Aussie media.

Andrew Symonds has himself admitted to justice Hansen that it was he who started the confrontation by hurling abuses (including the F**** word, which might be a standard part of Australian vocabulary[1][2][3], but is not acceptable to any civilised Indian) towards Harbhajan, that prompted him to get back with his own slur. While Mr. Mike Proctor, who had previously distinguished himself in another tricky situation at the Oval in 2006, turned a blind eye towards this, thankfully, the New Zealand Judge Mr. Hansen did not.

Symond's justifies his abuse at Harbhajan saying that his friendly tap on Brett Lee's back saying "Well Bowled", was not acceptable, since "a test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player" is as ludicrous as it gets [full text of judgement], since it would also qualify this

as unacceptable. If Symonds had been in Tendulkar's place, he would probably have abused Brett Lee in return for this gesture. I guess it is the Aussie way to return innocuous gestures with verbal abuse, as reflected here.

As many an expert has pointed out, the Aussies have been the worst sledgers in world cricket for decades, and have even been accused of racist comments[4][5][6]. While they like to hurl the foulest of language at opponents, they do not like it one bit when they get it back in kind. I guess they think asking one opposing player what his team mate's d**k tastes like[7][8] and spitting on opponents is fine, but "so called" racism isn't? The Australian media says that Harbhajan should know the word "Monkey" might be innocuous in India, but has serious racial connotations to Mr. Symonds. By the same yardstick, the Australians should also know that F*** and B****** are not words that Indians like to listen.

By the way, I felt the most interesting part of Justice Hansen's judgement was the following statement:- "Mr. Singh had innocently, and in the tradition of the game, acknowledged the quality of Mr. Lee’s bowling. That interchange had nothing to do with Mr. Symonds but he was determined to get involved and as a result was abusive towards Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh was, not surprisingly, abusive back. He accepts that his language was such as to be offensive under 2.8. But in my view even if he had used the words ’alleged’ an ’ordinary person’ standing in the shoes of Mr. Symonds who had launched an unprovoked and unnecessary invective laden attack, would not be offended or insulted or humiliated in terms of 3.3.”

One can only hope that the ugly incidents of Sydney and their aftermath, would make cricketers from all countries refrain from making personal abuse on the field of play in the future. It is also important that the on field umpires take charge of events, and proactively prevent such altercations, before things go out of hand (as suggested by Ian Chappell, who was one of the few Aussie commentators who looked at the whole issue without any bias).

Blackmail

The Sydney fiasco (questions on the Aussie sporting spirit, horrendous umpiring and the racism row), and the resultant bashing received by the Australian team [1][2][3] had placed the BCCI in a great position to drive home the advantage, and gain the moral high ground by a dignified and balanced stand on the issues. They botched a great chance of exposing the Australian hypocrisy, match referee's lopsided verdict and ICC's incompetence, by their own inept handling of the matter. The BCCI made a mockery of themselves dealing with the situation with the same political brinkmanship as would suit an Indian state assembly. So whats new, one could say, since Indian cricket is being run by politicians anyway.

Angry Young Men

The Aussie cricketers are apparently "angered" by justice Hansen's balanced verdict [1][2] on the matter, and say "...this shows how much influence India has, because of the wealth they generate. Money talks." I guess the appropriate way for them to register their protest is to refusing to endorse any Indian products and refusing to play in the IPL. Would they do this? Instead, they are now confronting their own board for a chance to participate.

अदम्य Gilchrist

The greatest wicket keeper batsman in the 130 year history of the game has decided to hang up his gloves (and squash balls too). While experts around the world have been talking about is fantastic feats with the bat and the gloves, I will always remember Gilly for being one of a few gentlemen among an otherwise uncouth and abrasive set of players. Gilchrist and Brett Lee are probably the only two in this golden generation of Aussie cricketers, who are equally loved through out the world, and not just in Australia. Most others like Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Glenn Macgrath, Ricky Ponting, Mathew Hayden and Andrew Symonds, have not exactly distinguished themselves by their on field behaviour over the years.

Gilly was a unique cricketer in many ways. He was one of the quietest wicket keepers in the world, who would seldom utter more than a "Well bowled Warner" from behind the stumps. He was also one who almost never over appealed (this incident with Dravid being an exception, but I guess we can give him the benefit of the doubt here), was never involved in any major sledging incident, walked on most occasions and never once indulged in mind games with opposing teams by his remarks in the press. He was the epitome of the phrase "hard and fair".

We will miss you Gilly...

Final comments..

With all the controversies around the game, the media almost ignored the fact that this was probably the best test series played since Ashes 2005. As I had predicted last year, the simultaneous exit of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, has left a serious dent in the Aussie bowling armory. While Mitchel Johnson and Stuart Clark are more than competent bowlers at the international level, they are no match for Mcgrath. And with the ageing and inconsistent Hogg, and the injured McGill, the Australians will find it ever more difficult to dismiss opposing teams twice in a test match, specially away from home. Their repeated inability to get rid of tail enders quickly during the summer is an indication of the reduced sharpness in their attack. It can be fair to say that Brett Lee, who won the Man of the Series award in both series, has carried the attack on his shoulders. With Adam Gilchrist also leaving the scene, one can look forward to more competition from other sides to the aussie hegemony on the cricket field.

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.