The Unsaid

Chapter 2 - Pallavi

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Bangaaram- means Gold in Telugu. Used to refer someone with love, for example referring a child as "Precious"

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Pallavi frowned at her mother. "Mom! How much more time! You have already bought so many vegetables!"

"Don't irritate me more now. Come with me to that stall!" her mother caught her wrist and dragged her towards another vegetable stall.

Her mother turned towards the vendor.

"How much money for the tomatoes?"

"Ninety"

"Give it for seventy"

The vendor raised her eyebrows at her. "What? You paid a hundred for the same veggies last week... remember?"

"Ya ya ... I know ... but I also know that prices have dropped since last week"

Pallavi breathed in and out, frustrated with the pointless waiting and counted reverse from hundred.

After listening to a few more minutes of back and forth between her mom and the vendor, she could not hold herself anymore.

"Mom! It's just twenty rupees..."

Her mom glared at her. "You stay quite! You don't know the value of money at all. Just twenty rupees! We are providing everything to you without asking. That is why you have become like this!"

"Mom!"

The vendor looked back and forth between mother and daughter in amusement.

She packed the veggies and handed them out.

"I am not going to pay you one more rupee than seventy five!"

The woman smiled. "Keep the fifteen rupees with you on my behalf. Consider that I am giving it for your sweet daughter."

Pallavi smiled. Vijaya raised her eyebrows in mild surprise, but after a couple of seconds, counted seventy five rupees and handed it to her.

"Are you looking for matches for her? She sure is very fair and good looking"

For the first time, her mother softened at the vendor.

"Yes... we just started looking."

Pallavi stared at her mother, awed by how effortlessly she was lying. They had been actually been searching for a groom since two years.

"Well...She should get a good match. If only she had a little more height, she would have been the perfect bride" the woman mused.

Pallavi's smile disappeared briefly but she regained her composure instantly. She was well aware of her strengths and shortcomings. Her mother's face hardened. She held Pallavi's hand and muttered, "let's go bangaram."

Pallavi wasn't that bothered by the vendor's remark. Many prospective grooms had rejected her before even seeing her in person because of her height of five feet and two inches. The ideal height for a girl was between five feet four inches and five feet six inches. If you are shorter or taller than that then, well, you have a minus point. Of course, she had the advantage of her skin color. Pallavi knew that she was considered beautiful by many because she was fair. Not that she minded the attention. But there were days when she wished for skin as tolerant as her friend Swapna's. Swapna, by the way was always rated less in beauty by others than her because of her wheatish complexion.