![]() ![]() Anita is now Lakshmi’s only remaining friend in the house. However, one month she is late with her usual payment, so the police raid her business and take Shahanna (but no one else). ![]() ![]() Mumtaz pays the local police a bribe each month so that they will not shut down her illegal business, which revolves around the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Before Harish leaves, he tells Lakshmi about his kind American teacher, and how the Americans want to help girls like Lakshmi to escape their situations. They become friends, but eventually Pushpa gets sick, and Mumtaz evicts her and her children. Lakshmi does find some small sliver of goodness in this situation when Pushpa’s eight-year-old boy, Harish, finds her looking at his storybook one day and begins teaching her to read and speak Hindi and English. Additionally, the inhabitants are surveilled by an older woman named Shilpa, who is there voluntarily as Mumtaz’s spy. Another resident mother is Pushpa, who started working at the Happiness House after her husband died and left her with two children, who also live with her here. Monica also has a daughter, whom Mumtaz uses as leverage against her. Among the other inhabitants of the house are Shahanna, who befriends Lakshmi and gives her advice Anita, who once tried to escape and was beaten so badly that her face can no longer form a smile and Monica, who gets the most customers and will soon be able to leave. ![]()
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