Anatomy of a misunderstanding

This will make a lot of sense if you understand Telugu, but should be enjoyable regardless.

As some of you know, my brother's getting married in a couple of weeks. As the mother of the groom, my mother was suggesting a few (ok, a lot) additions to the wedding to the mother of the bride. The fact that the bride's mother is Tamilian while my mother is Telugu wasn't helping in this process. One of the suggestions she made was that the bride should have a "kanda pilaka" tied to her waist.

A step back here. The tradition is that the bride should have a "kanda", a yam, tied to her waist either at the ceremony, or as she enters the house of her inlaws. Since it should be a whole yam, the more colloquial thing to do is to use a small yam. A "kanda pilaka" is a yam sapling, or the stem of a yam plant.

Somewhere in process of conveying the idea that we need to use a small yam, my mom accidentally said "kanda pilaka". Of course, this was said while giving a list of other items the bride needs to bring to the home of the inlaws, which included a lot of silver items. So suddenly, the item the bride needs to have tied to her waist became a "vendi kanda pilaka" - a silver yam sapling!

So if you see my sister-in-law with a plant tied to her waist, don't be alarmed, it's just a misunderstanding.