Why is ABG big in my life?
I hadn’t really given much thought to the ubiquity of Aditya Birla Group in our lives, until I attended TEDxGateway 2018. The vast gamut of products we use on a daily basis and the diverse sectors in which ABG is present has created a connect running deep in the Indian consumer. Coming from a conventional Indian family in northern India, the biggest achievement is considered owning one’s own house. When our house was being constructed, I heard my father talking to the contractor about the materials to be used. He said, “It is only on a strong foundation, that great futures are built, aap wahi cement lagao”. As a kid then, one, I did not remember the brand he was talking about nor did I understand his insistence on that particular cement. After all, all cement has to be the same - a black powder. It was a few years later when we were shifting, that I saw some of the cement bags from the time of construction had the name - Ultratech Cement. I had heard the name propping up a number of times on television and knew it to be a famous brand, but what I understood in a much deeper manner is how much value people place in trust while making any decisions or doing business. A few years later while living in Mumbai, I used to go shopping with my sister frequently. We were regulars at Pantaloons and Peter England while I always thought I’d buy myself suits from Van Heusen someday. The naive kid that I was, thought that the name sounds western, so they must surely be foreign companies and its great we can wear those brands which people abroad are wearing. And I felt happy too. It was one day when I say the invoice at Pantaloons that I saw-”Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited” and was even more thrilled than before to find out that this English sounding company was owned by an Indian entity. I felt really proud of the fact. At the TEDx event I mentioned, we received a lot of merchandise from ABG and it was amazing to see this beautiful Indian identity that the brand has created over the years in the minds of millions of Indians. And I felt proud to be one of them.
How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far.
I did not clear the coveted IIT-JEE examination to get into the institute of my dreams. Everybody around me believed I would do it, and that made me so convinced about it, that I was shell shocked on seeing the results. Family members convinced me to go ahead in life and make the most of whatever institute I be in. It was a tough period for me as a lot of my peers were moving on to good institutes I thought I’d always be stuck in a rut of mediocracy. The kind of things, thoughts like these, can do to the confidence of an 18-year old cannot be expressed easily. It took me a year to accept what I had got and work to gain excellence out of it. I realized the thing that I cherish the most about being in an IIT, was the kind of peers I would have and the great bonding we would have over the years to come. It was this that hurt me the most. I snapped out of that dream and decided that I will make my then institute, equivalent to an institute of national repute. I realized that what differentiates students from one institute to another, is limited only by how much they aspire to achieve. I decided to imbibe this quality in me and motivate everybody around me to aspire and achieve excellence in whatever field, they would want to. I joined the Alumni Cell and through networking and extensive research on Linkedin, found out the illustrious alumni who had gone places around the globe. I told stories about them to my fellows. Next, I was the Literary Secretary of the institute, and aspired to defeat the Harvards, Stanfords, and Yales in debating some day. I set up the Debating Society next year and feel proud to say that we are on our way to being the best in the country. I found the TEDx chapter in my university in Mumbai - TEDxSomaiyaVidyavihar and lead a team of graduate students as an undergraduate myself. Then I went on to work in the startup incubator based in my university to help set up entrepreneurial ventures coming out from the different colleges on campus. All in all, while we may still not be at par with any IIT/NIT, but we are on the right path and we’ll surely get there. I take great pride in the fact in the amount of work I did during my undergraduate years instead of sulking all those years; and I do not mean the tangible work but the change in mindsets of people to believe that we can be better than what we are, gives me great satisfaction.
#IIMBodhGaya #ABGLPWooMe