Why ABG Is Big In My Life - Ayshwaryaa Arun, NMIMS Bangalore
Why ABG is big in our lives
Why ABG is big in our lives
My first real encounter with Aditya Birla Group dates back to 15th of MAY 2004, when I was nine years old and first entered in a Peter England’s outlet in Rajasthan. Way back in 2004 I have been saving my pocket money for months to buy a birthday present for my father. Finally, when I had still collected only half the money but was very desperate to buy a gift, my mother decided to pitch in and she took me to the store. As a child, I was mesmerized by the sheer lights and the aura. After hours of confusion we bought one white shirt. My father was super elated and surprised on receiving the gift. For years, whenever he used it to wear it to work, I was somehow full of pride and that is why Aditya Birla Group is super big in my life. Growing up, I got exposed to brands like People and Pantaloons which for me were a “total value for money”. As a student I always had limited money but with Aditya Birla Group’s brand I not only received good quality but did not ever had to compromise over quantity. And as a college student Aditya Birla Group was big in my life. Later, when fashion took its toll on me, Forever 21 happened and rest is history. It was not only big but grand for me. Now, as an adult when I look down the memory lane, I can only see satisfaction and happiness associated with ABG be it my childhood, school days or college. #TAPMI #ABGLWooMe
Aditya Birla Group has been the first industrial giant that I came familiar to in my early childhood days. It had been directly involved in my family since my father was a contract transporter in ABG’s Bihar Caustic and Chemicals Limited (BCCL) plant located in Rehla, a small town of Jharkhand which also happens to be my birthplace. I grew up in the vicinity of the plant and heard my father discussing its business on our dinner table. Aditya Birla Group’s BCCL plant not only came as a huge business opportunity to thousands in our city but was a turnaround in my father’s business life. My father had been in transport business of private inter-city buses. With growing competition and reducing profit margin, my father was struggling hard to create a difference. When BCCL called out for transport contract to private players, it came as a silver lining in the cloud. My father grabbed this opportunity and started transporting BCCL’s chemical products in tankers to its clients. The margins were good and helped my father bounce back in his other transport business. Hence, ABG has been very close to me in an integral form of my family business.
I live by the words of Huma R. Kidwai: " I am thickly populated inside. I carry all those who walked a little while with me.” Just like everyone else my journey too had been full of various ups and downs. My passion of becoming a doctor and the hard work that I had put in was everything that I had planned for. Even after all the efforts and determination, situations were not suitable and things did not work out well. So, I had to give up on that dream of mine but never really gave up on the thrust to build a career. Thus, I start afresh and decide to change my stream. Studying something else which I had never imagined of was a struggle but I kept myself going. Even those gloomy days when I started from scratch and felt that nothing was working out for me could not break me. I met a lot of people in this journey who have supported me immensely and it is their guidance and motivation that I have reached so far in life and am doing fairly well. Above all I believe that my persistence and the zeal to prove myself have brought me so far. I truly believe that rather than running and following other’s footsteps I chose to finish the race on my own pace. And that is what has worked for me.
I merrily recall going to shopping malls with my parents and my father buying all sorts of shirts from Peter England and then coming home to a house made of Ultratech Cement. Funnily enough, even I took a liking to the brand ‘People’ and have sincerely wearing and buying the same light blue and black jeans for over 3 years now.
You won't even realize it until someone asks you " how much does the Aditya Birla Group affects your life?" and then it will hit you "It has always been there". As for most of the things that always surrounds you in life you tend to ignore their importance, just how you miss good health when we get sick. It's hard not to use any of the Products or services that Aditya Birla Group has not played part in, even if you try to. The Closest that I've been with most of my life is Idea cellular Limited that's now renamed as Vodafone Idea Limited after the famous merger. It was 2004, I was in 4th standard when my parents bought a phone each with an Idea SIM for it and it has stayed with us since then. It was the time when most of the people in my small town were getting used to not forgetting their phone at their home. My father once left it at our family's friend Katari Uncles’s home, fortunately. No one could’ve expected what happened next. The Kataria's used to live in the outskirts of the town. My father checked and didn’t find his phone, he pulled over the car and asked my elder brother (who had turned 14 a day before) to call his number and check where the phone was. It rang at Kataria uncle’s place, somebody picked up and asked us to come back to their place urgently, we obliged. Kataria Uncle had suffered a cardiac arrest and was saved due to my father’s little mishap. Everybody thanked god, some thanked my father too but nobody thanked Idea because it worked as it supposed to and was easily taken for granted. So today I thank Idea for making us part of a life-saving event. It touches my life whenever I call my dad and say I love you in the morning and it does when I say Pranaam (A Hindi Greeting) before hanging up to hear Khush Raho (stay happy) in reply.