Letter to a Comedian

At NEEV, we are approached by leading lights of the business world and beyond to share their experiences with us.

Then there are some people we approach. One such individual is Russel Peters, the Indo-Canadian comic and actor. Every youngster ( please note that the NEEV team still thinks of themselves as youngsters) who has a computer and an internet connection, or a computer and a hard-drive full of pirated downloads adores Russel Peters.

So we wrote to him. The dates did not work out, so Mr Russel Peters will not be at NEEV, but we thought we will share the email that we sent out to him.

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Dear Mr Peters,

Greetings from Symbiosis, one of India’s most respected universities.

Symbiosis Center for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD) is Symbiosis flagship management education Institute. SCMHRD organizes “Neev”, India’s second largest Business School Event every year. At Neev, participants from South Asia’s premier Business schools compete over 3 days of excitement, learning, innovation, goats, mom’s pickles and other random B school jargon.

Yes, and we also have a celebrity night at Neev. Leading Indian acts like The Indian Ocean, Euphoria, and KK have performed at Neev over the last few years. We tried to get Paris Hilton last year, but she thought India was a club with a funny spelling.

Mr Peters, we reach that part of the email when the natives invite you to be a part of their little event!

We know it’s a long shot, but we are convinced that you are the sort of chap who will be attracted to an event of this scale and prestige. And yes, the organizing team also has a couple of hot numbers called Sonia and Evita.

SCMHRD is located in Pune, which is a large cantonment town close to Bombay. Pune has India’s highest number of drunk college kids, and they (we are not making this up) absolutely swear by you. There is hardly any notebook in Pune, where an illegal copy of your shows is not downloaded. Russel Peters, if you thought you were a celebrity in Canada, wait till you come to Pune.

If you were to consider performing at Neev, which incidentally had 20,000 visitors last year, your show will be sold out within a minute. We might even be able to sell 5 copies of your latest DVD during the show.

We have heard from our friends at MIT about your fantastic performance there. We believe that the scale and magnitude of Neev presents a fantastic opportunity for you to connect with your Indian fans. Again, we realize that this is a long shot. But then we are MBAs. We did Lehman Brothers.

We hope to hear from you, or your agent soon. And we promise a kid with a better education will write the next email and co-ordinate with your team.

Warm Regards,

The Neev Team

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