SOLD

All I can say is, read it.

Prose, pain and pathos.

Here's an excerpt:

"MATHEMATICS

In the village school we were taught to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

The teacher gave us difficult problems, asking us to figure out how many baskets of rice a family would have to sell to buy a new water buffalo. Or how many lengths of fabric a mother would need to make a vest and pants for her husband and still have enough for a dress for her baby.

Here I do a different set of calculations.

If I bring a half dozen men to my room each night,and each pays Mumtaz 30 Rupees, I am 180 Rupees closer each day to going back home. If I work for a hunderd days more, I will surely soon have nearly enough to pay back the 20,000 Rupees I owe to Mumtaz.

Then Shahanna teaches me city substraction.

Half of what the men pay, goes to Mumtaz, she says. Then you must take away 80 Rupees for what Mumtaz charges for your daily rice and dal. Another 100 a week for renting you a bed and pillow. And 500 for the shot the dirty-hands doctor gives us once a month so that we won't become pregnant.

She also warns me: Mumtaz will bury you alive if she sees your little book of figures.

I do the calculations.

And realize I am already buried alive.

-

See

>:-( Hmphf

Do you have those days when you're angry and upset with everyone and everything (And, NO, this is not a question, its a bleedin' statement). Well, its been a long month of such endless days.

So here's a half-hearted sort of attempt at 'looking at the bright side' and all that cliched blah blah.

Good things:
- Friends who keep in touch, no matter how weird you act. God bless you!
- Unexpected emails which make your day and make you daydream.

Now am going to breath in and out slowly (does that work for anyone??), shut up, and retreat back in my mind.