As If They Have Control.

Ten Thousand Rupees = 1 Girl.

Sorry, that wasn't clear. Let me say it again.

Ten Thousand Rupees = 1 Girl.

Ten Thousand Rupees = 1 Person.

Ten Thousand Rupees = 1 Human Being

Ten Thousand Rupees, in what ever tragic, heart shattering world Lakshmi lives in, someone just like you, is worth

Ten Thousand Rupees.

I can't even bare to imagine selling a human.

A Human.

I could not be more serious.

I literally just tried to right this next part 6 times. I can't get the words out. I just can't seem to figure this out. I know this destruction of lives has no answer. I know that if you ever tried to help it and solve it would be like holding the wind.

You can't do it.

It's not a matter of how hard you try, it's the plain, boring, selfish, rude, and cold fact that you just can't.

Lakshmi lives in the mountains. And while no one's life is perfect, our lives seem to be compared to hers. But still. Her stepfather may lose all their money. A monsoon may have swept away her crops. Her only chance.

The fact is, while all these things in the mountains were going on, Lakshmi always had a little glisten a hope. Sometimes to be projected, sometimes not. But no matter what, there was always that sweet, short entry in the book Sold by Patricia McCormick that helped us understand that in Lakshmi's mind, there was a little dot of light. No one else could really see it, but it was always Lakshmi who was able to see things through not so dark, gloomy, hopeless eyes.

In the innocent movie Sky High, Will Stronghold and Warren Peace get into a fight in the cafeteria. Being a magical high school, the detention room is a room the takes away all ability to use your super powers. Once you leave the room, you are granted your powers back again.

I will return to this later, I promise.

While of the course of four days Lakshmi has had an aunt, an uncle, and a husband, there was always hope. There was always a speck of a smile hiding under her Sari, you just couldn't always see it. Once brought to the "Happiness House" described as by her Uncle Husband, Lakshmi realizes she has been sold into prostitution.

And may I bring to your attention once again, for Ten Thousand Rupees.

And while I don't want to take up 6 lines like I did before just repeating that one line, I feel as though I can't emphasize it enough.

Dear reader, this poor child has been sold to the broken life for Ten Thousand Rupees. And she doesn't even realize it until she's trying to run away.

Dear reader, with her Auntie and her Uncle Husband even though we couldn't see her hope, and even though it wasn't being described to us, it was still there.

This, reader, was the first time in 113 pages that I couldn't find her hope. The hope.

The only hope, ever.

Lakshmi didn't even know what this place was, and what she was going to do here until it was happening to her right then and there.

And you want to know why she was where she was?

Because she was sold for Ten. Thousand. Rupees.

And the thing that makes me want to scream more than anything is trying to accept the fact that it's not like she had any control what so ever.

As if she could say no to her stepfather for making her go the city.

As if she could get up and walk away from Uncle Husband.

As if she could turn to Auntie and say, "You know what, I don't want to."

As if she could tell her step father the truth, that he was ruining everything.

As if she could tell him he was the reason everything was falling apart.

As if she could tell him he was the reason she was going to the city in the first place.

As if.

As if she'll ever get out of the Happiness House, which really isn't that happy at all. In fact, it's nothing. It's like the detention at Sky High. Except for the fact that there, you can just get up and leave and everything will be back to normal.

But not in Lakshmi's world.

Oh no.

Because.

"...no matter how often I wash

and scrub

and wash

and scrub,

I cannot seem to rinse the men from my body." -Page 129