The Happiness House?

“I don’t take his money, though. I steal something better.”, “I take his brightly colored storybook and make it mine.” says Lakshmi, the thirteen-year old protagonist of Sold by Patricia McCormick, who lived with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal, who was “sold” by her own father to a brothel house called the “Happiness House”, when one of the inmates, Harish or the David Beckham boy as she calls him, opens the world of books and letters for her. Upon reading the lines, one can discern the fervent yearning that emanates from this young girl's desire for education. Can a girl, who has been forced into prostitution after being “sold” by her stepfather, accomplish this goal?

“Happiness House”-see the irony? A place, where all her dreams were shattered, her body was seen as a mere commodity for sexual gratification, her “no hips” and “plain as porridge” appearance was cruelly treated by the men coming and going through the halls- named “The HAPPINESS House”. Sold, a traumatic novel by Patricia McCormick is a first-person limited-omniscient narrative from the point of view of the protagonist Lakshmi. It portrays the life of Lakshmi who once wondered what life would be beyond her mountains – “on those nights I lie restless in the sleeping loft, wondering what the world is like beyond my mountain home” and where life has led her to face the bitter realities where she finds comfort in her dreams and she wishes – “Perhaps if I close my eyes and fall asleep again, I can at least dream of home.”

The stereotypical representation of ‘woman’ can also be seen as Lakshmi “dreamed of names for our sons and daughters” along with Gita which depicts the male chauvinistic attitude that has been instilled in them that women are meant only for reproduction and taking care of the household. As Ama Ata Aidoo expresses in her poem ‘Motherhood and the Numbers Game’, women are considered as child bearing machines and are given no value for their abilities. The period of menstruation, superstitions, traditions and norms regarding the same are illustrated with utmost perfection focusing on the taboos the society creates for women. The concept of ‘purity’ of a woman can be seen through Ama’s words, where she tells Lakshmi – “You must stay out of sight for seven days.” , “Even the sun cannot see you until you’ve been purified.” It is during that period Lakshmi is told of certain rules and regulations she has to follow, being a ‘woman’. “Never look a man in the eye”, “And never look at growing pumpkins or cucumbers when you are bleeding”, “If you have a daughter, feed her at your breast for a season, so that your blood will start again and you can try once more to bear a son”, are some of the conditions to be followed by Lakshmi when she becomes a wife explained by Ama. And even in all these difficulties, she says, “simply to endure is to triumph.”

Oh! These are just stories we read, right? Do you really think so? In this modern era, where dowry deaths are just like a daily news, do you really think these are just stories? I don’t think so. Just look around and we can see women being ill-treated in the name of menstruation, we can see women beaten to death just because they couldn’t provide their husbands the money they demand, we can see children being raped without any gender differences. This is the society we are living in. We are living in this atrocious world where the Minister of Women and Child Development says that menstruation is not a “handicap” and there is no need for a leave policy. It is crucial that we advocate for change and support organizations working towards gender equality and empowerment of women. Do women really have to “endure” all these?

Namaste, the first word that Lakshmi hears when she walks into the ′Happiness House′ turns out to be utterly meaningless in her life as nothing spiritual or divine happens in her later life. The smile, with which she enters, drops soon as she walks the halls with the ‘bird face’, she hears grunting and see men coming and going through the halls. She doesn’t understand what is going on but, she knows that she doesn’t like it. She understands – “I don’t know what is going on, but it is not right, not right at all.” She finds it unable to “rinse the men” from her body. Even though they have physically gone away after the pleasure they have wanted to attain, the scars that they leave on the victimized never fades away. 

And it is at this point that she says, “I know something else as well. Each of us have different perspectives on freedom. “I know that I would endure a hundred punishments to be free of this place.” These lines tell us what “freedom” means to people like Lakshmi, all the Lakshmis around and within us.

Adithya. S, Assistant Professor of English, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna