Anew era in the area of abbreviations has begun and we better get ready for it. Let me admit, I was not prepared for it because of the belief that the Era of Abbreviations (EOA) in India was finally over. It had harassed millions of students at various levels and I was ready to bid good bye to it.
What was my problem with abbreviations? If anyone had been in my position, they would have understood it. Since everyone in my family was keen I should prepare for the All India Competitive Examinations held by the UPSC (there I go with the cursed abbreviations) which included current affairs and general knowledge, I better be ready for them with a thorough study of the cursed abbreviations.
My problem was a strong dislike for abbreviations. God had given us nice, long names covering every single living thing and why do we have to shorten it. Somehow I developed an inborn aversion for abbreviations. But was defeated at every step. The more I wanted to lengthen language, the more I found words and phrases becoming longer. Life was getting intolerable. I passed SSLC from the south, but it got abbreviated to SSC as I moved north and westwards. The main reason for my failing current affairs in the UPSC examinations was the large number of ‘Expand the following’ abbreviations: BBC, AIR, UNESCO, UNICEF, DRDO, MGM, SEATO and so on. As the number of such questions went up, my performances went down. It was an unequal battle.
What has all this to do with food? I am coming to that. Whatever one can think or say about me, no one can deny I am a good trencherman and I insist that my food should taste well, smell and sound well. As the media began to publish more and more about GM – genetically modified food, my hopes grew. I liked its majestic, long, uncluttered definition. “Foods derived from organisms whose genetic material is modified in a way that is not natural, through the introduction of a gene for different organisms”. I was even more impressed with the promised hope that while today GM foods were only from plants, soon we will have GM foods from microorganisms or GM animals. Do you know that alternate modification will be by altering the nutritent content of food, reducing its allergic potential. Grand!
Let me confess, at the outset I did not know much of what GM stood for. This also happened when the US auto industry announced a massive strike of all car manufacturers and the word ‘GM’ was freely mentioned. Everyone at Detroit (headquarters of the US car industry) talked of the strike which also affected General Motors (GM) the largest US automaker. Since I had never owned a car the GM abbreviation was lost on me!
The first clue that GM could have something to with food in India came to me when an Indian food expert suggested we should accelerate field crop trials of our GM crop with the ICAR (Indian council of Agricultural Research, there we go again!) and state agriculture universities.
Aha, I got it, GM had something to do with foodgrains and not cars. Then I learnt that our scientists were developing new GM strains of our major crops like rice, wheat, maize, potato, brinjal and mustard as well as sugarcane and chick peas. Do we really need them? Don’t we have enough strains in rice, wheat or maize? Most of us are aware about the havoc caused by our caste system (FC, BC, SC, ST, OBC) and do we want a repeat of this with our foodgrains? And if the new strains in brinjal bring about new tastes, different from fried brinjal sabji I will not vote for it because it is my favourite vegetable. Even Dr.M.S. Swaminathan should leave fried brinjal sabji alone.
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V. Gangadhar
The writer is a well-known satirist.[/column]