Growing up in an upper middle class household in Delhi, my exposure to foreign brands was extremely limited. Clothing was a case in point. At that point, my one source of high quality, fashionable clothes completely in sync with global fashion ‘norms’ was either AllenSolly or Louis Phillipe. It was much later in my life that it was Aditya Birla Group who owned these brands and helped an under confident , lanky 11 year old kid feel like he was a super star. Aditya Birla Group was also responsible for the first time I saw an actual Merger and Aquisition happen in real life, a term that would become ubiquitous during my MBA many years later - The aquisition of L&T Cement from L&T by ABG and rebranding it to UltraTech cement, the ads were all over. It is through these small lessons and ways that ABG has touched my life ever since my childhood, making it an indispensable part of my upbringing. Today, ABG is one of the largest conglomerates not just in India, but around the world and has been touching many lives around the world in the same way that it helped me gain confidence and feel belonging through a thing as simple as a piece of cloth. Thank you ABG.
14
th February 2019, 8:00AM. A brightly lit classroom in a business school outside Delhi. 100 anxious faces, with beads of perspiration on foreheads, even in the bone chilling winter of Delhi. Our protagonist sits there, waiting for his turn. It has not been an easy ride till here for him, both literally and figuratively. His car suffered a puncture on the way here, and required him to change the tyres himself in the middle of a busy road. His hair was ruffled, his tie askew. But his confidence was sky high, for he knew this was going to be his redemption story. The last 8 months had not been very kind to him. The gruelling preparation of the entrance exams had left him bruised. In his mind, he was the worst candidate sitting in the waiting room that day. Still, he believed.
The clock strikes 8:30AM. The tensions are rising, the moment of reckoning drawing closer and closer. Finally after seemed an eternity, a raspy female voice calls our hero, “You’re next. Please be ready with your documents.” He rises up, composes himself and takes confident strides towards the door. He knocks. “Come in”, sounds a voice from the other side.
One fireball after another. “Your marksheet resembles the economic crisis of 2008, you seem have to studied nothing in the last 3 years”, are just some of the zingers thrown at him. He answers with a calm demeanour, not too defensive while making his points. Finally, the interviewer says, “So what noteworthy thing have you done in your life”? And he starts. “I’ve been the best version of myself I could be, madam. And I’ve risen. Risen from the depths of academic underperformance. Risen from the abyss of loneliness. Risen from the deep and unforgiving woods of depression. But here I am, right before you. For I have risen.”
Rising like a phoenix, from the flames. This was a true depiction of events of my interview story. The interview that led to Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, one of the premier business schools of the country. The place from where I write my redemption story.