Pretending
- Pushpa's cough is bad, so the girls take turns playing with her daughter Jeena.
- Jeena isn't the only baby at the Happiness House, and the women there borrow money from Mumtaz to take care of them.
- When Lakshmi asks why, Shahanna says that they "all need to pretend" to live (96.Pretending.5). Mumtaz allows this to happen because she knows that once women have children, they will stay in the house for good.
- Even so, Lakshmi asks why women don't prevent the babies from coming, and Shahanna explains that the babies are the only family the girls at the house will have.
- So each morning, the children go off to school and function like normal children in the city; each evening, though, it is harder to pretend because of what their mothers do.