Sold

“Now that Gita is gone, to work as a maid for a wealthy

woman in the city, her family has a tiny glass sun that hangs

from a wire in the middle of their ceiling, a new set of pots

for Gita’s mother, a pair of spectacles for her father, a

brocaded wedding dress for her older sister, and school

fees for her little brother.

Inside Gita’s hut, it is daytime at night.

But for me, it feels like nighttime even in the brightest sun

without my friend.”

The metaphor of a glass sun to describe a light shows Lakshmi’s lack of experience with electricity and other modern technologies, which results in extreme disorientation and culture shock when she eventually leaves her village. Also, this quote shows that although Lakshmi wants to go away and work to provide for her family, she also views this practice as problematic because it suggests that material goods and other luxuries are more important than having all of one’s children together and safe.

“I treat them all as my children.

But sometimes, if my water jug runs low, I scrimp a bit on

Naazma.”

Lakshmi names each of her cucumbers, demonstrating her commitment to them and how she treats them as “children.” She appears to be using this metaphor to understand why someone would send one child away or risk their safety to ensure the well-being of others. Since gender does not apply to cucumbers, she focuses on appearance instead, which still exhibits the strange logic of prioritizing one “child” over another based on gender or appearance. Naazma is the ugliest cucumber, but this doesn’t mean it will be the least nutritious or taste the worst. Essentially, she understands the concept of not having enough resources to go around, but she doesn’t necessarily understand how people choose which child to send away or why.

“EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW

Before today, Ama says, you could run as free as a leaf in

the wind.

Now, she says, you must carry yourself with modesty, bow

your head in the presence of men, and cover yourself with

your shawl.

Never look a man in the eye.

Never allow yourself to be alone with a man who is not family.”

Ama uses the simile of a leaf in the wind to explain the relative freedom that her daughter enjoyed as a prepubescent child. Now that Lakshmi has had her first period, Lakshmi’s mother explains certain new rules that she must follow. Ironically, shortly after this, her stepfather sells her into commercial sexual exploitation, where she is forced to break all the rules her mother teaches her. The title is also ironic because her mother claims that these are the things Lakshmi needs to know, but her mother does not know what will happen to Lakshmi and is trying to prepare her for a future different than the one in store for her.

“MAYBE TOMORROW…

‘Maybe tomorrow, Ama,’ I say.

My stepfather rises from his cot. ‘If the rains don’t come

soon,’ he says to my mother, ‘you will have to sell your

earrings.’

Yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that, Ama

would have said, ‘Never.’ She would have said, ‘Those are

for Lakshmi. They are her dowry.’

But today she hangs her head like the paddy plants and says,

‘Maybe tomorrow.’”

The repetition of “maybe tomorrow” takes on different meanings in different contexts, illustrating how things can change in a short period of time. After many days of no rain, Ama considers selling Lakshmi’s dowry, which she never would have done before. Although this is not a complete sacrifice of Lakshmi’s future, it’s a step in that direction that foreshadows her stepfather’s complete sacrifice of her childhood and her future when he sells her into commercial sexual exploitation.

“My stepfather scowls, but he does not say anything. On any

other day, he would not tolerate such defiance, especially

from a mere girl.

But today, I am no mere girl.”

After Lakshmi’s stepfather sells her, he begins putting items in his cart, and Lakshmi adds a Coca-Cola for her mother. She feels proud that she has made so much money for her family, which makes her feel more like an adult than a “mere girl.” This is ironic because she doesn’t yet understand that she has been sold into commercial sexual exploitation and her childhood is being stolen.

“It is a new world.

But there is one constant:

the mighty swallow-tailed peak.

It grows smaller the farther we walk,

but still, it is always there, waiting to guide me back.”

The world beyond Lakshmi’s village, which she has never left before, is so strange to her that the only “constant” is that it is nothing like her home. She focuses on the mountain, believing it will one day lead her back, which also shows how little she knows of the outside world and how she would be unable to find her way back home on the strength of memory alone.

“He wheels around and slaps Auntie across the face, and she

turns from a woman of queenly bearing to a frightened child.”

Auntie Bimla, who accompanies Lakshmi for part of her journey before passing her off to Uncle Husband, is normally very tough, but when she encounters this other person she works either with or for, she metaphorically becomes a “frightened child.” This illustrates how, even though some people in this “new world” seem powerful, there is still a hierarchy and sometimes they must answer to others, before whom they no longer seem so powerful.

“‘From now on,’ he says, ‘I will be your uncle. But you must call

me husband. Do you understand?’

I don’t. Not at all. But I nod.”

Throughout the text, repetition occurs when people ask Lakshmi if she understands something that she doesn’t understand. This quote also foreshadows the inevitability of struggling against the life of sexual exploitation that awaits her at the end of her journey, for her role in this life is to obediently accept whatever will be done to her, without seeking to either understand or resist.

“In the weak morning light, I see that the girls are wearing

dresses of every color. They have heavy silver bangles on

their wrists and ankles, and earrings of gold and jewels.

Their eyes are painted with black crayon, and their lips are

drawn on like red chilis.

At home, these girls would be up at darn to do their chores,

not sleeping in their festival clothes until the midday meal.

I wonder if perhaps this Happiness House is where the

movie stars live.”

The imagery in this passage expresses the glamor of the women and girls working at the brothel, which Lakshmi has never seen before. Because of this, she compares them to movie stars, something else she hasn’t seen but understands is fancy. This also echoes how she earlier asked if Auntie Bimla is a movie star. Lakshmi is extremely sheltered and has no idea what is happening to her, and her ignorance at the outset makes it all the harder for her to learn how to escape.

“I see my face reflected in a silver glass on the wall. Another

Lakshmi looks back at me. She has black-rimmed tiger eyes,

a mouth red as a pomegranate, and flowing hair like the tiny

gold-pants woman in the TV.

She is fancy, like Auntie Bimla, like a movie star, like these

other city girls.

I smile at this new Lakshmi. And she smiles back. Uncertainly.”

This quotation shows the first time Lakshmi regards her own reflection at the mirror as being either a new or a different person, shortly after she arrives at the brothel but before realizing the reality of her new environment. While in this instance, she is childishly pleased by her appearance, regarding her reflection as a different person will come to emphasize the dissociation caused by her extensive trauma.

“[A]nother sound interrupts the rhythmic thud of the headboard.

I know this noise from somewhere.

I work very hard to make it out.

Finally, I identify it.

It is the muffled sound of sobbing.

Habib rolls off me.

Then I understand: I was the person crying.”

The imagery in this passage illustrates the extent to which Mumtaz’s drugs have inhibited Lakshmi’s ability to resist being raped or even to process what is happening in the moment. The repetition and variation at the end signals that she has had a turning point; she now understands exactly what is happening, or so she thinks.

“Then I catch sight of the girl in the mirror.

She has blackened tiger eyes and bleary chili pepper lips.

She looks back at me full of sadness and scorn and says,

You have become one of them.”

Before being raped, Lakshmi is interested in being “one of them,” meaning city girls or movie stars. However, now that she has seen what the makeup is for and now that it has been smudged by her tears, she sees herself completely differently, and being and “one of them” thus takes on a much more sinister significance.

“I cannot tell which of the things they do to me are real,

and which are nightmares.

I decide to think that it is all a nightmare.

Because if what is happening is real,

it is unbearable.”

This quote illustrates the extent to which Mumtaz’s drugs have affected Lakshmi’s perception of reality, and it also develops the theme of Deception and Truth by showing how it is possible to deceive oneself. Throughout the book, various characters fantasize or “pretend” about the future as a coping mechanism, believing that they can one day buy a new dress or escape their situation. Here, Lakshmi doesn’t know what to do because she’s still in shock and is drugged, so she decides to believe that it is all a nightmare. This coping mechanism may help her to endure for moment, but she eventually has to find a balance between hope and reason in order to engineer her own rescue and the rescue of the other girls.

“But if you are lucky,

or if you work hard at it,

you hear nothing.

Nothing, perhaps, but the clicking of the fan overhead,

the steady ticking away of seconds

until it is over.

Until it starts again.”

Previously, Lakshmi did not know what electric ceiling fans were and referred to them as “palm frond machines”; now, the use of the word “fan” shows that she has been in this environment long enough to gain familiarity with things that were once wonders to her childish eyes. This quote also shows her coping mechanism of focusing on small details like sounds instead of the fact that she is being sexually exploited and abused.

“Now I practice these memories each morning and night,

the way my teacher taught me to drill my maths.

Still, there is one image that I cannot forget, no matter how

I try.

One stubborn memory that nudges the others out of my head:

Ama’s face as she imagined the comfort of a tin roof.

Trying to remember, I have learned,

is like trying to clutch a handful of fog.

Trying to forget,

like trying to hold back the monsoon.”

