Growing up in a lower middle class family, I had never imagined of buying any branded products. Remembering my childhood days, I would see my parents bargain over the goods or any paraphernalia that they used to buy. Price conscious were we! There wasn’t any explicit need that propelled us as a family to buy any branded products.
But with time changed our preferences as well. Time has the power to turn the wheels of fortune, if not drastically at least to some extent. When I and my sister had started working for MNCs, our family was better off financially. We could afford the brands, could buy the goods that we desired.
Today, while researching about the brands that ABG has in its portfolio- I found two of those which I had and am using now. Never before did I acknowledge the presence of the group and its brands in my life which subtly satisfied my needs.
While I was working for the Multi National Company in my initial days, the company had made it mandatory to wear formals on the first four weekdays and the last one day was to be in casual clothing. Going and growing from an engineering college to a company, I didn’t have much of the formal wears and on my friend’s advice and insistence visited an apparel store which is famous for discounts, price conscious consumer you know! But wait, having been habituated to wear local brands all through my life till then, I was actually in a state of discomfiture when my friend asked me which brand would I buy. Van Heusen and one other brand were my instant reply as I could recollect watching the adverts of these players on TV. It has been 3 years now and whenever I go to buy clothes, I make sure that one of the two products that I pick up is of this Van Heusen brand. Reasons are many but for me its loyalty and the memories of the adverts on TV that I once used to watch in my childhood days.
The other instance that I can connect to is when I used to travel while going to home from my working place/city and a return back to the company in subsequent days. As the journey happened to be long and food wasn’t that good at the motels where the buses would break off for dinner, I remember by mother using the aluminum wrap for the rotis and the soya sabzi that she would pack for me. The need was met, but it is in my recent research that I found Freshwrapp to be one of the brands by this Aditya Birla Group. I have an emotional connect to this brand as I even today remember savoring the fresh rotis and sabzi somewhere in the middle of the journey with all that same taste and flavor like at home.
I have to preserve these memories for the times to come and recording the experiences is one of the best ways to cherish those memories. As said by Dave Eggers, “Records/Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
So let me not forget these moments and the brands behind those moments.
THE GROWING STEPS OF LIFE
I remember the days when my mother was traumatized with appendix. It was really sad to see her bear the pain of appendix and then the pain after the surgery. Little did I know about the pain then. For me, having stomach ache was the one that was hurting me the most. Then as time flew, I discovered diarrhea as something that was unbearable and would hurt you the most (and also embarrass you!). As I grew, I discovered many pains that surmounted the previous ones and showed their might in troubling me.
Mind is such a thing that perceives all the pains in the body and records its intensity subtly somewhere in our brain. What would have happened if the mind wasn't functioning properly?
What would perhaps happen if you were to be depressed?
Pathetic, isn’t it?
The most intense pain would be that associated with the mind or the emotional pain, nervous breakdown, depression, you name it anything related to mind.
This wasn't anything that would be noticed from outside with cuts and bruises on your body. But it’s something that would bruise your mind, cripple it and prevent it from functioning fully. One such instance did occur in my life and the repercussions are something that I even face today.
It is said that challenges make us strong. I have faced this challenge of nervous breakdown and depression. It is the trauma that touches the core of the mind and matters in that regard would be challenging to deal with. I am overcoming this obstacle of mind in a slow pace gaining phase over phase and I must admit that my life has changed because of this challenge. It has changed me as a person and the perception about the world. I overcame and am doing it by tackling the symptoms of this depression one by one. I have rekindled the faith that I had once lost on Supreme Power and am in a way to wire my brain so that I can again live a life that I once had. I feel it’s a gradual process and needs endurance.
In the end, I would only say that hurdles are what make us grow in life. As a diamond doesn’t start out being polished and lustrous, but with enough pressure and time becomes spectacular, similar are we, the humans and the challenges are those pressures that make us grow and shine.