Some Sizzling Scintillating Speculations

Thought for the day: Imagination is everything-it is the preview of life's coming attractions I know I promised a post on ‘What do I do’ this time, but, need time to sit and write the two main fields I’ve worked in, in the past two decades. Meantime, people who read the post and commented-Arunima, Shreya, Purba/those did not comment(haha), please treat this as a tag and tell me/us what you do. I’m sure it’ll be interesting. So, here’s an interim post till I pen that one. Enjoy! Have you noticed? From being mega, everything these days seems to be giga-gigga these days. Be it hard discs, RAMS , scams, or anything. Where scams are concerned, of course, one gigga= 1 crore…hence, no scam can be less than a few giggas, be it the telecom one or cow’s fodder or the CW games. Somehow, giga always reminds me of giggles- the kind people (usually the ladies?)contort their face into when they’re laughing- as we read so often in Enid Blyton’s books…and, the word giggles always brings a kin...

I often wonder how surnames are created. Who created the first surname of a generation, I mean- our ancestors a few hundred years back, yes. Did they always think of the surname based on some meaning, like in our Indian names? Many people are sur-named based on their ancestors' profession, for example, even though the later generations might no longer be wanting to do anything with it. Just some of the (un) usual surnames I've come across in the past few years: Barodawalla: An original resident of Baroda(But then, aren't we all Barodawallas or our specific city of origin wallas?) Similarly, there's Ujjainwala, Bikanerwala,Taraporewalla,Bardoliwala,  etc..But, I never heard of a Dilliwalla/Mumbaiwalla/Calcuttawalla/Madraswalla...why? Weren't people allowed to use the metro names? Or, didn't these cities exist at that time in the form they are now? Lakdawalla- Wood merchant Suthar- Carpenter Luhar- Blacksmiths Mistry-Ironmonger..similarly, there's Ta...