Aditya Birla Group’s impact on my life!
Every child reminisces about those mid-day school breaks for lunch, a time when academics come to a halt and the classroom gets filled with the aroma of scrumptious home-made lunch! Tiffin boxes become the center of attention. My first interaction with Aditya Birla Group was through my tiffin box. A time when I would embrace the warmth of my mother’s love through her food. An essential component of this supply-demand chain of love was Hindalco’s Freshwrapp. The shiny aluminium foil would keep my mother’s food warm and supplement my joy as I unraveled the contents within.
From Tiffin boxes and makeshift aluminium foil balls to play classroom cricket, to feeding mid-day meals to 63,000 children in 268 schools, Aditya Birla Group has been a valuable contributor to the well being and development of the children of India. Operation of 56 schools, solar lamps for 450,000 school children and polio vaccination for 70 million children are some of the commendable initiatives that the organisation has taken under its Corporate Social Responsibility campaign.
Something that started out as a euphoria to experience food and moments with my classmates, culminated into a passion for the culinary arts. I was exposed to more aspects of the food and beverage world. With the desire to learn more about establishments which deal with food and hospitality, I pursued a degree in Hospitality and Hotel Administration. When I finally started working in a large hotel chain, I realised the amount of value the Aditya Birla Group added to our lives. In everything from our hotel uniforms (ABFRL) to operations equipment (Aluminium frames from Hindalco) and even our corporate guests, the Aditya Birla Group has had a large role to play!
Every time I look at a tiffin box, I remember the life-changing shiny aluminium foil, and smile with gratitude to the omnipresence of Aditya Birla Group, for it has truly impacted my life for the greater good.
Adversity – A valuable lesson
Every hotel management course has compulsory industrial exposure training. As a part of the training, every student interns in all the core functional departments of a hotel. This helps the student understand the real environment of operation and make a well-informed decision about their future career paths. During my industrial training, I had the good fortune of training at a well-known five-star hotel brand. We were given our training schedules and very excited to put our theoretical knowledge into practical application. I am passionate about culinary arts and was eagerly awaiting my training in a professional kitchen, waiting to cook up some fancy Michelin starred dish! To my severe dismay, I had been allotted to train in the hotel butchery for a month. Being a vegetarian, I was horrified and disappointed. I protested to the Human Resource department, but I was explained that as a hotel management student, I would have to work in the subject of butchery eventually and should focus on the learning, rather than being disheartened by my allocation.
I reluctantly began my tenure in the department. It was a cold, metallic and quiet place, it didn't smell very pleasant either. The role of a hotel butchery is processing raw red meats, chicken, seafood and cold cuts into smaller units for storage so that those units could later be used by the various restaurant kitchens in the hotel. The job involved a lot of knife skills and vacuum packing, the working conditions were strict as the meat has to be dealt with utmost hygiene and cannot be left at room temperature for more than half an hour. The initial days of the training were very depressing, and time moved slowly. Along the course of my tenure, I started learning about a lot of interesting things like inventory management and material safety procedures. I learnt to negotiate rate contracts and check purchase discrepancies. My butchery and knife skills reached a professional level which surpassed any of my batchmates. I learnt the yield management of products. These learnings were invaluable and I could use what I learnt in my course further down the line.
I learnt a very valuable life lesson from my experience, that hard work without any preconceived notions can be a rewarding process. We should never judge an entire process or role just based on a few aspects as an outsider. A right attitude is the strongest foundation of any learning process.
#XIMB #ABGWOOME #ABGLP