Summary
Using the skills she learns in school, Lakshmi calculates how long she will need to be in the brothel to pay back her debt. However, Shahanna explains that Mumtaz takes most of the money. Monica, the most popular woman in the brothel, offers to teach Lakshmi her tricks, saying that she is close to paying off her debt. Lakshmi, intimated by and judgmental of Monica, declines.
Lakshmi calls Pushpa’s son, Harish, the “David Beckham boy” because he proudly wears the soccer player’s jersey. Despite living in Happiness House, Harish has an ordinary life, going to school and making money running errands for the women and their customers. Jealous of Harish’s life, Lakshmi reads his books and pretends she is in school again. One day, Harish catches Lakshmi and offers to share his storybooks and teach Lakshmi to read English and Hindi.
Shahanna explains that Anita escaped from the brothel once, and the goondas, Mumtaz’s henchmen, hunted her down and beat her with a metal pipe. Now, because her face is damaged, Anita cannot smile “even if she had a reason to.”
When the television breaks, Monica explains the plot of a romantic movie to the other women. Monica, the highest earner, and Shilpa, Mumtaz’s spy, are permitted to go to the movies. Monica will not run away, as she has a child at home, and Mumtaz will maim the child and sell it to a beggar.
Monica, though she is given to fits of temper, protects the other women. She and Lakshmi connect, and she explains that she pays for her family’s expenses and believes she will be honored when she returns home. Lakshmi confides that she is helping her family pay for a tin roof. When Monica leaves, she gives away all her possessions to the other girls; to Lakshmi, she gifts a movie magazine.
On the day of the festival of brothers and sisters, Harish buys his infant sister a doll and gives Lakshmi a yellow pencil. This act of kindness makes Lakshmi cry. In return, Lakshmi makes him a soccer ball out of her ragged shawl that no longer smells of home.
A young man sleeps with Lakshmi, and gently holds her afterward. Lakshmi is comforted by this gesture. Lakshmi then becomes feverishly ill and dreams Gita, Bimla, and an American doctor giving her pills. She realizes it is just Mumtaz, who charges her for the pills. When Lakshmi sees herself in the mirror, she looks dead and old.
Monica returns after her father beat her for trying to return home; her family even told her daughter Monica died. Though clearly devastated, Monica pretends to be happy to be back. Later, Pushpa is too ill to work. Mumtaz threatens to kick the family out of the brothel unless Pushpa sells her daughter to Mumtaz to work when she is old enough. In her despair, Pushpa cries a “sound beyond language” and packs up her family. Harish, now the family's sole provider, gives Lakshmi his storybook.
Without Harish, Lakshmi grows despondent. Monica gives Lakshmi a rag doll “loved almost beyond recognition” to sleep with, saying Lakshmi can pretend it is Harish. With Harish gone, Lakshmi repeats her name and her phrase since now no one says her name. Monica is thrown out of the brothel after she contracts HIV, which the women simply refer to as “the virus.”
An American man asks Lakshmi if she wants to leave and gives her a business card. Lakshmi does not understand what he is offering and is offended by his pity. Shahanna pleads with Lakshmi to help her escape, and later, authorities raid the brothel and take Shahanna. Some believe the raid was by the police, as Mumtaz was behind on her payments, and others are convinced Americans did it. Lakshmi blames herself for Shahanna’s disappearance. Depressed, Lakshmi lies in bed reading her book, allowing customers to sleep with her while she lays, unmoving. Anita pleads with Lakshmi to get out of bed, as Mumtaz plans to sell Lakshmi to another brothel. Anita then explains her plan to lock herself in a cupboard during the next raid. An American then visits Lakshmi, and she hands him the card the first American gave her, but he is as violent and drunk as any other client.
