1. Waiting, by the side of the conveyor belt, for my luggage to arrive, I couldn’t help but notice a guy, my age, fashioning a bright orange Tee, and black roughed up jeans. It was not the Tee which caught my eye, but the guitar loosely dangling over his right shoulder. There were students all over the Indore airport, but he seemed to be the only one who presumably shared my interest in this beautiful musical instrument. Fast forward a couple weeks, and we were allotted the same section at college.
There was a calm in his demeanour, an air of confidence, which surrounded him. This quickly gained him a lot of friends. We shared quite a few interests besides music. Sports was what sealed the deal for us.
Starting off as a Class Representative (CR), joining the music club of our college, Harmon-I as a guitarist, the football team as an attacking midfielder, and then finally becoming the coordinator of arguably the biggest fest of IIM Indore, he’s come a long way. Though there still is a longer way to go. I remember our ‘2 person band’ jamming at Adda at 11 pm in the night. Seemed a pretty crazy idea to me initially. But soon we had scores of people sitting neatly in a semi-circle before us, humming the songs along. That was a great night. Introducing to you, John Antony, or Jonny Buoy as we call him, the fakest Mallu on the planet with loads of talent to boast about
2. You have all sorts of friends who are popular. A friend who makes people teary eyed when she sings, an athlete whom people miss classes to watch destroy the opponents single handedly, a genius who always seems to score the highest but is never seen studying. And then there is this friend of mine who is at most average in all of the aforementioned elements, yet, one of the most loved personalities on campus. There is an air of positivity that surrounds him all the time, and it transcends to the ones he interacts with too. Good that he interacts with a lot of people. Every single person somehow seems to know him and know him well. He’s the life of every party that he goes to. And all of this, just because of his insanely high emotional intelligence. I haven’t come across a person who is blessed with such superior people skills. Empathy and compassion take you places – he’s a thriving validation of the same. A Punjabi at heart, the best air drummer I’ve met, introducing to you the rapper from Faridabad,
Vishesh Singh (Vishu)
3. The first set of people that you meet at an alien place, stay on with you for a long period of time. And this is regardless of whether you keep in constant touch. They influence and shape a majority of your personality. She was like a fresh winter breeze, only I met her in the month of July. Full of energy and ever so cheerful. Some people have a potent power to make us think things we like to think. We had very different perspectives on how to approach the so-called MBA life. Probably why I liked conversing with her even more. She is the biggest party animal there is, yet a consistent performer when it comes to academics. I remember more people attending her birthday party than an official college party the same day. A B. Pharm gold medalist, the showstopper at the IIM fashion club, meet Sushmita Vazirani
4. Football is often referred to as a universal language that is spoken globally. The technique is the vocabulary of football and it’s the base from which all football players are created. It is said that sports know no boundaries. I play center forward for the IIM Indore football team. We had a very diverse team, in that we had people from multiple nationalities playing in our team, courtesy of the student exchange program at the college. The team comprised players from India, France and Belgium. There was one particular teammate whom I can’t help but have immense respect for. Not just because his movements on the field were as fluid as water, nor because of the love and passion he shared for the game, rather his philosophy of living life. His vision encapsulated the very essence of himself as an individual, the principles he valued above all, the reason he existed. Conversing with him made me realize how simple living life gets if we can find happiness in the smallest of things. I remember having a late night discussion with him once about things to do when in God’s own country. I was elated and embarrassed at the same time when it was clear he knew way more about it than I did. An amazing athlete, straight from EMLYON, France, who can win over a person in no time, meet Ezekiel
Sedaminou.
Which ABG Company would you want to work for and why?
Aditya Birla Capital - Having a strong inclination towards finance, it is but obvious that the one a company I’d love to work for in the Aditya Birla Group of companies is Aditya Birla Capital (formerly: Aditya Birla Financial Services Group). It ranks among the top 5 fund managers in India, with a strong presence in asset management, wealth management and distribution and private equity. Having interned in a corporate finance role at the Essel group, and taking up the majority of electives from the finance domain in my second year, Equity financing and Portfolio Management, to name a few, I feel I would be a good fit for the company.
The great work culture and the employee-centric approach of the Aditya Birla group of companies would be an icing on the cake.
- Sparsh Vasishth