Aditya Birla Group, country’s third biggest company has associated its name with every house and every family delivering value and satisfaction. Mr. Kumar Mangalam, chairman of ABG, is one of the reasons for the company’s success. From textiles to readymade clothes, telecommunications to insurance services it has a wide range of products and services in its portfolio. Be it formals for my interview process or my sister who has a keen sense of fashion or my dad who wants it “class” we could get all of it in ABG fashion retail ltd. My mother, a conservative woman, always makes sure she reaps benefit of each rupee spent and that was one of the reasons she shops in pantaloons once in a month. When away from home, for work, every time I felt like going home, I would simply pick up my phone and call them from my IDEA network. Knowingly or unknowingly ABG has been with me in success as well as failures and it will continue to be a part of my life.
Graduated in May, I was clueless about my future. Got out of college without any offer as I didn’t appear for placements in hope of joining a B-school. After scoring 77 percentile, 99 percentile felt like a distant dream. Everyone suggested me to give GRE and go abroad but my stubborn mind couldn’t nod a yes for that. I decided to give CAT again but telling my family about the same was the toughest part. Come June, I enrolled in a coaching centre. Most of the students in the class were in the final year or were working professionals, I was the odd one out. The thing with motivation is it doesn’t last long; we must instil it as time goes. Adding to that my low mock scores started to disappoint me on a regular basis. It was time to take it a notch higher, which included zero social life, studying till odd hours, giving countless number of mocks and analysing each of them. The psychological pressure from peers and especially relatives of the question “
aur beta kya kar rahe ho?” and your friends who post pictures of their MS life. Came the D-day again, Nov 25
th, I stood at a better position than last time, but the fear of failure was lurking in the shadows, finished the exam but felt I could have performed better. The waiting part was the toughest, what if history repeats? Though I didn’t score a 99, I scored 96 percentile which was not that bad after all for everything I had to do. Thought I won the battle, but I was only halfway through. Interviews were no less than the exam. Now I had to compete with less people but who were as qualified as me.
I then understood “success is not a destination, it is a Journey, and like any road are filled with potholes and speed breakers, you need to make sure you need to persevere”. Not giving up to anything, fighting for your dream is what makes life beautiful.