The dialect spoken in gold
The mangalsutra a woman wears in Pune looks nothing like the one her counterpart wears in Chennai. One is black beads strung on gold thread. The other is a thali tied with turmeric cord at the wedding and later restrung on a gold chain. Both signal the same social fact: married. But to different gods, different castes, different geographies. The jewellery does not just decorate. It speaks a dialect.
