PART A
As a child, Aditya Birla Group has always been an intricate part of my life. I still remember my dad wearing Louis Philippe and Van Heusen clothing, and how I used to admire him, proudly associating it with an exotic brand. Louis Philippe, Peter England, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, I used to associate all these brands with a feeling of being elite and foreign. Only much later when I started wearing formals did I realize that it was an Indian brand - Aditya Birla Group, which sold affordable clothing that had an exclusive touch. The same goes with Pantaloons, the store I associated as a kid with being trendy and cool. It was an Indian conglomerate behind all these. I then realized, ABG has shaped my life without my realization. The TV commercials that I used to see as a kid, one can never forget the UltraTech advertisements. Of course, it goes deeper than this. The very building that I am sitting in, has likely been built using UltraTech cement. But I am merely ranting at this point. As an MBA student, one has to admit that ABG surely has more to its credit than nostalgia. No, I'm not talking about metrics like its net profit or a few profitability ratios. I am talking about something far more significant - its Corporate Social Responsibility. ABG has done a lot for the country - right from the Aditya Birla memorial hospital and the world class school to the highly prestigious Aditya Birla scholarships. Words are not enough to describe how much ABG has impacted the lives of people like me.
PART B
Just like any brand overcomes challenges, individuals too have overcome challenges to come a long way. To be honest, I didn't and still don't have a flamboyant goal in life. But the one thing I make sure is to achieve expertise in whatever it is that I'm doing. Goals will automatically fall in place once you have domain knowledge. To elaborate about this, programming is and has always been one of the things I have been passionate about and I have tried hard to achieve expertise in it. To add to that, studying electrical engineering did not exactly give me the bandwidth to take up programming. However, my internship changed everything. My PPO, gave me the opportunity to work as software engineer in one of the best financial services firm in the world. And this motivated me to get my hands dirty coding. I cannot tell the joy I experienced in traversing some of the most disruptive domains of programming, from App Development to Machine Learning and Blockchain. For 2 solid years, I assimilated and immersed myself in coding. But of course one thing leads to another, and I started developing an interest in Finance. That introduced me to the possibility of an MBA, my next goal. And I landed in FMS Delhi, after the struggles of preparation and cracking the interview. Of course, there is no Final Destination, and you continue working. And here I am, at one of the best B-schools in the country trying to figure out my next goal.