One thing about the Unicorn awed to me to no end - he was the perfect contradiction to the whole entire family. Tatha was as cheerful as it gets and so was grandma. My own mom, Half a decade older to the Unicorn, wasn't bad either when it came to words like humor and cheerfulness. I sometimes wondered if Unicorn was found in some village fair, abandoned by an unwed mother? - The only thing that made me believe that he was indeed blood, was his nose - which looked every bit my nose's predecessor. The resemblance was so obvious that I'd noticed it the moment I could make sense of the things around me.
Tatha's house consisted of a cart load of characters - good, not so good and in between. Dammu (short form for Damayanthi) was a radiant young woman in her early twenties. She had the complexion that matched dad's extra strong filter coffee and eyes that bent ever so slightly upward, giving her the animated "bambi" look. Her braid was wholesome. It had the circumference of a grown up wrist. her waist tapered and peeked out of her Sari folds, showing off her perfectly chiseled midriff. Dammu was every bit a beauty, I could not help but wonder why she washed dishes and clothes in Tatha's house instead of taking the next train to tollywood - Dammu's fairy land. She used to tell me stories of the films she used to watch, which were too many to keep count. Sridevi was her favourite movie star. She often used to match her velvet bindi with her saree - kind of like a tribute to her matinee idol, she once told me. Dammu was liked by one and all looked thru by the Unicorn and loathed by a couple of people that frequented to tatha's house - Kamalamma the crooked smiled cook and Seethalu the retired maid in her late sixties for personal and professional reasons respectively.
