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

pay the increasingly exorbitant medical bills. In the end the boy had died one evening in his mother’s Notes
arms, his limbs burning with fever, but then there was the funeral to pay for, and the other children
who were boon soon enough, and the newer, bigger house, and the good schools and tutors, and the
fine shoes and the television, and the countless other ways he tried to console his wife and to keep
her from crying in her sleep, and so when the doctor offered to pay him twice as much as he earned
at the grammar school, he accepted. Mr. Kapasi knew that his wife had little regard for his career as
an interpreter. He new it reminded her of the son she’d lost, and that she resented the other lives he
helped, in his own small way, to save. If ever she referred to his position, she used the phrase “doctor’s
ssistant,” as if the process of interpretation were equal to taking someone’s temperature, or changing
a bedpan. She never asked him about the patients who came to the doctor’s office, or said that his job
was a big responsibility. For this reason it flattered Mr. Kapasi that Mrs. Das was so intrigued by his
job. Unlike his wife, she had reminded him of its intellectual challenges. She had also used the word
“romantic.” She did not behave in a romantic way toward her husband, and yet she had used the
word to describe him. He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a bad match, just as he and his wife
were. Perhaps they, too, had little in common apart from three children and a decade of their lives.
The signs he recognized from his own marriage were there — the bickering, the indifference, the
protracted silences. Her sudden interest in him, an interest she did not express in either her husband
or her children, was mildly intoxicating. When Mr. Kapasi thought once again about how she had
said “romantic,” the feeling of intoxication grew.
He began to check his reflection in the rearview mirror as he drove, feeling grateful that he had
chosen the gray suit that morning, and not the brown one which tended to sag a little in the knees.
From time to time he glanced through the mirror at Mrs. Das. In addition to glancing at her face he
glanced at the strawberry between her breasts, and the golden brown hollow in her throat. He decided
to tell Mrs. Das about another patient, and another: the young woman who had complained of sensation
of raindrops in her spine, the gentleman whose birthmark had begun to sprout hairs.
Mrs. Das listened attentively, stroking her hair with a small plastic brush that resembled an oval bed
of nails, asking more questions, for yet another example. The children were quiet, intent on spotting
more monkeys in the trees and Mr. Das was absorbed by his tour book, so it seemed like a private
conversation between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das. In this manner the next half hour passed, and when
they stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant that sold fritters and omelette sandwiches, usually
something Mr. Kapasi looked forward to on his tours so that he could sit in peace and enjoy some hot
tea, he was disappointed. As the Das family settled together under a magenta umbrella fringed with
white and orange tassels, and placed their ordered with one of the waiters who marched about in
tricornered caps, Mr. Kapasi reluctantly headed toward the neighboring table.
“Mr. Kapasi, wait. There’s room here,” Mrs. Das called out. She gathered Tina onto her lap, insisting
that he accompany them. And so, together, they had bottled mango juice and sandwiches and plates
of onions and potatoes deep-fried in graham flour batter. After finishing two omelette sandwiches
Mr. Das took more pictures of the group as they ate.
“How much longer,” he asked Mr. Kapasi as he paused to load a new roll of film in the camera.
“About half an hour more.”
By now the children had gotten up from the table to look for more monkeys perched in a nearby tree,
so there was a considerable space between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Das placed the camera to
his face and squeezed one eye shut, his tongue exposed at one corner of his mouth. “This looks
funny. Mina, you need to lean in closer to Mr. Kapasi.”
She did. He could smell a scent on her skin, like a mixture of whiskey and rosewater. He worried
suddenly that she could smell his perspiration, which he knew had collected beneath the synthetic
material of his shirt. He polished off his mango juice in one gulp and smoothed his silver hair with
his hands. A bit of the juice dripped onto his chin. He wondered if Mrs. Das had noticed. She had not.
“What’s your address, Mr. Kapasi?” she inquired, fishing for something inside her straw bag.

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