To write about Aditya Birla Group from where I belong at the moment, is an intriguing loop.
At present, I am a student of IIM Ranchi, aspiring to be able to make a difference in the world around me throughout near and distant future. However, whether I would have been able to have this opportunity or not, is deeply connected with Liva, the apparel brand that gives Birla Cellulose a friendly name.
One has always been a lonely number. Every time,outside my interview room,I used to wait for my call in my yellow and white Liva kurti, white pajamas and a pleated white dupatta. It had been a difficult journey to always be that one person dressed in a formal attire different from the remaining (n-1) fellow aspirants. My attire seemed so unusual for a B-school interview to most people around me, that once I was asked without hesitation, " Are you a candidate?". It even happened that I started questioning and reevaluating myself so much so that I started losing my integrity and logic about why I was wearing the same. No interviews before entering the actual MBA course has any written instruction about the attire NOT being non-western,which clearly indicates that the overall presentation of the individual is always more important in selecting a candidate than a particular type of attire. Moreover, if I had to talk about Make In India in an interview, I would start explaining from the products I choose and why. I wanted my attire to be in sync with my answers.
In hindsight,after each interview I used to think that I failed some benchmark in terms of appearance and suffered from prolonged confusion and pressure about which to choose --- the unwritten convention or my individual values.
However, the magic happened when I was selected for all the colleges I had interviewed for and the list got its final closure from where I am writing today. And, Liva has come with me all the way to make a special place in my closet.
Two years before this journey, started another new journey in my life when I went away from home for the first time to take up my job. Preceding that, I started feeling that maybe those were the last few months in my city. Maybe I would never come back there and spend time with my family like I did, again. I have been brought up in a nuclear family and my mother had given up on many of her interests to bring me up with care and comfort. I felt it was time I gave her back something. Three months before I left my city, one fine morning, I told my mother that we were going to design handcrafted accessories and home decor items( which she had done throughout her life,but without any recognition) and conduct an exhibition. My mother kept on stirring sugar in our teacups with a smile that said it could never happen. When she asked me when and where and how, she was surprised to see that I was ready with all the answers. Being a final year college student and the only funds being pocket money saved from tutoring kids, my aim was challenging. I had Rs.1000 only to conduct the exhibition, and that too at a premium theatre in our city on a housefull Wednesday evening. I also promised to myself that I would not take any monetary help from my family. But as I believe, all challenging things are actually very simple. The more challenging things become,the more clarity and conviction we have about our to-dos and to-donts. There is too less room for confusion or verbosity.
Nobody knew us back then as a boutique. We had only two members -- my mother and me. Out of the Rs.1000, we spent Rs.160 on printing contact cards for our customers and a hand made banner for our stall, Rs.400 went for the stall setup charge, and the remaining Rs.450 went for buying raw materials. We set up a stall with 25 products of different types and we used most of our products as model products to receive an order booking from customers who liked it. We got 10 orders for the products that were with us, and 5 more who requested customization in colour or size. Next 7 days were hectic ,as we had to deliver 15 products starting from scratch. From this started our journey, and since then we have conducted multiple exhibitions and grown in terms of more people wanting to use our designs and products through Facebook and Instagram. It has been a solely passion-driven pursuit and since our prices have been reasonable,never has our inventory run on losses,no matter how small the expanse is.
The learning from this was how to maintain a strong will and have faith in it consistently,the unlearning was that everybody cannot do everything and the relearning was that one should always keep learning from every little thing.