Analysis
Lakshmi overhears that the men pay thirty rupees to sleep with her, the equivalent price of a Coca-Cola at Bajai Sita’s store in her home village. Lakshmi uses this disheartening information to calculate how many customers she will need to service to pay off her debt to Mumtaz and return home. However, Shahanna lists all the expenses Mumtaz deducts from Lakshmi’s earnings. The expenses are listed, one after the other, in sentence fragments, which simulates Lakshmi’s sense of being “buried alive” by her debts.
Like Harish, Lakshmi used to live a relatively normal life with her family. However, after being sold, her sense of what constitutes a “normal” life becomes warped, and Harish’s upbringing in a brothel appears idyllic. Harish and Lakshmi share a few key commonalities. First, both of their lives were upended by the death of their father. Second, both Lakshmi and Harish care for an infant sibling and an overburdened mother. Lastly, what connects Lakshmi and Harish is their mutual love of learning. Lakshmi lists what she knows about Harish in the chapter “An ordinary boy.” By beginning each observation with the statement “I know,” the text suggests that Lakshmi has been carefully watching Harish for a while.
Shahanna’s explanation of the goondas and corrupt police officers show how institutionalized child sex trafficking is. This story also speaks to the theme of the commodification of sexuality, as Mumtaz and the police go to great lengths to protect and maintain their “assets.” Anita’s story adds an additional layer of hopelessness to Lakshmi’s situation.
Lakshmi pretends that the abuse she suffers is analogous to a television show that can be turned on and off or muted. This intentional pretending is a clear example of the theme of escapism.
As Lakshmi and Harish continue their lessons, Lakshmi lists the words she learns in English and Hindi. She learns simple words and how to say, “My name is Lakshmi. I am from Nepal. I am thirteen,” a phrase that becomes her mantra.
Monica agrees to act out the movies, pretending to be confused by the request, as she “loves movies more than anything in the world.” This statement is slightly ironic because Monica later reveals that she works in Happiness House to pay for her daughter’s school fees and her father’s medical expenses. Monica’s story tells the tale of a girl who fell in love with a boy at a festival but was dragged home by her father and betrothed to a stranger. On the day of her wedding, the groom is revealed as the boy she loved. This movie plot is an allegory for Monica’s hope in Happiness House. She believes that despite making money from what her family considers a “shameful” profession, she will have her happy ending when she returns home. The girls in Happiness House fixate on tales of love and romance, though love and romance are not accessible joys for them.
Lakshmi avoids talking to the tea salesman because she does not want a fellow Nepalese person to see her “in this shameful place.” Lakshmi again struggles with her feelings of shame, though she was kidnapped and brought to Happiness House through no fault of her own. Throughout the text, as Lakshmi learns more about the sex trade, her sense of dignity decreases.
The English words Lakshmi learns, like “Big Bird” and “ice cream,” confuse Lakshmi, who imagines America as a surreal, strange place. The words she learns emphasize that, despite her circumstances, Lakshmi is still a child. When a young man holds her after sex, Lakshmi feels indebted to him and counts the days until he returns, though he never does.
Lakshmi says that the pencil Harish gives her smells like “lead and rubber. And possibility,” mirroring the way she described Bimla’s scent as “ amber and jasmine and possibility.” This description of the pencil’s scent indicates that Lakshmi’s education will be her salvation, as she initially thought Bimla’s offer would be her family’s saving grace.
While examining her reflection, Lakshmi repeats the word “old,” and sounds like she is losing her composure. To steady herself, she speaks the phrase, “My name is Lakshmi. I am from Nepal. I am thirteen years old” to her reflection. Lakshmi’s repetition and lists are used to viscerally express her emotional state and her struggle to find hope.
Lakshmi refuses to go with the first American because she fears shame. She is embarrassed that his attempt to rescue her makes her see the truth of “the humiliation that is [her] life.” She also believes that the Americans will shame her by stripping her naked and calling her a “dirty woman.” Lakshmi’s sense of shame is so strong, reinforced by Mumtaz and her customers, that she misses several opportunities to leave Happiness House.
