ATM &c

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I first came to know of the existence of a device called ATM through an internet joke that was doing the rounds in around 1998.

I just got my Office PC and an e-mail id which spread somewhat in a dendritic growth among my ex-students in the US. And I got regular e-joke forwards then on.

It was an MCP joke that went something like this:

Man: Parks his car in front of the ATM, walks jauntily into the joint, pushes his ATM Card in and out, punches a few buttons, draws the cash, slams the door shut, and drives away whistling.

....Now you can let your imagination run riot, like:

Woman: Parks her car. Opens her hand bag to get her ATM Card. Finds a mirror. Lipsticks. Shuts the car door. Tries to open the door of the joint. Succeeds after two attempts. Pushes the Card in. Forgets to take it out. Fumbles. Enters the wrong PIN and is cursed by the Machine. Opens her handbag for the PIN noting. Finds the mirror and the powder puff. Punches buttons. Cash comes out. Lost in thought. Cash goes back. Pushes the Card in and out. Finally grabs the cash. Enters her parked car in sweat. Starts the car and chugs along for 100 meters. Stops the car. Releases the parking brake....

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Right away, you see the acronym above:

MCP: KGPians were then familiar with the degree Master of City Planning. But of course I meant the Male Chauvinistic Pig.

Along with MCP we also had MTP for Master of Town Planning and not Medical Termination of Pregnancy.

And MRP for Master of Regional Planning and not Maximum Retail Price.

And you see above PIN for Personal Identification Number and not my Postal Index Number 500 049.

I looked up the expansion for ATM in the internet (there was no Google then) and found it stands for Automated Teller Machine. And could only guess how it looked like...we had no ATMs at KGP then.

By the time I stepped into Hyderabad streets my son was already a one-year-old veteran here and he took me to the first ATM I saw in SR Nagar. And with a few flashy punches drew crisp hundred rupee notes and slipped them into my pocket, while I was gazing bewildered (I took six months to master the demons, somewhat).

I then quizzed my son what ATM stands for.

"Simple: Any Time Money"

I liked the new and crisp expansion.

This morning I had to draw cash urgently to pay our Carpenter (see tomorrow's blog). My son drove me along the Hyderabad boulevards and we found that all shops are closed. And we recalled that today is one of those frequent Hyderabad Bandhs (courtesy WB). Half a dozen ATMs were closed too, surprisingly.

However, to our delight, one ATM Counter was open, it looked. We walked in and found that the establishment also housed an Apollo 24/7 Medical Shop. And we asked if the ATM is on. And he asked for our ATM Card and smiled and said that he meant the green one. And we learned that his ATM sign meant:

"Any Time Medicine"

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The point I am belaboring is that the 26 or so English alphabet are hopelessly inadequate for acronyming purposes. And so the plethora of bewildering expansions.

How rich are our Indian Sanskrit-based languages!

We have about 53 single letters; and if we include single letter conjuncts, the number would be in hundreds.

Like my erstwhile girl friend in Class VI named:

"Lakshmiprasanna" (15 characters or so).

In Telugu she would just be 5 characters (what characters!)

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In my school we had enormous trouble mugging up expansions of the various UN Organs that were then nascent and went haywire in enthu.

We could just get UNESCO ok.

But we were bowled by: UNMOGIP (I had to Google for it just now).

On a lighter note, PM was Prime Minister and HM was Home Minister.

But in my home HM was my Head Master father and PM meant our Maid Servant in our lingo (Pani Manishi).

Of course PC there meant Personal Computer and not our troubled present HM of GoI, who was FM (not the radio) when the trouble brewed.

And you would have noted WB above.

Before I landed (luckily) in Bengal, WB always meant World Bank in our SS.

SS meant of course Social Studies but in our History lessons it meant the Nazi stormtroopers.

Damn!

That of course, the online Free Dictionary tells me could be one of:

Acronym
DAMN	Direct Action Media Network
DAMN	DC Action Medical Network
DAMN	Distributed Architecture for Mobile Navigation (robotics)
DAMN	Dallas Area Male Naturists (nudist group)
dAmn	deviant ART messaging network (chat)
DAMN	Dallas Area Motorcycle Network

OK???

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