QSQT

Used to be short for Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak , the 1988 Amir Khan-starrer. A cutesy abbreviation replacing the original long-winded title: that made sense. But then came HAHK, which sounds like a paan-chewing lala clearing his throat (not spitting out the paan, for that we'll have to wait for the sequel HAHK-2), followed by DDLJ and RHTDM and the calculatedly cool K3G, and god knows what else. The trend seems to have vanished, these days Bollywood prefers terse Hindi titles with nonsensical English tags, as in Adaa: Will Kill U.

And so, the corporate world has moved in, putting QSQT to work after all these years. In its new rolled-up-sleeves avatar, the acronym stands for 'Quarter se Quarter tak'. For the Indian manager, that means a competitive scenario in which the pressure is on showing quarterly results, perhaps at the cost of long-term planning. The situation's fairly bleak if you're surviving QSQT, from quarter to quarter.

Although Nilekani admits that "our lives run quarter se quarter tak, qsqt" because of stockmarket pressures, Infosys has already chalked out a new blueprint to be the largest global software company.(Outlook, May 10, 2004)

After the economic reforms, the competition is far greater, and like the west, there is pressure for every quarter’s results. That’s why the investors are pushing us... The QSQT phenomena as they call it, quarter se, quarter tak. (Anu Aga & Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7’s Walk-The-Talk, October 12, 2004)

The QSQT – quarter se quarter tak – result of opportunities reveals that the leash on recruitment facing India Inc is loosening and there are jobs aplenty up for grabs. ("Jobs claw back from the cold", The Telegraph, December 20, 2002)