S. Blixt post # 3

How do one put prostitution down on the pages of a book? How does one transfer the pain, fear, confusion, and anger that somebody like Lakshmi, the main character of Sold , experiences with every passing second in the Happiness House. The author Patricia McCormick does it with grace and and through the eyes of a 13 year old girl sold into prostitution, Lakshmi translates this horrible element of everyday life in India in an innocent and afraid, and candid tone. She writes with compassion and incorporates colloquial language.

"The train stopped at a giant metal hut. Through the window, I can see a man with a grill stacked with a hundred roti "

"...................I go weak with wanting."

"For you," he says.

I go weak with gratitude. Uncle Husband isn't young and handsome like Krishna, and I can never tell when he might grow angry and slap me. But I am grateful, in this strange new world of moving thunder and invisible borders, that he is my Uncle Husband.

Lakshmi is innocent, and almost naive she is unaware of the fact that her "Uncle Husband" is a bad man, he is just as bad and threatening to her life as the "big men with guns". At first she is scared and feels uncomfortable and unsafe with this man, but by the grateful tone laced with what almost seems like admiration, it is just even more clear that what is being done to her is so wrong. She was already fooled into believing her life in the city had hope, and now she is grateful for the man that is sending her to a place where her innocence is stolen from her. It may just be the hunger speaking, she is a "mountain girl" and the "roti", or Indian style bread, is a source of comfort for not just her mind but her empty stomach. The author captures brutal moments like these in candid, simplistic, and blunt way. She writes in short, declarative, almost thoughts with wide spaces in between that leave you shuddering after every quick page. It is almost unbelievable how McCormick packs so much emotion, question and thought into less than a dozen words on some pages.

"There is a bucket of water next to my bed.

No matter how often I wash

and scrub

and wash

and scrub

I cannot seem to rinse the men from my body."

The author creates a vivid image in my mind, of a thin dark girl, her skin covered in raw sores from a leather strap, and bloody from the last men forced on her, she tries to wash away the pain, wash away her new reality. Her images intensify when she uses language like "rickshaw" and "first blood" it reminds me that this is still going on today in India, and also reminds me that even though they speak in a different tongue in India, the emotions Lakshmi feels are as valid and precise as any other person who was sold.