Lakshmi compares “practicing” memories to school drills to show how, the longer she is away, the more disconnected she feels from home and her former life. This dynamic also shows how the same things she excelled at in school help her get by and triumph in this terrible situation. Her simile of a monsoon to describe what it is like to try and forget a memory that is seared into her mind is more sinister because of the memory of the monsoon that ruined her family’s rice crop and precipitated the string of events that resulted in her being here now.

“Sometimes, I pretend that what goes on at night when the

customers are here is not something that is happening to

me. I pretend it is a TV show that I am watching from far, far

away. I pretend I have a button I press to make everything

go quiet. And another one that makes me disappear.”

At this point, Lakshmi is still using the daydreaming skills her mother taught her to try and imagine her way out of her current situation. Having learned about television and remote controls, she uses this as a metaphor for what she wishes she had: a way to mute the world or disappear herself from it.

“‘Okay, then,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you a lesson when I get home

from school tomorrow.’

And then he is gone. Leaving me to consider how long it has

been since a tomorrow meant anything to me.”

Throughout the text, people say something to Lakshmi and then leave the room, with the repetition of a phrase similar to, “And then he is gone.” This has different effects depending on who is speaking and what they say, but in this case it shows how powerful literacy is and how much Lakshmi looks forward to learning some of the local language. This type of hope or joy is dangerous to tyrants like Mumtaz who want to “break” people in order to make it easier to keep them enslaved.

“I learned some sentences, too:

‘My name is Lakshmi.’

‘I am from Nepal.’

‘I am thirteen.’”

Lakshmi learns to say these sentences in the local languages, which are repeated to achieve different effects throughout the novel. The sentences are identity-affirming, stating her name, which she rarely hears now at the brothel. They are also the exact sentences she’ll need to say a few times to get rescued. This shows the importance of literacy as well as friendship as tools that can help with liberation.

“...I consider myself

in the mirror. My plain self, not the self wearing lipstick and

eyeliner and a flimsy dress.

Sometimes I see a girl who is growing into womanhood.

Other days I see a girl growing old before her time.

It doesn’t matter, of course. Because no one will ever want

me now.”

Lakshmi continues regarding her reflection in mirrors as a different or changed person. Now, rather than always seeming to be one way or the other, she sees different versions of this “other girl” at different times, signifying that something is changing once again in her. She also muses that her appearance doesn’t actually matter to her anymore, but she’s focused on what emotions she can glean from the reflected girl’s expression. This quote also introduces how her reflection is starting to look “older” because of the trauma that Lakshmi has experienced.

“A piece of me

has left Happiness House.”

After Lakshmi makes a soccer ball for Harish out of her old clothing, he kicks it down the street happily, because he doesn’t have a ball and is always kicking around other small objects. Lakshmi uses her clothing as a metaphor for her “self” and rejoices that part of her has left the brothel even if she hasn’t actually escaped yet.

“The face that looks back is that of

A corpse.

Her eyes are empty. She is old and tired. Old and angry.

Old and sad. Old, old, a hundred years old.

I speak to her in the words Harish taught me:

‘My name is Lakshmi,’ I tell her. ‘I am from Nepal.

I am thirteen years old.’”

Her experiences at the brothel all “age” Lakshmi and her reflection because she is exposed to sexual abuse, pain, trauma, and gaslighting beyond what any child should ever be exposed to. However, one of the hardest experiences she endures at this place is losing her best friend, Shahanna, and now knowing what fate has in store for her, causing her to “age” to “100.”

“Mumtaz is a monster, I tell myself. Only a monster could do

what she does to innocent girls.

But I wonder. If the crying of a young girl is the same to me

as the bleating of the horns in the street below, what have

I become?”

Not knowing Mumtaz’s backstory or why she subjects innocent children to rape and throws children and sick women out to die, Lakshmi uses the metaphor of a “monster” to describe her. To Lakshmi, Mumtaz seems so one-dimensionally evil that she is not even human. Lakshmi also considers how she, herself, has been changed by this experience. Although she is not a monster, she no longer is so moved by hearing other people’s cries, having become accustomed to it. This passage also gives a nod to Shilpa, who was once a sexually exploited child and now condemns other children to the same fate.

“It is true!

A dozen tiny fireworks go off on my tongue. I cannot help

but smile.”

Lakshmi is delighted when the Street Boy gives her a Coca-Cola, which she always wanted to try and that she once bought for her mother. Coca-Cola also symbolizes America, and Lakshmi has been trying to sort out the truth from the rumors about whether certain Americans might be a help to her. The fact that Coca-Cola tastes good as promised foreshadows how one American is actually a good person who helps to rescue Lakshmi.