PART-1 : How Have You Made An Impact?
25 December 2004: It was a fun, festive day with Christmas celebration. The eleven-year-old girl had all her joy in the new home she just shifted in one of the most beautiful islands of Andaman & Nicobar – ‘Port Blair’. I was going to spend the next five years of life here. Shifting and adjusting to a new place is something which I have seen all my life. Thanks to Indian Coast Guard for that!
26 December 2004: I woke up with my mother screaming and shouting ‘Get up! Run, run, run’. I did not understand, and little did I know what was coming. I ran, fell, somehow got up and just ran. My mother was following me holding my younger brother. It was 9.1–9.3 magnitude on the Richter scale- the most massive Earthquake in five decades. It was just the beginning as what came next took away the breath of many.
Some say it reached a height of 30 feet and some describe how it took their home, their livelihood all away in just matter of a few seconds. The girl who loved oceans was now scared of even thinking of going anywhere nearby the sea. The Tsunami had taken more than two lakh lives. Living for months in one of the rescue camps at one of the filthiest ground of the locality, I felt lucky to survive. I realised what it means to struggle for survival when my mother carried my brother while I stood in the queue for food at midnight to fill my empty stomach after the whole day. I was so angry with my father to be not there with me. Now I understand what it takes to be the family of defence personnel. I had tears in my eyes when my father used to return to camps after rescuing the living and burying dead in several of the islands people were stuck in.
After five years: Life continued. No, I did not leave the island and spent my next five years over there. I had learnt by the time all the tricks to escape the earthquake shocks even if it is 3 A.M. I had gone back to school after months of closure. Many had lost someone in their family or lost everything they had before the Tsunami.
We all shared books, donated clothes and started a new life. I went back to the ocean, and I still love being there.
Thank you Aditya Birla Group for constructing the houses for victims of Tsunami.
PART- 2 : Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life?
Living in India, there can hardly be anyone whose lives have not been changed, or I can say made easy by Aditya Birla group. Knowingly or unknowingly, we have been using ABG products from right after our birth. The beautiful houses we live in, school buildings where we have studied or the dams we get water from were made of cement and there are high chances the cement is from Ultratech as it is the largest cement manufacturer in India established in 1987 in Mumbai with consolidated capacity of 102.75 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of grey cement.
ABG acquired Ultratech in 2004 and now indeed they are the ‘The leader' in building solutions.
I always wondered how small innovations have made our life much more comfortable. One such change was aluminium foil. It kept our food warm and fresh while travelling away from home for our studies or livelihood. Aditya Birla Group rightly understood the need and manufactured high-quality aluminium foils/containers under the brand name ‘Freshwrapp' and ‘Superwrapp'. Now they are the leading brands in the packaging foils today having foil as thin as even 10 microns.
Apart from making our houses secure and food healthy ABG even have fascinated us with their range of brands in the apparel section. I still remember the first time I walked into Pantaloon store in Express Avenue, Chennai. It was the first time I was there to buy business formals for my upcoming interviews during my engineering final year. Now after four years Pantaloons, Van Heusen, Forever 21 and Allen Solly have become part of my life. I liked the way they keep experimenting with designs and come up with genuinely incredible apparel suitable for each body type and age group.
Aditya Birla Group has moulded each one’s life in some or the other way. Indeed ABG has added value and a purpose to my life with their unique journey of 165 years.