Big is an understatement - Prabhu Kalyana Samantaray, XIMB

Big! Well, big would be an understatement. More like huge. No wait, massive. That’s what ABG is to me. For the longest time, I have been using their products without the slightest hint that they belong to an Indian Conglomerate, let alone one based in Mumbai. I still remember the time when I was the first kid in school to get delicious lunch packed in aluminium foil. Freshwrapp was still pretty new at the time. Suddenly I was the most popular kid in my class and mum was tasked with packing two lunch boxes. I always envied my dad’s collection of Peter England chequered shirts and wondered when I’d be old enough to wear those. In the summer of 99, I visited my uncle’s place in Chennai. The first time I walked into a Pantaloons store in Spencer Plaza Mall, Anna Salai, Chennai, I had my uncle buy me 5 toy airplanes. Still, remember the scolding I received from dad. I always wondered why Bhubaneswar didn’t have a Pantaloons store. That’s when the first Pantaloons store opened in Bhubaneswar, around 2009. But I was too old for toy airplanes by then. This was the time to buy some Friday shirts. I was about to start college after all and who knows Friday dressing better than Allen Solly.  I knew how to make an impression with my sartorial choices. Well, you could say that my girlfriend was wooed by dressing sense. The first thing she ever bought me was a People blue linen shirt and I bought her a Forever 21 balloon top. In the final year of college, I had the opportunity to don a suit for the first time. It was my cousin’s wedding. There wasn’t enough time to get a tailored one and guess who came to my rescue. I bought a navy Van Heusen suit and a white Louis Philippe dress shirt with French cuffs. The next day I had to make a powerpoint presentation on a civil engineering marvel as part of my final year assignment. While surfing the net for topics I came across the official website of ABG and found that all the brands mentioned above belonged to ABG. I was filled with pride for ABG for having deceived me for so long (I thought those were foreign brands) and I was also ashamed of my ignorance at the same time. Then I came across a page that said, “0.1 million metric tonnes of UltraTech cement went into the construction of Mumbai’s Bandra-Worli Sealink”. I knew I had found the topic for my presentation. ABG had a huge part to play in the formative years of my life.

How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far

I was never really a great student all my life. But I was a particularly bad one for most of my engineering. I’d still manage to study the night before my exams, well, just enough to get passing grades. By the time I realised that I should have been more serious about my academics, it was already late and I was in my third year. I tried my best to get a decent cgpa but it just wasn’t good enough and I didn’t make the shortlist for a lot of companies. Needless to say, I didn’t get placed. I managed to find a job at a construction firm carrying out tests on building materials. It got monotonous after a while and when I applied to other companies they would want me for the same role. I decided to change my field altogether. So I moved to Bangalore and looked for a job in the IT industry. But they were looking for fresh candidates or someone with experience in the industry. All I could find was a job in the field of content writing. During my stint as a content writer, I learned a lot of invaluable skills, owing to a really broad job profile that let me engage with clients and train newbies. I was good at it, so I was promoted to a Quality analyst where my job was to edit content. It was a low paying job and there was no growth in the industry. That’s when I knew I had to do an MBA if I want to get anywhere in life. But it was tough to find time to study for CAT. I joined IMS Bangalore and went to classes after my shift. But I didn’t have a fixed shift. I had to work night shifts on some days and day shift on others. I used to study on the go, on the bus, in the office and whenever I could find the time. I managed to get a decent percentile in CAT. I prepared for my interviews knowing that I would get rejected from most B-schools owing to a really poor profile. I had to quit my job because I would be travelling to different places across the country for interviews that stretched for two months. But there was no going back. I converted my calls for several colleges and then came the time to decide. I chose XIMB, one of India’s most coveted B-schools. I must say, I’m proud of my decision. The first few weeks have been hectic. But I know I’ll survive. I want to learn for once, make the most out of these two years and fulfill my dream of graduating from a good college.

#ABGLP #ABGWooMe #XIMB