This is a submission for the ABG Woo Me competition, 2019.
PART A –
A sole figure, hunched over a table – focused, staring, thinking. The girl clicked her pen again and again, mulling over the list in front of her. She was a ‘list’ girl. Anything that required any sort of planning would have her scribbling with joy in her little notepad. She was to be joining the T A Pai Management Institute in June and she needed to bring the items in her list to life ASAP!
She grabbed her mobile phone, remembering to pay her Idea network bills online, very happy with the new data package she had signed up for. Wrapping her Forever 21 scarf around her neck, she was all set to tackle her shopping list for the day when her Mother called out from the kitchen, ‘Have some breakfast before you leave!’.
The girl was running late. Pretending to not have heard her Mother’s words, she hurried to pull on her comfy Pantaloon boots and opened the front door, when a hand grabbed her shoulder.
‘And where do you think you’re going, young lady?’.
Huffing and puffing, the girl turned around to face her Mother. A blue box was thrust into her hands leaving no room for arguments. ‘I have made your favorite. You’ll thank me later. Now go and enjoy yourself’, her Mother sent her off with a kiss on the cheek.
Meeting up with some of her friends, the girl’s eyes shone with excitement and determination as she entered the destination that would tick everything off her list - hopefully. The bright lights displaying various brand names swirled around her, beckoning her.
She stopped in front of a huge, pink, Liva billboard that said, ‘Get your #FluidFashion fix now!’, and an army of brand partners displayed under it. The girl rubbed her hands together in glee launching into Van Heusen for her MBA formals, Pantaloons for her daily’s, Go Colours for those versatile bottoms and so on.
For the next two hours, items were crossed, circled and starred in her already well-worn list. As the girl stopped for a moment in time to check her list again, her rumbling stomach brought her crashing back down to reality. She hurriedly opened her blue box and found the food wrapped securely in Freshwrapp foil with tissues stacked on top. Her Mother’s mouth-watering Aloo Parathas were still hot to the touch and she could hardly wait to dig in.
After annihilating the parathas, she craved something sweet and walked into a bakery. She chose a simple, egg-less cup cake and stared at the advert of ‘Delice’ on the wall behind the billing counter. Biting into her scrumptious dessert, a fleeting thought crossed her mind that the non-crumbly, chewy texture of this masterpiece was a product of Delice.
The girl managed to drag herself and her purchases back home, fully satiated, her list torn and crumpled in her pocket. She collapsed on the couch, spreading her items around her and took in what would now contribute to her confidence and polished appearance. And another thought crossed her mind, ‘How many people, in how many places have worked together for me to have all this today? They have touched my life and I, in turn, have touched theirs’.
In a single day, Aditya Birla Group has been an integral part of the girl’s day on four different occasions. If the girl continues to experience the same level of satisfaction that she did today, Aditya Birla Group will continue to be a part of her existence for as long as she lives and even as she passes on the relationship of trust that she has with these products to her children and family.
The girl, is me.
PART B –
I have always had dreams. Dreams of becoming a doctor, a magician, a demon-hunter, a pokemon trainer, a pilot, a Prime Minister, and so many other personalities. But I had no ambition or passion for anything for a long time in my life. I was the child that was good at everything, who had many doors open, figuratively speaking.
It wasn’t until I started thinking about my future in my tenth grade that I realized – Ambitions are not something magical. They are real and raw with many people vying for the same thing. They are not easy to identify and then, they are not easy to achieve. But I also realized that it was up to me to make the process of achieving my ambition, magical, for myself.
Unlike my dreams, my ambition was pretty realistic – to do an MBA in Finance and grow to be an exceptional Management professional. I had discovered my passion for Management and its subjects over the course of my twelfth grade and Engineering.
The biggest hurdle in achieving this ambition of mine hit me right in the very first step. My TAPMI interview was scheduled to be held on a Saturday and what a lovely day it was. Only, I wasn’t feeling very lovely due to the viral fever of the worst degree that I had come down with.
I was never the person that worked out or took special care of my health. Coughs and colds would come and go with the changing weather and I would continue to eat and drink whatever I wanted as and when it pleased me. It never occurred to me that the kind of lifestyle an MBA demanded of person was for them to always be alert, healthy, ready, on the move and have them thinking on their feet. A person had to be healthy in mind and body. And this required a routine, a certain discipline and some consistencies in everyday life.
What I can tell you is that I wasn’t a quitter and I am not a quitter and will never be a quitter. For what it was worth, I sat through the interview, dazed and answering what I could to the best of my grasping ability. The knowledge of the past had saved my future. I made it into TAPMI.
But this would not do. TAPMI promised rigor, severity and bountiful knowledge. The ‘me’ then was sure to not survive the tedious MBA journey. Not every hurdle in life is earth-shattering. Some are like slow poison. They give you a chance to fight back before it’s too late.
I had a month and 15 days to bring about a change in my life. I introduced consistencies into my routine that would uphold both my mental and physical health. And now, those habits are incorporated as easily as breathing.
As small as the time period of the hurdle was, its impact was lasting. It was a warning and it made me change myself for the better. Many things could have happened, had I succumbed to that hurdle. I couldn’t say where I or my ambitions would be today. But the lesson I learned that day the hard way impacts my life even today. It has made me a better person capable of facing and handling the bigger challenges in life.