PART A -
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“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness, simply didn’t know where to go shopping”
I’ve been obsessed with fashion and shopping as long as I can remember. The 10-11 years old me who thought dressing up was the best thing may it be festivals, occasions. The best part of everything was that I will get to shop and look different again.
They say “Clothes maketh the man”, and nothing could have been more true. The younger I had already understood how my outfit made me happier, how it made me more confident about myself. From a very young age I was fond of dressing up. May be because of the fact that I was a dancer or may be because at that age we all wanted to look pretty.
Born and brought up in a city like Bhubaneswar, there was not much scope of fashion. Our style sense was underrated. Fortunately during my childhood, there was a store of “Pantaloons” in Bhubaneswar. And since then we never knew any other destination for shopping. It was special as Odisha was not a big state back then and Bhubaneswar was a “small city”. But Pantaloons was like a mall for me.
Those days it was about festivals and celebrations mostly and hence Pantaloons was about “Rangriti”, “Honey”, etc.
I remember the first time I visited the pantaloons and found everything under one roof. The range of clothing they had made me wish for growing up faster so that I can wear them all.
Later moving to a city like “Mumbai” for graduation and living their alone. Pantaloons would always find me. The everyday presentations in management career urged me to change my wardrobe for more formal wears and no matter how many options I had to shop from, I ended up picking blazers and formal wear from “Anabelle”.
Since childhood to teenage the logo of ABG was clearly etched in my memory, credits to the tags on the products.
Life in Mumbai was fun. Who doesn’t know about how Mumbai never sleeps. It either works or parties. So, I ended up shopping at Forever 21 this time. The quirky offerings and low pricing, Who wouldn’t want that! and then I see the ABG logo on the rate tag. It was nostalgic. Suddenly I realised, for me in a city like Mumbai where strong personality is a must have, where your attitude and confidence is all that matters and what kind of a person I had become, subconsciously ABG was doing that for me.
Since then all my presentations and reports were all about ABG. I was curious. The “marketing keeda” in me started connecting dots that BMS was teaching me regarding how important a strong brand connection is an asset for the brand and then how I as a customer have been attached to ABG in terms of everything I was.
I enjoyed retail management as a subject in my semesters which eventually ended me up at CMAI’s National garment fair in the marketing team of Mafatlal's garments with the opportunity of working for their readymade garment brand launch. It was a great learning process. I would learn things and then come home to see how ABG did those things.
To my utter luck, my new roommate was an ABG employee. I remember how she used to tell me about the work culture, the company and how internally brands were designed for the customers.
She used to work when “Candies” was transformed to “Forever Glam” and every day I would get an insight of how systematic the working culture is at ABFRL, how weekly reports helped the employees to know what things to work on, in order to get maximum results. She used to tell me there was the right space given to every team in order to grow in an organisation. Every employee was welcome to learn the functioning of other departments and how the higher management respected the opinions and ideas of the freshers and new joiners.
Since that day I wanted to be a part of ABFRL. More than my interest in retail fashion, what would excite me is that what it would be like curating and creating those products which will inspire and empower millions.
Being a fresher I wanted to start off with a company whose values would be strong enough for me to evolve as a person and into a person who wouldn’t refrain from trying multiple times in order to achieve anything in life.
"You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it."
— Edith Head (American Costume Designer)
PART B -
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“Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage”
-Albert Camus (Nobel Prize winner)
From a very young age, managing multiple things at a single time had become the major part of my life. So I started dancing at the age of 5 and since then it has been a journey full of learning and now I can proudly call myself a dancer.
The journey wasn’t easy. When you start something from this tender age, it starts to seem like your world. The same happened with me. My daily routine would comprise of rigorous practice and training sessions. The practice sessions would last for 5 to 6 hours with just a Sunday off.
The first time I participated in a dance competition I was 5 years old, My parents went with me to the competition. I lost that competition, I felt heart broken. But my dad explained me that it is okay to loose, but you have to give a better effort the next time.
Since that day I never wanted lose, not even come second at it. Every time I participated in any dance competition, I would only do it to win it. The increasing number of trophies in my room made me happier.
Eventually I was exposed to everything; my parents made sure I tried everything in my childhood in order to know where my passion lies and pursue it. I had my studies, art classes, singing classes and then my dance classes. Eventually it narrowed down to dancing and studies.
Till Std 8, it went all smooth, along with my studies I was able to handle my dance competitions. I won more than 150 prizes in dance including the regional reality shows of channels like ETV ODIYA, DD ODIYA etc. I was selected in the Boogie Woogie Show on SONY ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION for twice.
The difficulties came when I had my 10th Board exams. The dance practice and preparations demand a lot of time. I wanted to study also, I didn’t want to loose on study because of dance and I didn’t wanted to leave dance because of studies.
I was not able to focus on studies and dance. It took me a while to get a hang of the hectic routine of going for dance practice in the morning and then studying during the day time and then again going for some competitions, but gradually I was able to make the best use of my time.
A strict time management, consistent practice and a strong focus I was able to manage my studies and Dance altogether, as a result I was able to score a good percentage and managed to represent my state on national level in dance.
My parents, uncles everyone belonged to the government sector in terms of service. Hence post school I chose to study and prepare for IIT’s as the perception of a stable life means a stable stream of study was a part of my thoughts.
I ran in the rat race but couldn’t find the rhythm, It was difficult to merge my interests of managing events, participating in dance competitions and study a subject which I liked.
Hence I took a difficult decision, I left the IIT coaching and joined Bhavan’s College, Mumbai university. I pursued my BMS from there, I was the Cultural committee head there, along with it I prepared for MBA and got selected in GIM with no year gaps.
The journey wasn't easy at all. Internship during day, managing the cultural events during evening at college, attending lectures, studying for semesters and preparing for MBA. It was like a series of sleepless nights and at times I felt like leaving it all. But the reason that I was loving everything that I was doing, it made me kept going and it ended me up with 9.06 in semester and cracking XAT and converting GIM and excelling in the internship and in the events that I was managing in my college.
Rightly said by Kumar Mangalam Birla, "Well, I think the golden rule I can think of is the fact that you must follow your passion and do something that's close to your heart. I think that that's very important, well, to be successful and to be happy"
And I couldn't relate more !
I believe to achieve any challenge, you have to believe in the cause, work towards it with sincerity and you will achieve the goal.
