It was a cold sunny morning, I was sleeping, completely relaxed as my exams had just finished. My mother came to wake me up as my cousins were to arrive. The four of us are really fun and amazing together. All of us were sitting around the table, when one of them suggested the idea to go on a small trip and celebrate the end of exams. I was thrilled to hear this as this was going to be my first trip without our parents. We decided on McLeodganj and booked the tickets immediately. We were to leave that night and I suddenly realized that I had no trekking shoes to carry with me. This realization, unfortunately, struck me at 7 in the evening, thus leaving no time for me to go out and buy a good pair of hiking shoes. Had Pantaloons not been there, right beside my apartment, my first outing with my cousins would have just remained a dream. The shoes were so comfortable that my entire journey turned into a partial rose walk expect for the last 1 km of tiring terrain.
We were all excited to embark upon this journey. We left at around 8:30 in the night. After an 11 hour bus journey, we reached Mcleodganj – a place as beautiful as described in fairy tales. After eating our breakfast, we started our trek towards Triund top. We had a guide with us and 4 other people on our journey. We were told that it was a 6 hour long trek and we needed to reach the camp venue before the sun sets. Hobbling all over the path, we managed to reach a place which was a kilometer away from the main camp. To our surprise, we realized that two of our group members were not there with us. We got terrified as there was no means to contact them. None of the mobile networks worked there except Idea. Luckily, I and one of the group members, who was left behind, had an Idea connection which helped us both in connecting and tracing each other out. Had we not had Idea that day, I don’t know what repercussions we could have faced. I can never thank Aditya Birla Group enough for building a network this amazing.
JOURNEY OF AN ‘AVERAGE’ GIRL
It was in March 2018, a year after I graduated, that I decided to take Common Aptitude Test(CAT)’18 and various other management entrance examinations to get admission into a top business school in India. Some of my relatives were skeptical of the idea as I was already working in a Fintech company which demanded 12-13 hours of my day regularly (of course this did not include the time spent in commuting to and from office). Everybody knew that my weak area was Quantitative Aptitude –a heavy section in all examinations. Nevertheless, I decided to join a coaching institute to supplement my preparations. So, from April started spending my weekdays in office and weekends at the institute, trying to get my hands on every reading material.
My social life (well, which was not very happening either) boiled down to zero. On Fridays when my colleagues used to go out to a café after a week’s overload, I had to rush back home to get some sound sleep so that I would be energized for the weekends. Months after months as pressure started mounting, I would breakdown at times thinking this not to be my cup of tea. I would run to my mentor at the institute who would say “Why do you take so much pressure? Relax, go out and I assure you would do wonders.” His motivating words would calm me down but my Quant scores in mocks would again frighten me up.
Continuous slogging at office and then the preparation took a toll on my health and I was diagnosed with Jaundice just a month before the examinations. I still managed to keep my spirits high and took all the exams seriously. My hardwork paid off when the final list of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (Delhi), one of the most sought-after Business Schools in India, had my name printed on it.
My journey till my dream B-School entails a lot of learnings – not only for me but for future aspirants also:
The moment you see some things not working out as you planned, I assure you there will be some other setup planned for you.
- Hardwork, Hardwork, Hardwork
Only this mantra worked for me!