For the modern and quintessential urban Indian, life seems incomplete without certain names attached to the products they use. These names, defined by the dictionary as Brands, help customers differentiate between a myriad of products on offer in the market. They are a collection of values and unique qualities that people associate with a product. They offer a sense of satisfaction and assurance of quality to the consumer, so much that there are instances where whole generations often refuse to budge from a particular brand.
My father, for instance, just refuses to use trousers from any brand apart from Louis Philippe. It is just that he has been so enamoured by the quality and finesse of their clothes that he just can’t convince himself to go for any other brand. Also when my family goes dress shopping, Pantaloons is often our first choice, just because a single shop can serve all our fashion needs. It saves everyone the hassle of having to visit multiple stores when all top notch brands can be obtained under a single roof. And More, which was once under the ABG, is our family’s one stop shop for everything home and kitchen related. In fact, our house gets respite from the summer heat due to the Aluminium roofing panels that we have constructed over our terrace. Again the brand of choice for my Dad was Hindalco Everlast, resulting from the recommendations provided by neighbours and my relatives alike.
I had been adamant forever that I’ll buy my first suit with my own money, and that dream came to fruition early this year, when I walked into a Peter England showroom, a week before going to participate in my IIFT selection PI and bought a suit with my own stipend money. Just that simple act of wearing a suit raised my morale and confidence a hundredfold and I’m certainly sure that it was one of the reasons which helped me ace the process and now I’m a proud IIFTian. I just then realized the saying – “Dress smart to feel smart”, surely does hold. Coincidentally it just happened that Peter England’s tagline happens to be - “Beginning of good things”, and that does certainly hold true in my case!
It would be unfair to say that life would have been a cakewalk for anyone. It is a kind of a poetic judgement that all of us are bound to go through some hardships or rough patches in our lives. History shows us that the ones who have climbed the highest peaks in story of the human race are often the ones who have endured multiple hardships and have managed to emerge unscathed. It is often these people who would go on to change the world, for they chose to think different and persevered.
At this juncture I would like to mention an incident which impacted my life deeply. Two years back, in the summer of 2017, my family and I met with a car accident. I had fractured my leg and after a couple of surgeries, I was suggested a minimum of 2-3 months rest till I could walk without any aid. My mom too had fractured her leg and even though we had part time servant, there were often many times when I would have to limp around one-legged on my walker to see to the matters of the house, since my dad had to go to work. There were times when even a simple task such as taking something from a table next to my bed was a 5-minute process. I often got frustrated with myself and at a point even self-loathing started to creep in. But then, I realized that at this point, my family needed me, and it was up to me to stay strong and help them tide through these tough times. This realisation spurred in me the motivation to stay determined, and come what may, to always see the good side of anything.
After this incident, in spite of any hardships that came my way, I made it a point to soldier on, and I’ve kept the words ‘The show always goes on, it is up to us whether we take breaks’, as my personal mantra. These words have motivated me to always look towards the light at the end of the tunnel and not get distracted on my journey towards my goal.