As I started to pen this down and think about how unknowingly this group has touched my life, it made me realise the true meaning of ‘legacy’. For often we have chased the perfect life, a good job, settling down, making your family and friends proud. But to be able to do something which impacts a lot of lives without even them knowing about it, is a true sense of the legacy which I always wanted to build. The ABG group helps me stay connected with my family and friends several thousand kilometres away, making me feel at home in an unknown city, be it with the telephone connectivity or the phone in my hand itself. It is also the life of the life-line, an indispensable part of the heart of Mumbai – The trains. For me and many others, it is their means to their workplace and home, for others it is their home, their office, their means to a livelihood, their life itself. Woven into the very fabric of everyday life, and literally too, they’re an imperative part of the memories, from the countless moments shared over school lunches, to the shirt which landed me my first job, the gifts I bought for the family from my first salary, to protecting the warmth of the home-cooked food, they’re a part of the place which everyone calls home. To be able to influence so many lives, be it through their products or their impactful advertising - breaking societal norms, and talking about the issues in our lives to spreading social awareness, they did not just help us build our lives, but also helped build a nation.
“A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.” - Batman in The Dark Knight Rises
Coming from a humble but proud family in Mumbai, I was taught to do the things, the right way. To help others in any capacity possible, to work towards being the best version of yourself but more important, to aim to be able to be someone’s reason to smile. The biggest challenge I faced was, while growing up. I lost my father when I was in Class 5. It has been almost 17 years, but that day is forever entrenched in my memory. For a 9 – Year old kid, it was maybe, too big of a situation to grasp, to understand the gravity of the situation, but it has shaped my very existence. My mom became my hero. For a single-parent to raise two kids in their school, is in itself a mammoth task. Every decision, every action I took later, was solely to be a person, my parents would be proud of. From getting into one of the most sought-after engineering colleges in India, to taking up a marketing job in one of the most respected business houses in India. From mentoring an under-privileged kid from the suburbs of Mumbai, to working for a start-up. This journey has made me come across, some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, and I would not trade this for anything. To be able to have the
opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life is something which you rarely get, and I consider myself lucky to have got it multiple times. I genuinely believe that a challenge is nothing more than an opportunity, and the biggest skill anyone can learn, is the one to be calm amidst the chaos. It is in a challenge, that you find your true potential.