Iqbal

The summer weather grows hotter, and Hussain is more irritable, which means that clients will soon visit the factory. He employs different methods to encourage the children to work, including endearments, coercion, begging, threats, and punishments. Karim, who is scared of getting kicked out, is also stricter and often yells at the children. After the workday is done, though, he helps the bonded children with their wounded hands.

Hussain leaves Iqbal alone. The other children talk about Iqbal, saying that he is tame or that he wants to be the new favorite. Instead of coming together, the children break into cliques and pick on each other. Karim overhears the enslaver call Iqbal “special” and “precious,” which he announces to the bonded children. Iqbal is assigned a special carpet called a blue Bukhara, which is made only twice a year and is expensive. He calls Iqbal an artist, which embarrasses the child. Iqbal admits that he made one of the special carpets before, and he does not know why his last enslaver sold him. Karim thinks that Iqbal’s debt will be erased once he makes the blue Bukhara, but Iqbal says that it won’t.

Fatima tries to defend Iqbal against the other children, who feel resentment toward him.