Kid – Dad let’s go to that green store maybe they have some fitting clothes for me
Dad – Fine, but I don’t think such big stores will have big sizes.
In this world of a billion brands and thousands of conglomerates, Aditya Birla Group is one that albeit housing International brands gives an Indian vibe. I have interacted with a varied set of brands under ABG, but one brand that I have connected with is Pantaloons. Being a fat young kid who always had to buy the first thing that fits, Pantaloons gave me options, options to explore various colours designs and most of all style. The brand gave me an opportunity to establish an identity, I could now be the kid who wears low waist jeans, or the guy who looked suave in business formals. I still remember the first time I entered the store, for the first time I felt welcomed by a fashion store. The first time a person came up to me and said what kind of clothes was I looking for and I did not have to say – “just give the one that fits”. There is a reason Pantaloons has been one of the most trusted brands in India, it is their unrelenting need to ensure customer satisfaction that has made it one of the largest retail chains in India. A revenue of 2,164 crores and a growth of 17 percent in FY2015-16 shows how the company has established itself as one the major players in the industry. Today, I take this opportunity to thank pantaloons for giving that young kid an option to define an identity for himself.
“The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. - Confucius
I always hated such motivational quotes, these were just lies that the adults told us just so that we get inspired. But for me a 17-year-old adult, it was just a thin cloud veiled over the realities of life. The world for me was just a huge barrel roll where we just had to go through the motions and everything would anyways roll back to normal.
But all of this changed for me at a fateful Friday morning, looking forward to the weekend and was just waiting for my school bell to ring. That morning, our chemistry teacher distributed our mid term paper, a class 12 student who was scoring well and geared up for his board exams in 3 months, I was not worried I knew I would have scored well. But my marksheet read 13/50, it was like someone had taken out my intestines and was now chocking me with them. I had never failed in an exam, and to fail in one so close to the board examinations was not something I was prepared for. I scoured through my paper, hoping there must have been a mistake, the teacher must have forgot to check an answer, but as I flipped through the pages reality dawned on me.
I HAD FAILED
The teacher called me to her desk and said that I had to take remedial classes after school due to the poor results. I was aghast, I never thought I would be asked to take remedial classes after all I was one the highest scoring students in class. That day I went home and showed the marksheet to my father, he too was shocked but then a smile appeared on his face and he said the above quote to me. From then on, every day I took one step, each day taking upon a new task thereby working on cutting down the mountain of a syllabus into small peaks.
Fast forward to 23
rd May when I received my board results – 95/100, that day I realised that maybe Confucius knew what he was talking about.