“It’s 5am, I’m late for my training maa” is how most of my mornings in school started. Believing in the centuries old maxim of having breakfast like a king, my mother wouldn’t go a day without rolling a chappati with my favorite bhindi ki sabzi in freshwrapp and handing it to me at our home’s porch right before I boarded the car. I don’t train anymore, but the scent of freshness of that maa k haath ka parantha-sabzi nicely wrapped in a freshwrapp gushes back each morning as I descend for breakfast to the hostel mess. However, some things never change, even here at IIFT I run late for class and end up wrapping my share of breakfast in our very trusted freshwrapp that keeps my food absolutely fresh and makes it easy to carry.
Growing up as a Disney fangirl, one thing that has been constant since my sweet 16 is my go to brand, Forever-21. Through the years I’ve bought their bags, shoes, accessories and clothes for all occasions, my birthday parties or that of my friends or even clothes for a get-together. Having been a proactive child, I participated in several inter school and intra school activities. I very clearly remember how I was shortlisted as one of the candidates who would represent school in an MUN, the specifications for clothes given to us had to be followed to the T, I had given up the hope of finding the exact kind when I found the brand that catered to exactly what we neeeded - Van Heusen. It was that day of confusion and it’s this day of necessity - Van Heusen has been my brand of preference ever since.
As an individual I have always strived towards bringing about positive change to the best of my capacity, as much as I enjoy the process I love to reflect back on the challenges the situation presented. In the fifth semester of our under-graduation, four of my friends and I decided to conduct emotional intelligence workshops in an orphanage in Delhi so as to apply what we were learning in class to real life situations and at the same time contributing our bit to the society. The entire process starting from preliminary research to delivering the workshop as per the plan of action was an intensive process. The participation, involvement and feedback from the pilot session was astounding. However, in the subsequent sessions we could not engage the children as much despite planning minutiae, repeatedly analyzing what could have been going wrong and constant assessment of our action-plan. Although we tried to address the problems in every session and work on our implementation and delivery, we could only help them recognize emotions better.
In the due course, I learnt the importance of each step in the process from planning to implementation. I learnt what good team work constitutes, how to compensate for a mistake made by you or your team member, especially in a sensitive situation like ours when the stakes are high. There were several conflicts and differences in opinions, I learnt the importance of the need to strike a balance in perspectives and maintain harmony. I learnt coordination and the value of each individual’s contribution.