Founded 90 years before independence, the group has played an immense role in putting India on the world map.
We don’t have to put in much effort to find Aditya Birla, just look around and you would find Aditya Birla.
My first association with Aditya Birla Group dates back to 1998 when my father was building a house, it was his dream. He toiled hard, loaned money from a bank and in 2001 the house was ready and UltraTech cement helped him realize his dream. Even though I was just 5 years old I still remember the super cyclone of 1999. The havoc it caused, my father had a nail-biting experience, the construction was midway, and he was worried if it would stand especially when falling trees were damaging the structures. And yes a tree fell on our house too but it stood strong. It’s been almost 20 years and we still live there. We have now built a new house and we trusted UltraTech, yet again. And after Cyclone Fani struck there was no harm to the structure and UltraTech proved its worth again.
I have always disliked wearing formals, but as it is a part and parcel of corporate life, I have to often wear it. Well, when I talk about formals it has been always Peter England for me, Van Heusen and Allen Solly has always satisfied my suit needs. The kind of fitting that these two brands provide is something out of the world. I sometimes wonder if the makers had a mannequin of my physique. The fit has been splendid, even though I dislike formals, these brands made me feel comfortable. How can I talk about fashion and not about Pantaloons, it’s my stop for all my casual needs.
I remember the ad of a pug running behind and the ad featuring some animated funny creatures named ZooZoo. The ads were a big hit and were some serious entertainment stuff. A lot of newborns were named ZooZoo after the ad was launched. I was a Vodafone user until recently, I still have an active connection but I guess it’s not long when my subscription will be dead. Vodafone has been special for me. It was the first connection I could have on my name and it was one of the first things I purchased when I moved to Bangalore to start my career with TCS.
I am an addict to soft drinks and I drink a lot of cans. Cans because I feel the glass bottles are not clean enough. I have seen rust marks on the neck and I don’t go for the plastic cans given the environmental impacts they have. I didn’t know this until recently that most of the beverage cans are manufactured by Hindalco and it also happens to be the world’s largest recycler of the used beverage cans.
Aditya Birla has diverse footprints and it has contributed to our lives in ways we are not even aware of. These are some of the ways I discovered and I feel there is so much of Aditya Birla in my life. I guess zillions are waiting to be unboxed.
The black day that enlightened me
I have been an average student throughout my life. I toiled hard and scored a 10 on 10 in the 10th board exam and it was the happiest moment of my life and it was so for my parents.
I had always dreamed of being a doctor. It was more of a family dream because I wanted to be it even when I didn’t realize what it was.
Excited by my board exam results, I was dreaming of enrolling in a medical college 2 years later. I felt I have won half of the war. Back in those days there was a coaching hysteria everywhere and I enrolled myself into Aakash Institute for 2 years integrated medical coaching but it drained me of my energy. I somehow managed my 11th class. But I starting losing my race in the 12th class. My parents encouraged me not to give up, but I started failing in subjects. My scores were in single digit for Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. My father was skeptical of me passing the board exams.
The school reserved the right not to issue 12th board exam admit cards for students failing in three or more subjects in pre-board exams. They would issue the admit cards only after getting an undertaking signed from parents. The school made an exception for me, for I was with the school right from nursery classes and the teachers somewhat had a trust that I could pull it up. I still remember my scores. Chemistry 11, Mathematics 13 and physics 17. I failed in all three. I was hopeless, I was disappointed. I had less than 1 month left for the board exams and there were practical exams in between. I decided to give up on Aakash Institute, it was draining me of my energy. I lied to my parents and stayed at home. I gave up on studying English and Biology, I always scored more than 90 in those. I didn’t have any private tuitions and whatever the physics teacher taught in class was way beyond my bandwidth. Thanks to the internet connection I had, I relied heavily on it to understand the concepts and I made myself thorough with NCERT, which is considered the bible for CBSE board exams. I started putting the reference books for chemistry into good use and I was now confident in chemistry. Mathematics has always been a book of horror for me and I toiled hard for it. I made myself somewhat comfortable with Mathematics.
Then there was the result day, I scored 90 in English and Biology without actually touching the books, scored a decent 89 in Chemistry. I could have scored 90 but I lost 1 mark in practical. I scored 67 and 60 in physics and mathematics respectively. Physics was a tough paper that year. Although I was happy that I pulled it up, I was sad that I scored less than 80%. I didn’t qualify for any of the medical entrance exams. I plunged into depression and I started hiding my feeling. I was lucky enough that my parents were very supportive but I was venturing into the forbidden territory. I was getting suicidal tendencies.
One night I waited for my parents to sleep and I started to chalk out plans for suicide. I searched on the internet cleared the browsing history and they started mixing phenyl, harpic and what not. I don’t know what happened. I called a friend of mine. I was really lucky that she picked up that late at night and I told her things I could. I don’t know why I did what I did. I don’t remember what we talked but all I did next was flushing down the mixture in the toilet.
I also knew that I had to get out of the loop, pursing medical dream would perhaps have forced me back into the loop. I decided to go for engineering. I got into ITER and I guess that was the best decision I ever made. New place, new friends pulled me out of the depression. I made it a point not to be an average student anymore and I scored quite a decent. I thought a decent score would fetch me a better job. I least knew that I won’t be allowed to sit for interviews once am done with the first company and politics would creep in.
This saga taught me something which people take eons to learn. Marks and grades do not always matter. Success does not always matter, what matters the most is how we rise from the failure, how we perform after getting bruised.
Today, am proud of what I am. I worked well enough in TCS. I earned my share of respect. I trained a lot of recruits. I realized am a good mentor. I learned that it does not matter what you do, all that matters is how you do it.
I am happy where I am today and today I am more mature and more intelligent.
How one performs, how one overcomes and how one stands with others is what makes one proud as time passes by. Sometimes we have to give up on dreams to evolve, sometimes we have to give it up to fly. Dreams at times can pull us down.
But that does not mean that we should stop dreaming. We should dream and dream big and try with all our energy to achieve it but at the same time, we should not trade our soul for the dream.
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