As I sat down to write this article, it dawned on me how ABG has stood beside me at the different phases of my life. Starting from the early years, let us call it phase one of my life, when my parents who belonged to small towns moved to the big city to provide a good life to their kids. Like any newly married couple they also had a dream to build a house of their own and to do that in a city like Delhi is no easy task. But thanks to their hard work and determination they achieved this dream. I remember being a small kid, visiting the site with my grandfather. I was extremely fascinated one day when I saw this person mixing water in some grey looking powder. As any curious kid, my first instinct was to play with it as it seemed to like dough to me which my mother used to give me to play with and I had seen her mix water in a powder in that case too. I was just about to take a leap in a puddle of this strange looking dough when my grandfather anticipated my intentions and caught me in time. It was that day I had my first encounter with ABG and that’s when a long love affair started. Even though my grandfather didn’t mention anything about ABG but he did mention this strange looking dough is called cement and this will make our house strong just like the man that was there on the bag of the cement. Cut to phase two of my life, I was now a school going kid. And like any other school going kid, the most awaited period for me was the lunch break. Time when we would open those tiffin boxes our mothers specially woke up in the morning to prepare for us and the excitement to see what mystery do our lunch boxes and those of our friends will unravel on a daily basis. But never had I thought, what kept that food fresh and hot was nothing but another long term association with ABG. Let us now cut to phase three of my life, I’m a teenager boy now with some level of independence in life and ability to make at least some of my own decisions. I’m driven by peer pressure as well. I have a friend circle and it is important for me to be a part of that group which means being update to on the latest movies, Tv-shows and most importantly fashion trends and fads. And here is when again ABG came to my rescue, Pantaloons being my one stop solution for all the funky apparel. And now comes the fourth stage of life, I’m an adult now. Soon to enter in to my first corporate experience. Gone are the days of dressing casually in jeans and t-shirts, it is time to go corporate. And yet again ABG doesn’t disappoint.
ABG has been more than way of life for me. As the world around is changing and fast evolving, so is ABG with this change. This is one of my strengths as well. I can adapt to situations and surroundings very quickly.
I have been able to adjust to the necessary requirements every time quickly and never found it difficult to cultivate relationships wherever I went and form strong bonds something which ABG has done so well over the years as well with the various brands.
ABG believes in delivering superior and sustainable value to all its customers, business partners, employees and host communities. I associate myself with a similar quality of being dedicated and giving my best at the task at hand. As showing respect is one of the values I believe in and it includes not only showing respect towards people but also towards your job or organization and one can do that by being committed to adding value for the various stakeholder involved.
Also, ABG is not afraid to take on the goliaths. I also don’t shy away from challenges and see them as an opportunity to grow and learn. I’m open to change and try new things which involves going out of my comfort zone. In fact, being complacent or stagnation demotivate me the most.
Whenever faced with a new challenge, I keep faith in my abilities and keep at it. I do not worry too much about the outcome but focus on the process and most of the times the results follow.
I was used to doing tasks at hand to the best of my capabilities but never tried to do anything over and above than what was expected out of me until I landed up for my final semester project in IIT Delhi under the guidance of the HOD of the Electrical department. I was assigned a desktop in the PG Machines Lab and given a brief of my objective with no proper structure or guidance. I was expected to figure out things on my own and give results on weekly basis. It was literally like swimming in an ocean. It was all very overwhelming and scary for someone who had not even completed his graduation to be working along side people pursuing M.Tech/PHD that too from one of the top institutes in the country. Initially, it was really hard for me to even keep interest and slowly I was starting to give up. Every day I was looking of ways to avoid going to the lab itself. But then I realized that having missed out on the opportunity to a part of the institute, this was my chance to take something from it. So I dug in. Kept on pestering people in the lab, asked a lot of question, spent a lot of time reading research papers and books in the library. Without worrying too much about the end result, I focussed on the learning process. Seeing me put an effort, a lot of people in the lab helped me out and in the end I even co-authored a research paper. I consider this my biggest achievement not only in terms of academics but because it helped me grow as a person. It taught me to stand up to tough situations and not be a victim to them. It also taught me the importance of hard work and how to stay motivated especially when you are thrown out of your comfort zone. Also, it taught me a valuable lesson of never being complacent in life, to always strive for excellence and not restrict oneself to the expectations set by other. In fact, one should try and exceed those expectations so that the next time the bar of expectations starts from a higher level. When I look at the values that ABG stands for and their mission and vision statement, it resonates with my above experience and learnings.
I wish to continue to this long association with ABG. I know that even without realizing, ABG would be there in the subsequent stages of my life as well. If this is not a love affair, then what is?