Building Families #IIM TRICHY

India where every minute thirty-four births take place, thirty-four families are filled with joy. Each one of them grows up with dreams and some of them will share some common dreams like having a house. However naive it may seem to an ordinary man the happiness that a house built by him gives is unmeasurable. My parents who are primary government teachers were among the first in my community to have a job other than being a farmer. The community looked upon them with great respect. They too had a dream of having a house. Nevertheless being teachers they believed that education comes foremost. It was financially difficult to provide three children with the best education as possible. As the years passed living in government quarters after completion of twenty-five years of their job made them upset and finally took a home loan. The construction of our house soon started. I remember trucks loaded with cement coming in and my father looking at it with great joy in his eyes. Reading the cement bags ‘UltraTech cement’ my father tells me that it is the best in the country. Our lives have changed today. We live in a house that is built on my parent’s years of hard work. UltraTech cement’s journey started in the mid-1980s and from then on they have been playing roles in the life of millions of Indians. They are the largest cement company in India. They have transformed villages into cities. They have not only helped in building houses but also giving them trust that they live in a safe place.

Challenges 

At the age of ten years, I realized that being born in a backward family I have some sense of responsibility in helping my community. Given the chance of being educated to make the most out of it, I persuaded my father to admit me into a boarding school. I believed that I needed to take myself away from the traditional social norms that my family was attached to. In the beginning, it was really difficult for me to adapt to the culture of a convent boarding school. I also had trouble communicating with people as my English was weak and I spoke with a lisp. I had a wonderful transformation during the time in my boarding school. However tough and independent I had become, I had little awareness about the outside world. I had no direction towards my career and my father had little or no knowledge of it. With the ongoing trends, I started with preparing for engineering entrance exams in Kota. The honest truth about Kota was education had become business and I wasn’t able to cope up with the practice of self-study. I had always relied on good teachers to help me study and understand. Having realized that the need to help people develop from the community I formed a long term goal which is to get into civil services. Getting into a B-school would be a great opportunity to develop myself and learn about administration. Therefore, I started to prepare for its entrance exams. During the tenure of my preparation, my elder sister passed away. This came as a shock to me and my family. It was a hard time where I had to make a balance between my preparation for the exam as well as supporting my family. Having said that I successfully got into a B-school and look forward to achieving the ultimate goal.