Part - A --- Why Aditya Birla is Big in my life
Products of Aditya Birla Group have impacted intrinsic parts of my life since a long time now to say the very least, the diversified nature of which has brought immense joy and satisfaction in providing solutions to a lot of felt and latent needs of consumers across India and the globe as well.
The retail apparel chain, Pantaloons, is one of the very first apparel superchains that I bought clothes for myself and others as part of my Durga Puja shoppings.
I have been using Vodafone-Idea connections for a considerable amount of time now, and it is super-reliable, providing mobile signals at most of the remotest parts of the country, which have been very helpful whilst I had been travelling.
Then again, Ultratech Cement has been a big part in I and my mother’s life, as the apartment flat bought by us was constructed using the very cement only. A quality product and one of the market-leaders in the cement segment.
I have been using wraps of Freshwrapp to wrap my eatables since a long time.
Travelling in trains was a given during my college days and I recently got to know of The Hindalco Copper, another ABG-owned firm, which is one of the major suppliers of copper aiding in the electrification of the railways in our country.
Peter England is another brand, which needs no introduction when it comes to fine, customized clothing. I have bought on a few occasions Shirts and Trousers from there and before coming to T A Pai Management Institute to pursue my PGDM, I bought a suit as well. Needless to mention, the suit was of the premium fabric, staying true to its quality specifications.
Other than these, products offered by Jaypore E-Commerce Private Limited, Essel Mining and Industries Limited, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited are touching millions of lives each and everyday in India, a feat attained probably by very few other conglomerates based out of India. Long may this continue.
Part – B --- Challenges Faced and Overcame in Life
My personal life has been one replete with ups and downs, but I do not like to crib about it, as I empathise with people having seen far worse things than what I have. Still, for the purpose of this article, I would to like to state that I lost my father at the age of 5 and my very loving maternal uncle at the age of 7. My mother went through a lot many hardships to bring me up under very difficult circumstances. I suffered too and did not have a normal childhood, being raised in my maternal grandparent’s house throughout. But I was among the top 15 in my batch in my school, which was an illustrious school, up until class 10th. I got admitted there at class 3rd after clearing an admission test only, competing with thousands.
After 2 months of my start in class 11th, I got sick as I developed symptoms of Peptic Ulcer in my stomach, and I was asked to take bed-rest for 5 months, due to which, I could neither go to school nor attend tuition classes at coaching centers for good 7 months. It hampered my studies a lot. But eventually, I managed to pull through and passed 12th Boards with a decent 78.29% aggregate marks in Science from West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education.
After I finished my B.Tech in Computer science, I did not want to get into a standard coding-based job and after banking appealed to me, in the need of getting wide-based exposure in the initial stages of my career, I started giving Bank PO exams. But there again, owing to large-based competition in West Bengal for government jobs and my shortcomings in strategizing at the start, I came short on some of my attempts and was depressed for some time. But I kept plugging away and cracked IBPS PO and was recruited in Canara Bank as an Assistant Manager.
I was posted at a rural branch in Burdwan, West Bengal right from the start and then again at a semi-urban branch, surrounded on all sides, by villages only. I used to stay at a single room all by myself. Initially, it was very hard on me to get used to the lifestyle of a village, which was something utterly new to me. I had to cook food for myself after toiling hard till 8-8:30 pm on most nights and had next to no forms of avenues of winding down in the near vicinity. But slowly but surely, I took each new experience in my stride and all in all, these have made me increasingly tough, resilient and responsible, instilling in me the ability to tackle any challenge that life could possibly throw at me.
The last challenge that I undertook, with my mother’s unrelenting support, was fulfilling my wish of pursuing MBA after getting some experience under my belt. I left my previously ‘so-called’ government job position---a decision many people were astonished by---and gave my shot at the B-School Entrance Tests. I knew this was one of the biggest challenges that I was taking, but I went through with it and now pursuing my PGDM in BKFS at TAPMI.
Cheers to future challenges!!!
T A Pai Management Institute
