Page 134 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II

Notes “He has a number of Gujarati patients. My father was Gujarati, but many people do not speak Gujarati
in this area, including the doctor. And so the doctor asked me to work in his office, interpreting what
the patients say.”
“Interesting, I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Mr. Das said.
Mr. Kapasi shrugged. “It is a job like any other”
“But so romantic,” Mrs. Das said dreamily, breaking her extended silence. She lifted her pinkish
brown sunglasses and arranged them on top of her head like a tiara. For the first time, her eyes met
Mr. Kapasi’s in the rearview mirror: pale, a bit smaller, their gaze fixed but drowsy.
Mr. Das craned to look at her. “What’s so romantic about it?”
“I don’t know. Something.” She shrugged, knitting her brows together for an instant. “Would you
like a piece of gum, Mr. Kapasi?” she asked brightly. She reached into her straw bag and handed him
a small square wrapped in green-and-white-striped paper. As soon as Mr. Kapasi put the gum in his
mouth a thick sweet liquid burst onto his tongue.
“Tell us more about your job. Mr. Kapasi.” Mrs. Das said.
“What would you like to know, madame?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, munching on some puffed rice and licking the mustard oil from the
corners of her mouth. “Tell us a typical situation.” She settled back in her seat, her head tilted in a
patch of sun, and dosed her eyes. “I want to picture what happens.”
“Very well. The other day a man came in with a pain in his throat.”
“Did he smoke cigarettes?” “No. It was very curious. He complained that he felt as if there were long
pieces of straw stuck in his throat. When I told the doctor he was able to prescribe the proper
medication.” “That’s so neat.”
“Yes,” Mr. Kapasi agreed after some hesitation.
“So these patients are totally dependant on you,”
Mrs. Das said. She spoke slowly as if she was thinking aloud. “In a way, more dependant on you
than the doctor.” “How do you mean? How could it be?”
“Well, for example, you could tell the doctor that the pain fell like a burning, not straw. The patient
would never know what you had told the doctor, and the doctor wouldn’t know that you had told
the wrong thing. It’s a big responsibility.”
“Yes, a big responsibility you have there, Mr. Kapasi,” Mr. Das agreed.
Mr. Kapasi had never thought of her job in such complimentary terms. To him it was a thankless
occupation. He found nothing noble in interpreting people’s maladies, assiduously translating the
symptoms of so many swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots on people’s
palms that changed color, shape, or size. The doctor, nearly half his age, had an affinity for bell-
bottom trousers and made humorless jokes about the Congress party. Together they worked in a
stale little infirmary where Mr. Kapasi’s smartly tailored clothes clung to him in the heat, in spite of
the blackened blades of a ceiling fan churning over their heads. The job was a sign of his failings. In
his youth he’d been a devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of
dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts
between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides. He
was a self-educated man. In a series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his
marriage, he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he was confident
that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian,
not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Orissi, and Gujarati. Now only a handful of European phrases remained
in his memory, scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only non-Indian
language he spoke fluently anymore. Mr. Kapasi knew it was not a remarkable talent. Sometimes he
feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television. Still, it came
in handy for the tours. He had taken the job as interpreter after his first son, at the age of seven,
contracted typhoid — that was how he first made acquaintance of the doctor. After the time Mr.
Kapasi had been teaching English in a grammar school, and he bartered his skills as an interpreter to

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