PART A
My family and I were in Tamil Nadu when tsunami struck in 2004. My father watched the approaching waves grow bigger and bigger from his office. Soon after the disaster, I was told by our maid that Tanfac Jan Seva trust, an Aditya Birla Group’s trust had dedicated 119 houses for the tsunami-hit families. That was the first time I heard of ABG and my respect for the company was built instantly.
Now, Aditya Birla Group has ventured into different sectors to diversify its portfolio. Currently, it is present in sectors like banking, cement, fashion, financial services, metals, textiles and chemicals. Personally, our family has been using a lot of ABG’s brand’s products in one way or another. Come a weekend and my family visits the nearest mall. Brands like Allen Solly, Peter England, Van Heusen and Louis Philippe are often spotted. Often these are the brands from where we get many of our apparels. I went to Louis Philippe and Peter England stores to get formals before joining my college. Also, we have a Pantaloons store near our house. And that store is famous for providing decent offers and discounts. So, Pantaloons becomes a very good budget choice for us.
In this hectic world where my father works in a company, my younger brother has school and coaching, we as a family of four find it difficult to spend quality time together. This is where brand stores from Aditya Birla Group come into the picture. They make sure that we spend some time together forgetting all our professional and educational commitments.
PART B
In this fiercely competitive world, it is difficult to find a person who’s honest with himself and others at the same time. On a few instances, I have exhibited this quality. Once during my 8th standard, our Gujarati final exam papers were corrected and we were being shown our marks. We live in a society where marks are highly valued. We are judged on the number of marks we get and not on the amount of knowledge we possess. I was expecting around 50 marks out of 60 in this examination. But to my pleasant surprise, my total came out to be 53. Many of my friends fought over ½-½ mark but I was elated on seeing my score since it was more than I'd expected. On assessing my paper, I realized that our teacher had made an error by giving me marks twice for a single question. I was in a huge dilemma at that point. I had to decide between flaunting while being temporarily happy or inform ma’am about her error. After giving it a little thought, I decided to go with the latter option. When I told ma’am about her error, she just gave me a look and lowered my marks. I was disappointed. But after the class ended, she called me outside. I was nervous. She appreciated me for being honest with her. She also said that she’d award me those marks for my honesty. I was elated. This was when I started appreciating honesty. Once I was walking across the corridor of our school when I saw a hundred rupee note lying on a corner. Without a second thought, I picked it up and handed it over to my class teacher. These instances have helped me to stay true to myself at any point in my life.