Aditya Birla Group, the third largest conglomerate in India, with its operations in 35 countries through 30 subsidiaries from branded apparel to telecom to minerals and etc, has been a part of my life for quite some time now, and that too a major one.
My ancestral family home, of which I only carry happy memories now, was build using Ultra-Tech cement and was a source of reliability and safety to several generations of my family. I still remember seeing bags of ultra-tech cement lying around when we were renovating our house and playing with the empty bags thereon. These are some sweet memories that I can never forget.
In today’s day and age of mobile networks and technology, I found a life saver in Vodafone right from my college days whether be it due to its tariff plans, strong coverage and internet facility. However, recently during the time of cyclone Fani, which hit odisha this may, Vodafone became a life saver for me in true sense as it was the only network providing mobile coverage and internet facility in and around the place where I used to live.
I cannot recount the number of hours I have spent in ABG’s Planet fashion during my childhood as my one stop for all my clothing needs. Growing up, pantaloons became my next favorite spot for all my clothing needs and the its diverse collection still attracts me back to its stores till now. I truly believe that dressing good gives you a sense of self-confidence and pantaloons has had help me achieve the same till now. Now, coming to a b-school , one of the pre-requisites is that of owning a business suit and Allen Solly come to my help in my search of a suit that not only fit me perfectly but also boosted my confidence and since then, I have fallen in love with its collection of business formals.
How you overcame Challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far-Tanushka Sikaria, XIMB
I have always been a reserved and a shy person from my childhood. This nature of mine, I think stems from some personal loses early on in my life and from body image issues. One of my ambitions in my life was to get into a good b-school. And as we know, the process of getting into a good b-school is quite grueling with group discussions, group activities and personal interviews.
Now being an introvert, I generally kept to myself, did not socialize much either with the people from my college or with people from my coaching institute. I kept to myself only for a big part of my life and as a result made more acquaintances than friends. During group projects also, due to this reservedness and the fear of being judged , I kept my ideas to myself even though they would be genuinely good or was unable to make my voice heard .Getting myself heard, in a group setting, was one of the hurdles I constantly faced throughout my school and college life.
Early on this year, starting my preparations for the interview process, I knew I had to learn to put myself across, to make myself heard or my dream of getting into a good B-school this year would come to end during the first round of the process itself ,i.e., in the group discussion round itself. And hence, to confront my fear of public speaking and to go out and socialize more, I forced myself to go and talk to my batchmates and socialize with them. Initially, this was very awkward and seemed like a huge task to me but as time went on things normalized and I got a little comfortable in socializing with people. To confront my fear of public speaking, I joined an oratory club dedicated towards helping its members become better speakers. As for my fear of group discussions, I tried to sit in as many group discussions I could with various institutions. This, mega going out of my comfort zone was really frightening and heart-warming for me and did put a strain on me but in the end this activity helped in realizing my dream of getting into XIMB.