A kid belonging to a lower middle class family in Kolkata, I did not have much access to luxuries or so called luxuries back in the year 2003, when I was just 11 years old. I wore what ever mom and dad found fancy and didn’t think much about it. I still vividly remember my cousin’s wedding and that is the first time I went to a humongous super shop with a green hoarding, PANTALOONS written to it. A red tee and a black denim, from BARE, was my first experience with the world of Aditya Birla Group, or so I thought. Our meetings were not that much frequent and it only happened twice a year, once on my birthday and once before the Durga Pujas, a grand festival of Kolkata. Both the grand events demanded grand attires, I thought. Little did I realise that my friendship with Aditya had begun much before, when mom used to pack me poori sabzi in that shiny FreshWrap foil.
Fast forward to 2019, I manage my own wardrobe now, able to have a say in what I would lie to wear. Even now Aditya has got me covered with a wide choice of apparel and garments. Rather I am spoilt for choices when it comes to fashion clothing. Aditya has managed to make a shy kid shine like a star. For the last 12 years Aditya looks after my communication as well in the form of Vodafone. Most of these were made possible through my job in TCS. Little did I realise that the project (NOVELIS )in which I was working on, also belonged to Aditya. Now I have slowly arrived at the conclusion that Aditya is kind of like an omnipresent superpower, that is all around you. All you need to do is just embrace it.
Overcoming The Odds
I belong to a Bengali family where every kid goes through the mental trauma of conflict in interest. Mom wants an engineer, dad wants a doctor but the poor little fellow wants to be a cricketer. Fortunately my parents were understandable enough to let me join a cricket coaching club nearby where I can be myself in the weekends. Being a cricket fanatic I never missed a session. But the rosy days had to come crashing. I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. My glory days were over with a complete bed rest for the next 3 months. Regular painful injections along with physiotherapy. That also meant that there was no school for the next 3 months, the only good thing of the outcome. I had to weather the storm, the tides of depression and loneliness of being confined to a room, being carried to the washroom even. That made me mentally strong and made me realise to never give up. Three months after, I was back up on my feet again, not the previous nimble self but this time, more sure of who I am and what to do.
Cricket had a way of screwing me over and over just like the crush you have been chasing over the years. I was to appear for my higher secondary in the year 2011, yes the year that a great man from Ranchi made the whole nation proud again. The day of the final coincided with my math exam. Needless to say that cricket won, but I survived, by the skin of my teeth. Team combo took over the useless mathematical formulas, but I just managed to cross the line and so did India.
Over the years these made me realise that these bullets of failures will come your way, some will hit you and some you will dodge. But what is important is survival, survival to walk despite of being injured.
