ABG ingrains positivity into my life, one way or another. The colours of its logos, the vibrant advertisements, the fine quality products – everything about it is simply amazing. I surmise I am a cheerful person intrinsically and ABG’s “Big on Smiles” CSR tagline is something I completely associate myself with. However, there has a been a fair share of highs and lows in my life and I believe I have tackled to the best of my capabilities so far.
Every challenge one faces makes one stronger and that’s what I firmly believe in, when tough times impend. The month of November in 2018 was one such time for me.
My father complained of breathing problems and he was diagnosed with a severe blockage in arteries. He was posted in a town 450 km away from my home. He came home the very night he was diagnosed and he underwent his operation the next day. Those were dire times, emotional chaos and instability surmounted us. I played a strong person in those perilous times and took charge.
My father returned home on the auspicious day of Diwali and all my family took good care of all him. But there were tougher times awaiting. My grandmother passed away a month later and my parents had to travel to my native place. I and my brother stayed back home and focused on our semester exams. Meanwhile, I learnt to cook and manage all other household chores on my own, something I had never done before. I wrote the IMT exam in this period and qualified the written stage. My parents returned a month later and my father had to join back his office. He needed intensive care after the operation, so we decided that my mother would stay with him. In no time, all 4 of us went to my father’s place and got everything in place for them.
Soon after, I and my brother returned home and we had no clue as to how to manage our lives. We were scared on that journey back home; we didn’t know how to proceed with our lives thereon. But we learnt.
I had my final year project and IMT 2nd stage processes (WAT-GD-PI) lined up, which required tremendous efforts from my side. I used to be someone who was never bothered about any household chore but post-haste, I became someone who would wake up at 6 am in the morning to get breakfast ready for my younger brother and drop him off to college on my scooty in the blistering cold mornings. I even attended my college and toiled day and night to finish my project. There were a lot of sacrifices I made but I never compromised on my priorities which were IMT and my family’s health and well-being. I indulged myself into healthy eating habits and exercised every day without fail and encouraged all my family to do the same. In this duration of 6 months, I got through IIFT, wrote the last 2 semester exams of my Under graduation and passed with flying colours, lost the extra weight that I always wanted to, took good care of myself and my brother and a did a lot of other little things. ‘
Around the same time that I joined IMT, my father was transferred back to my hometown and it was the biggest respite of my life. I felt like a winner when I met the unstated expectations that I and my family had from me. I felt accomplished when I handled the situation with the utmost courage and diligence. There were times when I felt like giving up since the pressure building up was humongous. But hard times are when you get tested and emerging victorious out of such situations is pure ecstasy.
