Being human means that in order to make themselves feel better, you feel like you often have to put down other people to get there. This is a cruel way to make more of your self esteem. It goes into the aspect of "being on on top". In order to feel confident in themselves people have to constantly remind themselves that they are better than others. In retrospect do you really have to destroy other people to make yourself feel better?
Because his arm was broken as a child and his family never had the money to fix it, Lakshimi's step father's arm is useless. He is not able to work becasue of it so he spends his days playing cards with other men. At night he goes to the tea shop to gamble, only to come home and have to sell his family's belongings becasue he bit off more than he could chew gambling. Lakshimi's step father tries to make himself feel better by gambling. When he loses he takes it out on his family, and they are the ones who have to pay for it. When he wins he buys himself expensive unnessary items to make himself feel better. While his family have to sell their crops in order to pay off his gambling debt he spends the money they could be using to fix their roof or buy food on fancy city clothes for himself. Is making more of your self esteem all but a game?
I think that you have a great point that humans naturally want to put others down to raise themselves up. It is something so built into us that we do it all the time unconsciously. Just looking around their is so much evidence of this and in the book i think that the brothels are a place where men can use girls to make them feel like they have the power and superiority. Even Mumtaz, the owner of Happiness House, always puts the gils working their down and tricking them with always raising their debt to her so she feels in control.
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