To cut a long story short ....................

“NDA assumes power” screamed the headlines. I concluded that there was a military coup in India, no doubt picked up from her notorious neighbor. Ever since my school days NDA meant National Defence Academy, and only a few quick lessons in real politics cleared the picture to me that this “NDA” stood for BJP and its allies. Scanning the newspaper day after day, I reckon, one has to be a mobile encyclopedia of all abbreviations to fully comprehend the news. 

Just the other day TOI (Times of India) reported that “MAMI will be held in Mumbai on November 24^th” From the caption I gathered that Ms. Jayalalitha will be transferred to either Arthur Road jail or the Thane jail’s “Anda cell”( the latter having the reputation of Mr.Sanjay Dutt as one of its  former inmates). Further reading proved I was grossly wrong and MAMI actually stood for Mumbai Academy of Moving Images! 

If you think I am exaggerating, please try this one - “Shibu Soren quits NDA, turns to RJD, BSP, SP etc.” I am convinced that with all these names he is bound to make the mistake of approaching the BJP after quitting NDA. If that happens my sympathies will be with him. 

It is not just politics that has its quota of acronyms. Armed forces are not far behind. Try cracking this. “AJT’s for IAF with MIG-21 says ACM”. 

To the less initiated, the translation goes thus: Advanced Jet Trainers for the Indian Air Force says the Air Chief Marshall. I have not completely translated as I am yet to crack what MIG-21 stands for. I am sure we all will learn in the near future.

The king in this field is however Economics. “Is a super regulator like CCI necessary with bodies like SEBI, TRAI and CERC around?” In the beginning it was the subject that was not making any sense, now even the language does not. CCI, which means Competition Commission of India, will actually mean Cricket Club of India if encountered in the sports section. This adds a new twist to an already grotesque tale. Mere knowledge of the acronyms is meaningless unless you also possess the adroitness of matching the right one with the context

Thus NBA read with SSP (Sardar Sarovar Project) should bring to your mind Ms.Medha Patkar while the same NBA on sports page will feature Michael “Air” Jordan of US basketball. Common acronyms with disparate professions are abound. ISI might stand for the ubiquitous mark on virtually every product as well as the elite Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta or even the dreaded outfit of Pakistan. A more common IT that renders film stars (of late cricketers) sleepless in fact opens the gates for aspiring software graduates. EC can be Election Commission as well as European Council.

 Another hilarious side of these short ones is the interpretations that are offered, the origins of many are not traced. Thus MTNL stands for “My Telephone is Not Linked” and MSEB for “Monday to Sunday Electricity Bandh”. BPT, now MbPT, stood for “Bevada Peeke Tight” though it had many a teetotalers on its rolls. It’s also quite apt that management information system generates a “MISreport”. The quintessential ERP in many a firm now stands for “Enter, Relax,    Pass out”. The new IT chaps have a language that is absolutely unique. It might require at least a decade for us, lesser mortals to decode. Try this. “An infrastructure that supports AOL and which shall make the DBMS of yesteryears becoming BEMS of tomorrow”. Now whatever that means! (Used to be WTM in my college days).

I was never prepared for the day I came to know what “MRF” stood for. After all those ads of Formula1 cars, radial tyres, the only F1 tyre manufacturer in India, willow wielding Sachin Madras Rubber Factory was very anti climatic. This could have been a good name for a company making contraceptives (which incidentally is TTK).

To cap it all the effect of Big B on old classics like Sound of Music. The famous “Do Re Me “song was converted to

            “When you read you begin with KBC………”