How does one really even attempt to articulate how big a place something holds in their life? Especially when “something” is a group of companies with such a strong belief in compassionate capitalism at its very core, that touching lives is what gets them up and going, day after day.
It was with this thought that I sat down, researching, in an effort to potentially win an opportunity to work with the group that one dreams of. However, with every new slide or article that I went through, the only emotions I could feel were awe and fond reminiscence. My earliest childhood memory, and perhaps my fondest one is that of calling up my mom at her workplace on her brand new cell phone, whose idea phone number I remember to date, some eighteen odd years later. With every new advertisement created, Idea Cellular Ltd. carved a space for itself on the colloquial Indian tongue forcing seasoned advertisers to bow down and say “What an idea, Sirji!”. Somewhat unabashedly, I recall all the messages I’d be so excited to send to my friends when I’d finally gotten a personal mobile phone, messages centred around the punch lines of advertisements of Idea Cellular Ltd. Of course, back then, I’d never imagined I’d live to see the day that I’d consider the phone to be an extension of my hand. But, now that it is, of course it would be the Aditya Birla Group to my rescue again. With its superior quality, Hindalco Aluminium plays as important a role in the manufacturing of my kitchen refrigerator as it does in the making of cover glasses, adding to the two most important, indispensable aspects of my life- food and my smartphone.
In the good ‘ol days, when smartphones didn’t rule over our lives like they do now, and instances of video-calling were as rare as spotting a rainbow, summer vacations spent with cousins was the light at the end of the tunnel throughout the school-year. The prospect of going in a train, eating and making merry all the way, would send all us kids into a tizzy, uncontainable and boisterous. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest to note that the ABG has had a role to play here too. The trains that I’ve etched so many memories in, have had copper pumped into its shield by Birla Copper.
Now, that those uninhibited summers are over, and I look to create a space to call my own in the corporate sector, it’s far too easy to let the overwhelming-ness consume me. The view from the Bandra-Worli Sea Link is usually a great reminder that all my problems are tiny, if not minuscule. It is courtesy the tonnes of UltraTech Cement that I can let the grandiose of the sea-link engulf me, without trembling in fear of dying. Far from home, as I stand (a rather loose interpretation for pushing and being pushed) in the queue in the canteen, I miss “ghar ka khaana”, hot and invitingly packed in FreshWrap foil. While missing home, the only respite comes from making a dozen phone calls back home, from wanting opinion on which formal shirt from Van Heusen to buy, to swearing my siblings to secrecy over the present I got for my mum from Forever 21.
I began this essay trying to verbalize how big the Aditya Birla Group is in my life, but as I draw it to a close, I am reminded of my English teacher who would have implored me to word it right- Why Aditya Birla Group is Colossal in my Life.