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Unit 8: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: Detailed Study

8.2 Text—Interpreter of Maladies Notes

The Tea Stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet. Eventually
Mrs. Das relented when Mr. Das pointed out that he had Mr. Kapasi watched as Mrs. Das emerged
slowly from his bulky white Ambassador, dragging her shaved, largely bare legs across the back
seat. She did not hold the little girl’s hand as they walked to the rest room.
They were on their way to see the Sun Temple at Konarak. It was a dry, bright Saturday, the mid-July
heat tempered by a steady ocean breeze, ideal weather for sightseeing. Ordinarily Mr. Kapasi would
not have stopped so soon along the way, but less than five minutes after he’d picked up the family
that morning in front of Hotel Sandy Villa, the little girl had complained.
The first thing Mr. Kapasi had noticed when he saw Mr. and Mrs. Das, standing with their children
under the portico of the hotel, was that they were very young, perhaps not even thirty. In addition to
Tina they had two boys, Ronny and Bobby, who appeared very close in age and had teeth covered in
a network of flashing silver wires. The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children
in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors. Mr. Kapasi was accustomed to
foreign tourists; he was assigned to them regularly because he could speak English. Yesterday he
had driven an elderly couple from Scotland, both with spotted faces and fluffy white hair so thin it
exposed their sunburnt scalps. In comparison, the tanned, youthful faces of Mr. and Mrs. Das were
all the more striking. When he’d introduced himself, Mr. Kapasi had pressed his palms together in
greeting, but Mr. Das squeezed hands like an American so that Mr. Kapasi felt it in his elbow. Mrs.
Das, for her part, had flexed one side of her mouth, smiling dutifully at Mr. Kapasi, without displaying
any interest in him. As they waited at the tea stall, Ronny, who looked like the older of the two boys,
clambered suddenly out of the back seat, intrigued by a goat tied to a stake in the ground.
“Don’t touch it,” Mr. Das said. He glanced up from his paperback tour book, which said “INDIA” in
yellow letters and looked as if it had been published abroad. His voice, somehow tentative and little
shrill, sounded as though it had not yet settled into maturity.
“I want to give it a piece of gum,” the boy called back as he trotted ahead.
Mr. Das stepped out of the car and stretched his legs by squatting briefly to the ground. A clean-
shaved man, he looked exactly a magnified version of Ronny. He had a sapphire blue visor, and was
dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The camera slung around his neck, with an impressive
telephoto lens and numerous buttons and markings, was the only complicated thing he wore. He
frowned, watching as Ronny rushed toward the goat, but appeared to have no intention of intervening.
“Bobby, make sure that your brother doesn’t do anything stupid.” “I don’t feel like it,” Bobby said,
not moving. He was sitting in the front seat beside Mr. Kapasi studying a picture of the elephant god
taped to the glove compartment.
“No need to worry,” Mr. Kapasi said. “They are quite tame.” Mr. Kapasi was forty-six years old, with
receding hair that had gone completely silver, but his butterscotch complexion and his unlined brow,
which he treated in spare moments to dabs of lotus-oil balm, made it easy to imagine what he must
have looked like at an earlier age. He wore gray trousers and a matching jacket-style shirt, tapered at
the waist, with short sleeves and a large pointed collar, made of a thin but durable synthetic material.
He had specified both the cut and the fabric to his tailor — it was his preferred uniform for giving tours
because it did not get crushed during his long hours behind the wheel. Through the windshield he
watched as Ronny circled around the goat, touched it quickly on its side, than trotted back to the car.
“You left India as a child?” Mr. Kapasi asked when Mr. Das had settled once again into the passenger seat.
“Oh, Mina and I were both born in America,” Mr. Das announced with an air of sudden confidence
“Born and raised. Our parents live here now, in Assansol. They retired. We visit them every couple
years.” He turned to watch as the little girl ran toward the car, the wide purple bows of her sundress
flopping on her narrow brown shoulders. She was holding to her chest a doll with yellow hair that
looked as if it had been chopped, as a punitive measure, with a pair of dull scissors. “This is Tina’s
first trip to India, isn’t it, Tina?” “I don’t have to go to the bathroom anymore,” Tina announced.

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