Why Aditya Birla Group is big in your life?
Let me start with a memory from my childhood. My dad was working in Paradeep Phosphates Limited, a leading fertilizer company. He had many friends in the fertilizer industry. I vividly remember my dad’s friend, Rao uncle visiting us on a Sunday morning for tea. He worked for Indo Gulf Fertilisers and carried a fine leather bag with a certain logo on it which resembled a ‘Rising Sun’. As a kid, I was fascinated by anything new and creative. I used to sketch and so I sketched the logo on my notebook. The logo was unique and stayed etched in my memory.
Eight years later, when I was a teenager, our house was being constructed and I again saw the same logo on the bags of UltraTech Cement. By then I realized that this logo is something bigger than just a symbol. It did signify something important in people’s lives. But I was still not sure what it was.
A few years passed when my mom got a new cellular handset and I went with her to a mobile store to get an Idea prepaid connection. This was a time when ‘Idea Cellular’ had captured the market with the memorable television advertisement ‘What an Idea Sirji’. The poster of Idea yet again had the same logo of a rising sun. That is when I researched about the logo and discovered that all of these products and services belonged to the huge Indian multinational conglomerate Aditya Birla Group (ABG).
As an inquisitive teenager, I went back to my dad to ask him how big is ABG and what impact does it have on people’s lives. He eagerly explained me about the decades-old legacy of ABG, how it all started from a cotton mill in a small village of Pilani, the multiple sectors in which it operated and the highly trustworthy brands that it had created and nurtured. Further, he also enlightened me on how Aditya Birla Group in the early 1990s helped in India’s economic liberalization, privatization, and globalization, thereby opening doors for free trade, employment and impacting people’s lives and smiles in a big way.
Since then, the innovative ideas, quality products and imaginative ads from Aditya Birla Group of companies germinated a creative pursuit in me. The way words were threaded together to create advertisements further fuelled my creative interests. The creativity which is reflected once again in the new logo of ABG equally captures both its legacy and modernity.
Starting from the Freshwrapp foil in which my mom packs 'rotis' for my dad’s lunch to the dapper Peter England suit that I wear for professional engagements here at XIMB, everything has the soul of ABG in it. Not only this, but the group also provides employment to many people in India, including a few in my family. Aditya Birla Group is big, rather huge, in not just my life but in the lives of millions of Indians who put their trust in being a part of the ABG family as customers, employees or investors.
How you overcame challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
I never realized the power of smiling and a good conversation until very late in my life. It was one fine day during the preparatory sessions for placements during my engineering that one of my close friends told me that I don’t smile enough and I don’t interact with a lot of people. I could not fathom why this might be a problem because I have always tried to do everything with passion and vigour.
I went home that day and looked at myself in the mirror. My friend was right. I did not smile enough. And I very well understood what my friend tried to tell me. I did not stand a chance in the corporate world. I wanted to be more cheerful. What could I possibly do?
So, this is what I did. I started interacting with more and more people, going out of my comfort zone and making new friends. Steadily I transformed myself from an introverted, not so cheerful individual to a person who could hold a conversation and be cheerful and at the same time. The interviews were a breeze and I got placed in one of the IT giants in India. But the self-development was not yet complete.
At work, I choose the rather untrodden path of not doing a desk job but being a corporate trainer for a long time. This is when I actually learned people skills, command, and control over my communication, both verbal and non-verbal. Now I used to interact with almost a hundred new people every week and still not feel fatigued.
I overcame the challenges of me not talking to people by doing exactly the same. Interacting and engaging with more and more people of different backgrounds, listening to their stories, sharing mine and engaging with them. And yes, all through this process, I never stopped smiling. I believe I have overcome many challenges and achieved some ambitions in life. But the process will never be complete as I am still facing challenges, exploring new ambitions, learning new ideas with a smile and would continue to do so in the road ahead.
#ABGLP #ABGWOOME #XIMB