ABG-From Building dream homes to building confidence-Binny Lakra, IIM Ranchi

It was a cold winter morning when, I remember my mom telling me that we would soon be shifting to our new home. It was a moment of mixed feelings. The first five years of my childhood were spent in my grandmother’s home. I was one of those lucky kids who get to stay with their grandparents, but times do change and so it did for me when my parents decided to shift to our new home, whose construction had just begun. Next few months were a kind of picnic days for me, every day going to see the construction work and playing in that under constructed yet beautiful place. Amidst the dust all around the construction site, I remember myself climbing and jumping from the stack of some mysterious sacks piled up in one corner. Being a curious child to know about those sacks, I enquired a lot of people, from workers to my parents, and was told that those were sacks of Ultratech cement which are giving strength to our new home and I must say it still is giving the same strength. It was a dream come true when we finally shifted to our new home. Years later I had to leave the home to join a college for my under graduation. Having a new lifestyle, a lot to study and junk food I wondered why my clothes were shrinking all of a sudden, only to realize that I had gained almost ten kilos! All I needed was a complete change of my wardrobe. In an all-new city and limited money, I found a life-saving buddy-Pantaloons. To conclude, I must say, ABG has found a permanent place in my life, from building my very first home to helping me fill my wardrobe with beautiful and bright colors.The biggest challenge I faced was during the time I decided to take a different lane in my career path. I was happily working as an engineer in a multinational firm, having a peaceful life and adequate salary to fulfill my necessities, but somewhere I was not satisfied. Having seen my father and sister dedicatedly working for the society, I too had a deep buried desire to crack civil services. Where one part of my mind said civil services, another shouted MBA.Selecting randomly among the two, I took up coaching for preparation of MBA. Juggling between job and weekend coaching yielded nothing. I was devastated and took a much difficult decision to quit job and prepare dedicatedly for sometime , and this time, it was civil services. I came home, started preparing for the much awaited exam of the year. The first attempt was disappointing. Nevertheless, I wanted to give a second try and surprisingly was through the preliminary, but could not make through the mains. Meanwhile during preparation, bored out of the same monotonous life, I decided to give few hours of my every day into something new and challenging. To my own surprise, I landed up teaching in a school. Besides teaching, I loved the new opportunity and challenges-of handling children as well as their parents, who everyday had some or the other issue. I wondered if I was happy managing such grass root level responsibilities, why not take up a career in management, the path I wanted to take but couldn’t work much over it. I had only five months for the next big entrance exam. I cannot let this opportunity to go. Giving the best shot, I was through and finally have started walking into this new career path through IIM Ranchi.