WHY ABG IS BIG IN MY LIFE?
As I stroll through the verdure greens of my Apartments and reflect how big, in fact, has the Aditya Birla Group been, in my life, I wonder, perhaps the Group touches me anywhere and everywhere, knowingly or unknowingly. The huge concrete structures that support such huge buildings make me reminiscent of the largest cement company of India- Ultra Tech Cement, a Group Company of ABG.
Even as Aditya Birla Group touches our everyday lives in many forms through its various brands, such as Vodafone-Idea, or retail formats such as Pantaloons, or financial services such as Aditya Birla Capital, I sometimes wonder how the Company has transformed itself from a Promoter Driven Company to a professionally-run, multicultural Indian multinational of US $44.3 billion with more than 1,20,000 people, drawn from forty-two different nationalities.
It is delightful to reminisce the words of Mr. Kumara Mangalam Birla, “Transformation is about turning aspirations into reality, converting setbacks into opportunities. It is about courage of conviction. It is about what Charles Handy, one of the world's leading authorities on the nature of work, calls, "The creation of new alchemists from ordinary people."
As a student of MBA(HR), it really intrigues to delve deep into this transformation riveting into primarily on its talent. It definitely looks big for a student of HR to experience how consistent efforts to develop a best-in-class workplace and promote an empowering and motivating work environment has facilitated such kind of big transformation, and earns the Group several laurels, Year-on-Year, including the Awards of Best Employer.
OVERCOMING REAL LIFE CHALLENGE
20th September, 2014
It was a tough morning. I woke up at 5 AM from a sleep I barely had. There was a cloud of anxiety around me. The doctor had advised me to shampoo my hair and have a bath with a specific solution that she had given me. She had also asked me to tie up my hair tight enough so that it doesn’t interrupt the doctors during the operation. But, little did anybody understand that for a person feeling fully paralysed by both hands, how would you expect her to get tidy up herself?
‘How were you fully paralysed?’ you may ask. Well, let me rewind then.
April-August, 2014
I was diagnosed with Osteochondroma, a benign bone tumour condition, after months of visiting various doctors in various hospitals and for multiple times. I underwent a scary CT scan, incessant blood-sucking needle sessions and a lot of uncertainty. After all of this it was decided that I would be undergoing a surgery at AIIMS, New Delhi.
It was a challenging time in my life as I had never felt this oblivious about myself. Let alone life, I was merely an unaware person who took life very casually. It occurred to me that my dreams and ambitions are of no use if I just cease to exist one day. I used to be depressed. I used to have long walks in the park all by myself, just questioning my existence.
From the day I got admitted to the hospital, to the day of my operation, I was exposed to various means of torturous conditions. Why torturous? There were male doctors/nurses treating on my naked body without my permission. I was fed boiled food. There was multiple pricking in both of my hands in the name of blood tests, to the extent where I couldn’t move both my hands. Hence, fully paralysed by both hands.
All this mental trauma made me ignorant towards such daily routine tests that were now taking place. And thus finally when my operation date was declared, I was the happiest person on earth.
20th September, 2014: Getting ready for the Operation
As I was shifted on a stretcher, my father held it from my head and a ward boy held it from my feet. As we walked down to the operation theatres, I started freezing. I had never felt so overwhelmed and numb. We stopped near the OT 5 and the doctors asked my father to leave. As I saw him leaving, I couldn’t grasp the reality and started crying. I didn’t stop for 20 minutes straight and the operation got delayed. The doctors started consoling me.
This moment sends chills down my spine, because I had given up on myself that day and had thought that I might not come back and see my father again ever. But somehow I gathered all the courage and they led my stretcher into the OT.
The OT felt like the inside of a refrigerator. There were 25 doctors in the huge room. More than half were students who were on a live learning session. But I braved it through. The doctors distracted me with questions like, ‘So which was the last movie you watched?’, ‘Do you know that screen displays your heart pulse? It seems you have never smoked!’, as they put anaesthesia on my hand. And in the middle of talking to them, my eyes just shut.
Hours later:
It was all blurry yet bright, maybe because it felt like I was awake after eons. Somebody was holding me and transferring me to a bed. I could hear a million voices murmuring. It felt as if someone was increasing the volume of real people from 20 to 35, with a remote control. And then a recognisable voice said “Beta, the operation was successful. There is nothing to worry. You will be discharged soon.” My eyes tried hard to pop out of their sockets but I couldn’t see him clearly as the lids kept falling with an exponential rate. But, I knew it was my father and I was now in a public ICU.
I was again paralysed. And this time for real. I could hardly move my hands, legs or face. I barely communicated via my eye balls and fingers. I was on a liquid diet and thus I did not excrete at all. But after a day, when the anaesthesia’s effect started draining, the nurses started treating me with little solid food. And demanded that I should excrete, when I was unable to. Their un-empathetic behaviour added to my already existing bodily pain made me a morbid.
But, then an infant was placed right in front of my bed. And his laughter used to make my days.
Overcoming Challenges
The time I spent in the hospital, made me come to terms with the ground realities that persist in our society. From infants to elderly people, I have seen everybody’s plight. And maybe experienced it too, to some extent. From spasms of pain to sneaking out moments to smile, the time was indeed challenging and filled with uncertainties. But, it taught me how to be brave. It gave me strength to keep fighting and have high spirits. It taught me the importance of appreciation and motivation. I became more empathetic and my endurance increased by volumes.
From this incident, I learnt to be a stoic in life. I learnt that life is a continuum of crests and troughs, a mixture of joys and sorrows. I learnt that one has to pass through the adversities when they come, so that when they pass, one can stride with bigger determination on the path of actualisation of one’s dreams.
As the incident passed, I learnt that one has to focus one’s attention on the present, without being too much bothered about the past or the future. For as the most venerable of the venerable Indian poets, Kalidasa, has sung:
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow but a vision,
But, to-day, well-lived,
Makes every yesterday,
A dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow,
A vision of hope,
Look well, therefore, to this day.
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