Birla means Large
Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas, Godrej, Wadias, Munjals, Mahindra, Thapars, Mittals, Jindals, Adanis- Family businesses have held a special place in the hearts of Indians for ages and the role of family patriarch has been crucial in India. Family businesses gained a strong foothold before independence and have reshaped the business landscape in India today. The Aditya Birla Group, just like our nation in the past 160 years, has undergone an evolution. It has grown to become a conglomerate, an organism with its wings spread across the globe. From a core family owned organization it became an omnipresent multibillion dollar Fortune 500 company a few years back.
The Birlas have been the talk of the town for years, specially in my home. Looking back when I was young, hearing the word ‘Birla’ I would imagine something large, not really knowing what it was. Then as I grew up, during living room talks, hearing my parents discuss. Further with time finding myself watching television or reading the news paper and coming across the logo/advertisement. Until a few years back when the brand became engrained in the subconscious.
I make different choices on what to purchase, weigh what’s better or best, engage with this brand which seemed distant only find it so close to me, to everything I consume. Today brands are the lifeline of my everyday existence, like veins passing through me and into everything around me. The pulse is my ever changing needs and catering to that are brands like the Birla Group, the blood to my ecosystem, keeping everything alive on so many levels.
Moulding the Clay
In his interview with ET the fourth generation Mr. Birla talks about his challenges, his four years of struggle doing CA, something which he didn’t want to do but never had the courage to admit it out loud. That makes me realize how so often I do things I don’t truly want to do, but I’m just too scared to take a risk, or try the alternative or step into unexplored waters, that I end up taking the highway. Mr. Birla says, “It is more difficult to mend things than to build things from scratch”.
I connect this to my 4 years pursuing art and design, where I worked with a lot of materials- paper, ink, metal, wood- but the most challenging was clay. It would never turnout the way I imagined it to be just like my dreams. In many ways clay is one of the most realistic mediums- you can paint your dreams all you want but clay brings you right back to your senses showing you that it isn’t easy and you wont achieve what you desire in one try.
I consider myself to be quite privileged relative to so many others and I also feel that I am at an infant stage of my entire life in terms of experiences and learnings. My ambition is to do something meaningful and to create value for others. I know I cannot achieve it without doing things which drive me, without channeling my inner fire, without challenging myself to do better. One of the biggest challenges I have overcome, which I’m sure has taken me closer to my ambition and has had a positive impact on my life in numerous ways, is social awkwardness. Pursuing an MBA has helped me overcome the fear I used to experience when approached by a stranger, the fear to voice my opinion, the fear of being heard in a group, the fear of talking to someone new, the fear of letting someone in to get to know me, beyond the invisible shield of nervousness and other defence mechanisms.
Everything in the past one year- the people, activities, discussions, participations, internship, clubs and committees along with my willingness to be open- has helped me overcome this challenge. I have tried to create a part of my personality from scratch, one building block at a time, without disturbing the part of myself that I’m truly proud of and I have developed over so many years. Going back to Mr. Birla’s quote, it was hard to change myself forcibly, but the moment I accepted it and opened myself to new experiences, I turned a new page of my life.