In the first third of the book Sold, I read about Lakshmi's life in Nepal and how she was taken away from her already broken family. She has a brother that is not a year old yet. Her stepfather has a gambling problem, but Ama, her mother, says that they are lucky to have him. The stepfather sells Lakshmi to a woman, and she gets taken on a bus and a train.
Before she is taken away, Lakshmi getting her "first blood". She tells Ama "'You must stay out of sight for seven days,' she says. 'Even the sun cannot see you until you've been purified.'" (page 14) I thought that that was very interesting and what culture it's apart of. So I did some research and found out it came from the Hindu religion. According to wikipedia, women going through their menstrual phase have to hide away from the outside world. According to Nihayatul on blogspot.com, women are not allowed to do pooja (prayer) while menstruating. They are considered apart of the lowest caste, sudra (untouchable). It seems a little weird because having a menstrual period means you're healthy, but in the Hindu religion it is portrayed as a bad thing and somewhat taboo for something you can't even control.
Madison! Okay i wondered about that too! I dug a little deeper and and found out that women arent allowed to be in the kitchen, go into sacred temples or even stand in fast blowing wind. They should not bathe, wear makeup, brush or dress their hair or even cry!! This is only according to a yahoo answers post but then again, the person who wrote the answer stated that he was close with a hindu priest AND he also had a very Indian name. I also wondered this at the moment her mother explained what it meant to bleed. It interested me that the men are considered so much higher than the women even though the women do most of the work, in lakshmi's case anyway with her stepfather and all the ways he treats ama.
ReplyDeleteMadison I was actually really interested about this also. I decided to get a little deeper and got some information from newstatesmen.com and it was saying that you are practically shunned from society while your are on your period in India. It was also saying that when people feed you while you are on your period they throw the food on to your plate because they don't want to be close to you while your on your period. They treat these women like dogs and its so wrong.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it strange that all of these restrictions are put on women and their periods in this culture!? I had a conversation recently with my mom about this subject. She says that periods are feared in many cultures because of the power some people believe they hold. For one thing they are in cycle with the moon, which is interesting and women are said to be more intuitive while on their menstrual cycles. Its terrible that the mysteries to women's periods can be threatening to men in such a way that it can influence an entire belief.
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