Be Yourself. Period - Sugandha Agarwal, XIMB

If one ever happens to go through the website of one of the biggest multinational conglomerates, Aditya Birla Group, the first thing (s)he would encounter is the glimpse of the Earth revolving in the universe with a million stars around it. In a similar was this multi-national conglomerate revolves around us. No wonder, the digital presence of ABGL in itself signifies its importance in one’s life. Starting from the very basic needs of clothing and finance, its presence is spread across dimensions which we at time fail to notice. Being a person from corporate background, my dressing choice of formals has always landed me to stores like Van Heusan and Allen Solly for my formal attire and stores like People and Pantaloons for my smart casuals. When I started earning and planned for my family’s insurance, ABGL once again was my choice for an insurance investment. When my father had planned to build his first retirement home, he wanted the best quality of raw materials for his dream home and Ultratech cement was his only choice. And how can I forget the time when I got my first cellular phone as a gift from my parents? It had an Idea sim along with it, and yet again ABGL’s presence was there. In today’s globally liked online payment industry as well, ABGL has made its mark like no one else. Not to forget that ABGL has touched the skies with its diversification into the aeronautics industry as well. In short, from the time I took my first flight, to the time that I write this article, ABGL in some way or the other, was with me during my journey across various phases of life.

Overcoming challenges to achieve ambitions in life.

21^st century is called the place for Gen-X. Here, the millennial lingo “cool” is associated to you based on the way your position yourself as a brand. Most part of this positioning is based on the way you look and socialize on the digital platform. Well, this is where I face a challenge. I have an auto-immune disease called Alopecia where the immunity system starts attacking the hair growing cells of the body. Unlike most other diseases, it takes away one of the most important aspect of the definition of ‘beauty’ i.e. Hair, keeping aside the gradual decline in confidence level that one possesses. The doctors treating Alopecia are not sure about the cure, so there is hardly any hope that my beautiful hairlocks would ever return to how they used to be. When this piece of information was given to me, it hit me really hard taking away a significant part of my inner strength. After days of contemplation and overthinking, my conscious told me that this could not be the end of my story. So, I pushed myself to stand again boldly in front of the mirror and in front of the world. I gathered all my strength and took life day by day, by talking to more and more people about it, so that I could increase awareness about this disease among people to an extent that they never look indifferently towards any other person they might encounter someday. I already had a lot of critics and I couldn’t allow myself to be one of them.  So, each day, I walk out of my room like a warrior because the world can only bring me down when I allow it to do so. And there is no way, I’m making that deal. I think the Gen-X book of millennial lingos would call it to be “BALD and Beautiful”. #ABGLP #ABGWOOME #XIMB  #ABGWOOMESEASON-2