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Unit 9: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: Discussion on all Important Spheres of the Text Questions

Eliot is an eleven-year-old white American boy; while Mrs. Sen, the next in a line of Eliot’s after Notes
school ‘babysitters’ , is hired because she is a ‘Professor’s wife, responsible and kind’ . She is, of
course, much more than this – as Eliot is soon to find out. She is a traditional Indian wife who feels
isolated and lost in the foreignness of American culture. We perceive Mrs Sen through the eyes of
Eliot, who notices the striking differences between the domestic life of these Indian immigrants and
his own. Through his thoughts, we are given detailed descriptions of the Sens’ apartment, suggesting
(although he is in no way judgemental) that he perceives the family as strange. Indeed, his ability to
absorb and enjoy this alternative way of life becomes a rich learning experience for him.
Eliot, in fact, compares the lushness of Mrs Sen and her beautiful attire – ‘she wore a shimmering
white sari patterned with orange paisleys’ – favourably against his mother’s ‘cropped hair … her
shaved knees and thighs too exposed’ . Unlike Eliot’s own home, Mrs Sen’s is welcoming and her
apartment is warm. He soon comes to look forward to watching her ‘as she chopped things, seated
on newspapers on the living room floor’ .
He is fascinated with the knife she uses, ‘curved like the prow of a Viking ship’ . But Mrs Sen is so
alienated from her new life, and so starved for company, that she allows Eliot to become her confidante.
During this process, he learns not only to accept another person’s culture, but also to shield Mrs Sen
from her fear of living in a world that is alien to her. Through her, Eliot comes to understand the
anxiety that ensues from being cut off from one’s family and friends, and the frustrations of being
unable to prepare the food that ties one to a particular culture.
After Mrs Sen’s car accident, Eliot is left at home as a ‘latch-key’ child and feels, for the first time, the
sterility of his own culture in contrast with the richness of Mrs Sen’s. Both have benefited from their
mutual association. In contrast, the seven-year-old boy in ‘Sexy’ acts as a catalyst for Miranda to
realise that her relationship with the married Dev is neither appropriate nor beneficial to her. She is
swept into her liaison with Dev, attracted by his difference and lured by his Indian heritage. Their
story runs parallel with that of Laxmi’s cousin, whose husband has absconded with another woman
whom ‘he sat next to … on a flight from Delhi to Montreal’ His son, we learn from Miranda’s friend
Laxmi, is very bright but badly affected by his father’s dereliction of his family. When Miranda’s
friend asks her to look after him, she is startled by his perceptions. When the boy asks Miranda to
wear the special dress she has bought to wear with Dev, he unexpectedly describes her as ‘sexy’ . We
discover the depth of his pain when he explains that being sexy ‘means loving someone you don’t
know’ . With this remark, he reveals how badly affected he has been by his mother’s constant emotional
outbursts and his father’s abandonment.
After thinking about the boy’s words, Miranda understands the significance of the betrayal represented
by her affair with Dev. The boy’s pain has made her realise that ‘it wasn’t fair to her, or to his wife,
that they both deserved better’. The child’s experiences have pointed her towards the reality of the
emotional suffering inevitably involved in such a deceitful relationship.
The first-person speaker of ‘When Mr Pirzada Came to Dine’ is a ten-year-old girl, Lilia, who finally
comes to understand the pain caused by separation from one’s family. Mr Pirzada is a Moslem
Bangladeshi who is trapped in America when the war of separation breaks out in western India.
Each evening he is asked to dine with Lilia’s family, who are Indian immigrants. Lilia is caught
between the traditions of her parents and American culture. She does not understand her parents’
complaints about the unavailability of ingredients for Indian food, or their lament that neighbours
‘never dropped by without an invitation’. Mr Pirzada is invited to their house simply because he is
Indian; or, as her father explains, ‘Mr Pirzada is no longer considered Indian’ , something that ‘made
no sense’ to Lilia. Her mother understands that Lilia is American – ‘we live here now, she was born
here’ – and has little understanding of the politics of India and Pakistan. Yet, something still fascinates
Lilia about her parents’ homeland.
Lilia perceives Mr Pirzada as somewhat exotic in his ‘ensembles of plums, olives, and chocolate
browns’. His presence even makes her feel rather ‘like a stranger in [her] own home’. Every evening
he brings her sweets, which she feels are ‘inappropriate … to consume’, placing them in a sandalwood
box she inherited from a grandmother she ‘had never known’; an indication of the empty space in
her life created by her lack offamilial connections. It is through Mr Pirzada’s watch ‘set to the local

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