The rays of the rising sun hit my face as I begin a new day at TAPMI, Manipal. I resort to my handy albeit less nutritious (my mother's protest of disapproval in my head is almost as loud as the sound of my roommate's alarm) breakfast option, the stock of biscuits and muffins I hoarded on my previous weekly visit to the grocery store. I freshen up for the day ahead: Financial Accounting, followed by a Guest Lecture, which required us to dress in business formals. I put on my Allen Solly suit, slip into my Van Heusen shoes and make my way to class.
The Accounts professor gives us more assignments than my bedtime would like, and the Guest Lecturer gives him fair competition. In the evening, my mother makes the mandatory video call and a wave of sadness washes over me. I realize there's a reason it's called homesickness. I don't just miss my family and friends. I miss the house I grew up in, the walls that built me- I miss home.
I head to the library, or the Knowledge Center, as we TAPMIans call it and settle in for a long night. I start by registering for the ABG Woo Me competition. But what I discovered as I started to research the Aditya Birla Group was nothing short of an epiphany. The ubiquitous presence of the conglomerate in my life was staring me in the face. My breakfast muffin- courtesy More supermarket, which was founded and previously owned by the Aditya Birla Group ( ABG). My attire-casuals from Liva, a product of Grasim Industries Limited and formals from Allen Solly and Van Heusen- and the half-finished breakfast I wrapped in Hindalco's Freshwrapp aluminium foil, have a common denominator. They are both catered to by subsidiaries of the Aditya Birla Group. A discussion in Accounts class lead me to research insurance companies and I discovered Aditya Birla Capital, whose ABFSG ranks among the top 5 fund managers in India. The service provider that enabled the call with my mother Vodafone, is again a gift of the ABG and I text my father out of sheer curiosity and he confirms, that the cement for my beloved home, was supplied by none other than UltraTech Cement limited. The impact the Aditya Birla Group had on me in a single day is remarkable. The group will always be big in my life. And this is just a drop in the ocean of lives the Aditya Birla Group has touched.