Founded about 162 years ago Aditya Birla Group always has been a truly Indian Conglomerate, whose story is closely intertwined with that of our great nation. Seth Shiv Narayan Birla started trading cotton in the 1850s, laying the foundation for the house of Birla and it seems that it is only providence that my story of ABG being a part of my life pertains to a fashion brand owned by it.
Independence Day, the one special day out of 365 other normal ones when Indian hearts beat that extra few times out of pure unadulterated patriotism. If you are a thirteen-year-old young boy learning about the dark colonial past, the subsequent freedom struggle and the heroes, those ignited minds who united a nation against their colonial masters, chances are around August 15th your BPM might be off the charts. I was one such teenager, a borderline jingoist. History inspired me and I was (still am) a staunch believer of what Mr Sashi Tharoor, later very eloquently put, “If you do not know where you have come from, you will never appreciate where you are going “
So, it was one such joyous August month, 13
th August 2004 to be precise, my dear friend Hywin and I were at the local textile shop to shop for new a shirt and a dhoti for the Independence celebration planned to happen in our school in two days’ time. It would be otherwise odd for two thirteen-year-olds to wear white shirts and dhoti to school on Independence Day, but you see Hywin and I were part of a programme that was scheduled as a part of the celebrations. We were both assigned one Freedom Fighter and were instructed to by-heart quotes by that person. The programme was simple and unambiguous, Students dressed as freedom fighters in the same attire (white shirt and dhoti) would walk in a line and one by one speak out famous and inspiring quotes said by these famous men/ women the students in the audience would try and recognise these men/ women from their quotes, those students who get them right wins - claps and a fleeting momentary sense of pride and achievement. Hywin was assigned the firebrand revolutionary Bhagat Singh and I was to be the first leader of Indian Independence Movement, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. We were both excited and there was certainly some not so subtle competition going on between the two of us. We read up rigorously about our heroes, by-hearted their quotes and now the only thing that remained was to find the best white shirt that would make us stand out and do one better over the each other.
So, we asked the shop keeper for white shirts and he gave us a few choices, mostly indistinguishable, par one shirt – a white cotton Peter England Shirt - which stood out from the rest like a diamond in the rubble. We both had our eyes set on the same shirt and grabbed at it at once. Providence, for the first time in my life I felt lucky for being shorter than Hywin, the shirt was of size 38 and Hywin already needed a size 40. Size 38 was a tad big for me but there was no way in hell or heaven I was letting go of that shirt because of such a trivial thing. I won the right to buy that share fair and square with dumb luck, suddenly I felt like Jasprit Bumrah balling the last bowl of the innings to Sheldon Cottrell who needs 13 runs from it. The battle was already won, Our freedom fighters were both true legends, the quotes we by-hearted were equally inspiring but now with a single stroke of luck and a work-of-art White Shirt, there was only one winner.
Hywin was no ordinary bloke, he is one of the sharpest people I know in my life. He was my best friend and he knew my Achilles heel and there was no way he was going to let me walk to the finish line without an arrow in my heel.
He asked me “Gokul you are supposed to be Bal Gangadhar Tilak, right?”
I said “Oh Yes”, still smirking, basking in the ill-conceived sense of victory.
He then continued “Tilak Ji is the father of the Swadeshi Movement, right?”.
I nodded my head still impervious of the checkmate soon to follow.
“What was the quote by Tilak Ji you had prepared about Swadeshi?” he asked.
“Our nation is like a tree of which the original trunk is swarajya and the branches are swadeshi and boycott” I replied wary and bewildered.
“Oh! So don’t you find it a bit ironical that you are going to shout to the whole school this quote wearing a Peter ENGLAND shirt?”.
In one second I went from Jasprit Bumrah balling to Cottrell to Stuart Broad balling to Yuvraj Singh in the 2007 T20 world cup.
I tried to come up with excuses and explanations all in vain not because Hywin was too stubborn but because the patriot in me was too proud and could not be convinced to overlook something so fundamentally wrong.
Dismayed and disappointed I left the shop without making a purchase and returned home. All evening I was gloomy and bitter. During Dinner, my dad sensing the dark clouds weighing down on his son decided to address the issue. Reluctantly I told him the whole sob story.
All of a sudden my dad burst into laughter, the hysterical laugh went on for a few minutes and then he told me “Son, I am happy that you enjoy studying History but it would not hurt you to brush up on your general knowledge once in a while”.
Again, I was confused and wondered why everything people say was unusually cryptic that day.
Sensing the visible confusion my dad continued “Granted Peter England is a British brand that started off providing fine Khaki trousers to British Soldiers during the Boer War, but the brand was acquired by Aditya Birla Group headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla in 2000. If anything, Peter England today stands for the Perseverance of India as a nation and your false ego and ignorance stopped you from buying that shirt which in essence can be construed as a triumphant modern-day symbol of the Swadeshi Movement.”
My ignorance should have made me feel a sense of embarrassment but all I could feel was happiness, that now the patriot in me would not stand in my way from buying that shirt. Now, my only worry was that someone else might buy the shirt before me. So, I was at the shop early morning even before the opened for business and finally got my hands on the remarkable shirt which now was much dearer and valuable to me than ever before.
One day after it was Independence Day, the celebrations were grand and our programme was a hit, nobody congratulated me for my performance as Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak but I did get a lot of commendations on my bright white cotton shirt. To anyone and everyone who mentioned my shirt, I explained the Peter England Story and How it symbolises the Victory of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Swadeshi Movement.
Some even commented that it was a stroke of genius from me to wear that exact brand while enacting Lokamanya but I was never the presumptuous type so I said: “It happened only because Hywin didn’t have the necessary style quotient to pull off such a good looking shirt”.
#ABGLP_WOO_ME _SEASON_2 #ABGLP_WOO_ME_SEASON_2 #DMSIITD #IITDELHI