Part A:
“Taking India to the World” is probably the first thing that comes to anyone’s mind the moment they hear about the Aditya Birla Group. From our houses to our garments, from communicating to investing, the Aditya Birla Group has touched our lives in every way possible. The introduction of ABG to my life happened pretty early with the hands of Grasim. My uncle runs a successful business as a construction material supplier for quite long and I used to spend a lot of time in his workplace during my early childhood days. There, I first got to see Grasim Super Cement and how it used to be very popular those days. But I, being a child, hardly had any knowledge about the group. When it was replaced by the UltraTech Cement after ABG acquired UltraTech from L&T, I got curious about the incident and then only came to know about it in detail from my uncle. Since then, the Aditya Birla Group has travelled a long way in my life so far. From the first Mobile connection of my home being provided by the Idea Cellular till my last bought shirt at the Pantaloons shop a couple of days back – ABG has embraced me it every way possible. Moreover, when I decided to finally start investing in the market a year back and was looking for some funds, I came to know about some of the funds managed by the Aditya Birla Sun Life mutual funds and invested in one of them. So it’s the trust with ABG that always drags me towards them in various phases of life!
Part B:
I have studied till class 10th in Bengali medium school. Our schools were operated by the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and every year they used to conduct inter-school cultural programs. There I used to perform in some drama and elocutions, mostly in Bengali and would observe the students coming from the top English medium schools of our city. I used to be really amazed and excited by the way they spoke. Even till my 7th or 8th standard, it was a dream for me to be able to speak at least something in English with someone. I started working on it. Being a big fan and follower of cricket, I started listening to and eventually doing commentary on my own. I also started reading English newspapers, English novels. After a few months, it became a habit for me to speak aloud with myself. I vividly remember a day in my first year at college when I was returning from my college and was randomly speaking with myself and didn't even notice that people passing by were giving me looks as if I was mad or something (since I was talking to myself while walking). From that day onwards, I started plugging the earphones in - with nothing really playing on it - with the sole intention of people thinking that I'm actually speaking with someone over the phone and not give me looks.
With this what I mean is that I always wanted to be a very good and confident speaker and communicator. Though I still am not fully satisfied with where I am today in terms of being a very good speaker, and since I've travelled long in this path, I know it takes time and patience. But yes, I’ve come a long way. There’s a stark difference between who I was and who I am in terms of being a public speaker. It also taught me a very important lesson that if someone is cent percent serious about something that (s)he wants to achieve, (s)he will definitely achieve that someday – just that (s)he always remembers the word ‘cent percent’, throughout his/her journey.
