But as the topic of the work, namely, female trafficking and prostitution, is so close to Nepali homes and hearts, there is always the wish that the novel had not been at times turned into a hotchpotch of pseudo-realistic fiction and sundry (read potboiler) movies. In fact, the novel begins in one of those sentimental story forms, with our heroine, the sprightly thirteen year old Lakshmi, surviving the inanities of her stepfather with a warm cuddle from the affectionate, practical mother. Even amidst the hardship, there is romanticizing about the bracing mountain air and long, soaking rains. Life is, to make an apt comparison, slightly Heidi-ish for our girl.
Until the family is besieged by one hardship after another, and our feisty Lakshmi, lured by the dream of providing a tin roof for the family, leaves with a stranger in a yellow dress, hoping to work as a maid in the city. From then on follows the plot that can be found in every story and movie dealing with this theme – the subtle passage over the Indian borders, one posing as uncle-husband’s wife, money changing hands, new faces, and finally entrance into the lair of the formidable Mumtaz. And even as she is falling asleep in the dark cave that smells of liquor and incense, Lakshmi is uncorrupted enough to “wonder if perhaps this Happiness House is where the movie stars live.”
She soon finds out, though, the horrors that the house holds within itself. And here arrive the stereotypical characters which have been done to death – an ogre in the form of the brothel owner Mumtaz and a kind rescuer in the form of housemate Sahanna. There is the understanding tea deliverer, the ill mother who sells herself in exchange for her children’s betterment, the shady police, the neurotic flirt, even the free boy who teaches languages to Lakshmi. Most of the figures are so expected, so clichéd, that there is little surprise when there is finally a chance for Lakshmi’s rescue (oh yes, the ubiquitous climax), and it is done by a white man. How apt, convenient, rudimentary and ironic that no one else is capable of saving our beautiful, ‘ruined’ Nepali girl except the “nice American.”And after this unsatisfactory closure, when the ordeal of Lakshmi seems about to be over, there is time to figure out what, exactly, is wrong with the work. It tries valiantly to be realistic, let us not deny that. The effort, to sink into our culture and our obstacles, can be seen – in the manner the writer describes rituals of drinking water off a husband’s feet to scrubbing vessels with a mixture of ash and earth.
In some particularly poignant or sickening scenes, as when Lakhsmi’s beloved cucumbers are sold without her permission, when the mother-daughter duo shares popcorn and cigarette, when Lakshmi wants to mail back sweets to her mother, and when Mumtaz grinds her shoes into Lakshmi’s cheek, the writer is superb. A special mention for the final use of the shawl, that of “hanging from the rafters, is chilling, to say the least. And yet, at other times, the descriptions of pain and horror and humiliation are strangely bland. Statements like, “But no matter how often I wash and scrub and wash and scrub, I cannot seem to rinse the men from my body” could be touching, but they have been used so often that they end up sounding artificially emotional.
Besides, the writer makes too much of an effort to blend into the Nepali background, breathlessly enumerating all that she has learnt and researched – practically cramming them all in a sentence. There is a tendency of the writer to be too flowery, too frothy and exquisite to be real. In her attempt to write beautifully, (and most of the concluding lines of each chapter are almost painfully beautiful and revealing), the writer loses out on the essence of what she means to convey. A statement right from the beginning says, “In the evening, the brilliant yellow pumpkin blossoms will close, drunk on sunshine, while the milky white jasmine will open their slender throats and sip the chill Himalayan air.” Pretty? Yes. True to life? Maybe. Suitable? Absolutely not.
The writer, meanwhile, commands mastery over her language, often weaving in vivid and evocative images like the “corner of her mouth tugged down in a perpetual half frown” and “blackened tiger eyes and bleary chili pepper lips.” Full credit to her for her lyricism, her rhythm, the way words melt before her and just for her. The trick of presenting a disclosure to the readers at the very end of each chapter is almost like a mystery, very neat indeed. She also has the knack of compressing a thousand emotions into two bare lines, as in “My bundle is light. My burden is heavy.” Or even better, when she hints about a typical male tendency “His touch is soft. His words are hard.”
And yet, after due appreciation granted to the efforts behind the work, there still remain, in our hearts, the by-now familiar whines that all the writer notices and cares for are the either the poverty and slime or the rugged beauty of Third World countries. That is all. If there is coldness in the way the novelist treats her characters and situations, there is no way we could respond warmly. It is as real as she can possibly get, yet the very spirit of reality is missing – a vexing and inexplicable contradiction.
Because, when our Lakhsmi says, “David Beckham, it seems, is some kind of a God,” we just want to say, “There are gods bigger than him – right besides us.”
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