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Mandala
Nautch means “dance” in Hindi, so nautch girls are technically dancing girls, trained in a variety of specific routines. By the 1950s, however, the term “nautch girl” had taken on a variety of connotations, often hinting at sex work. In the novel, many of the nautch girls Lakshmi encounters (many of whom are Hari’s patients) are sex workers.
Nautch girls Quotes in The Henna Artist
The The Henna Artist quotes below are all either spoken by Nautch girls or refer to Nautch girls. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
Hari chuckled, a sound without joy. “Now that you’re working for the palace, you're too good to help her yourself?”
I felt my face grow warm. For a decade, I had been healing the rich, only, for their minor, more emotional troubles. If I'd stayed with Hari, no doubt Saasuji would have gotten around to teaching me the more complex procedures only she practiced. I shivered as I imagined my mother-in-law regarding me with as much dismay as Hari was now.
He knew he'd touched a tender spot. “Even Radha travels in such fine circles now.” Before I could ask him what he meant, he said, “How much did the palace bursar give you?”
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Chapter 13
Quotes
I rose from the bench, consumed with loathing for him and for myself. What light work I had made of infidelity, for him and his friends to cheat on their wives for ten years! I'd helped them discard their mistresses’ pregnancies as easily as they discarded the lint in their trouser pockets. I had justified it by treating it as a business transaction. To me each sale had been nothing more than another coat of plaster or another section of terrazzo for my house. At least when I made sachets for the courtesans, I had done so for women who had been raised to be prostitutes, who needed to make a living from their bodies without the interruption of pregnancies.
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Get the entire The Henna Artist LitChart as a printable PDF.
Nautch girls Term Timeline in The Henna Artist
The timeline below shows where the term Nautch girls appears in The Henna Artist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
...including that she dressed as a man to escape and that she works as a nautch girl (sex worker) in Agra, the nearest big city.
(full context)
Chapter 7
...off. Jaipur is packed this morning, but Lakshmi still spots Hari with a poor, sick-looking nautch girl. She wonders what he is doing with this girl, but she tries to keep...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...he needs money and shows Lakshmi a young girl, the daughter of one of the nautch women. Hari explains that he tried to use his mother’s remedies, but the infection only...
(full context)
