Around May time in 2012, here was a boy, naive, innocent, dependent who entered the gates of BITS Pilani Hyderabad campus knowing very little how the next 4 years would completely transform him. And transform him for good. BITS Pilani (a not for profit institution) is a de-facto ABG group institution.
To set some context, this boy, when he entered through the gates, could not fathom the aura of environment around. He wondered if he had really made the cut to be able to deserve to study at such a charismatic place, if he had made the cut to call this paradise (read campus) his home for the next 4 years, and beyond.
First day in the campus and he has just had dinner with some stranger-friends. Carefully chewing each bite so the stranger-friends-to-be don’t judge and ostracize him right away, he steps out and wants to ask people if they would be up for a walk after dinner. But alas, there was one problem, his English proficiency did not allow him to be able to say it in one go without stammering or erring.
Fast forward to the placement week (Jan-16 that is), the chap gets a shortlist with Qualcomm and is to be interviewed at around 2 am in the night. Having sat in the placement office from 3 pm the previous day, the demons of his first day can’t stop haunting him however he thinks he can make it through. Not only does he ace the interview, he also makes small talk easily and teaches the interviewer a thing or two on a few policies of Mr. Narendra Modi that led to the ‘Gujarat Development Model’ which in turn led him to mandate at the centre in 2014.
I know you are thinking that I haven’t described what got him there –
- The Sponsorship club which he got into late in his 2nd year when some classmates got in in the first year itself, is a tough nut to crack.
- To be elected as the Treasurer of his department, campaigning in front of 100s of students, in English (when you studied all your life in your vernacular), do you think it must have been a cakewalk for him ?
- To be taught and presenting to professors like Prof. Ramana Sonti, Prof. Krishna Kodali, Prof. Amit Kumar Gupta among others, who were institutions in themselves, I guarantee they could even make a puppet talk let alone our protagonist here.
- The Modi development model - he had debated about this with his civil services aspirant friends and Professors just the night before.
That is the kind of environment BITS gives you where you get to shape your own destiny. Literally. From admissions to convocation, each and every activity is student handled. If our protagonist could not shine here, I doubt there was another better place for him.
Hello, this is Bharat Pareek and no, this is not my story. This is a story of one of my most affable friends. This guy among many others taught me so much during the 4 years that its safe to say that I couldn’t have done half as well in life as I am now if not for people like these. This is the importance of ABG and its educational institutions in the lives of thousands of people.
I realised during my time there as to how I was born with a silver spoon. In fact at our convocation speech, one of the key takeaways from Mr. K.M Birla was to see how one can give back to the society. It ingrained in me a sense of ownership for the society and as a result I decided that each month a portion of my salary would be set aside for causes that I really believe in. Be it flood saving the snow leopard, or helping the WWF with an amount equivalent to buying a night vision camera to keep a check on poaching; to donating and mobilising people to donate for flood relief operations to donating to BharatKeVeer.org, not one month has passed by in the last 2.5 years where I have not put in the money or the effort for various causes. If that counts for any impact, those are my 2 cents.
BITS Pilani. Its Magic !!
