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

9.5 Plot Overview Notes

The Das family is in India on vacation, and Mr. Das has hired Mr. Kapasi to drive them to visit the
Sun Temple. The family sits in the car, which is stopped near a tea stall. Mr. and Mrs. Das are arguing
about who should take their daughter, Tina, to the bathroom, and Mrs. Das ultimately takes her.
Ronny, their son, darts out of the car to look at a goat. Mr. Das, who closely resembles Ronny,
reprimands him but does nothing to stop him, even when he says he wants to give the goat a piece of
gum. Mr. Das tells Bobby, the younger of their two sons, to go look after Ronny. When Bobby refuses,
Mr. Das does nothing to enforce his order.
Mr. Das tells Mr. Kapasi that both he and his wife were born and raised in the United States. Mr. Das
also reveals that their parents now live in India and that the Das family visits them every few years.
Tina comes back to the car, clutching a doll with shorn hair. Mr. Das asks Tina where her mother is,
using Mrs. Das’s first name, Mina. Mr. Kapasi notices that Mr. Das uses his wife’s first name, and he
thinks it is an unusual way to speak to a child. While Mrs. Das buys some puffed rice from a nearby
vendor, Mr. Das tells Mr. Kapasi that he is a middle-school teacher in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Mr. Kapasi reveals that he has been a tour guide for five years.
The group sets off. Tina plays with the locks in the back of the car, and Mrs. Das does not stop her.
Mrs. Das sits in the car silently and eats her snack without offering any to anyone else. Along the
road, they see monkeys, which Mr. Kapasi says are common in the area. Mr. Das has him stop the car
so he can take a picture of a starving peasant. Mr. and Mrs. Das quarrel because Mr. Das has not
gotten them a tour guide whose car has air-conditioning. Mr. Kapasi observes that Mr. and Mrs. Das
are more like siblings to their children than parents.
Mr. Kapasi tells Mr. Dass about his other job as an interpreter in a doctor’s office. Mrs. Das remarks
that his job is romantic and asks him to tell her about some of his patients. However, Mr. Kapasi
views his job as a failure. At one time, he had been a scholar of many languages, and now he remains
fluent only in English. He took the interpreting job as a way to pay the medical bills when his eldest
son contracted typhoid and died at age seven. He kept the job because the pay was better than his
previous teaching job, but it reminds his wife of their son’s death. Mr. Kapasi’s marriage was arranged
by his parents, and he and his wife have nothing in common. Mr. Kapasi, seduced by Mrs. Das’s
description of his job as “romantic,” begins fantasizing about Mrs. Das.
When they stop for lunch, Mrs. Das insists that Mr. Kapasi sit with them. He does, and Mr. Das takes
their picture together. Mrs. Das gets Mr. Kapasi’s address so that she can send him a copy of the
picture, and Mr. Kapasi begins to daydream about how they will have a great correspondence that
will, in a way, finally fulfill his dreams of being a diplomat between countries. He imagines the witty
things he will write to her and how she will reveal the unhappiness of her marriage.
At the temple, Mrs. Das talks with Mr. Kapasi as they stare at friezes of women in erotic poses.
Mr. Kapasi admires her legs and continues to dream about their letters. Dreading taking the Dases
back to their hotel, he suggests that they go see a nearby monastery, and they agree. When they
arrive, the place is swarming with monkeys. Mr. Kapasi tells the children and Mr. Das that the monkeys
are not dangerous as long as they are not fed.
Mrs. Das stays in the car because her legs are tired. She sits in the front seat next to Mr. Kapasi and
confesses to him that her younger son, Bobby, is the product of an affair she had eight years ago. She
slept with a friend of Mr. Das’s who came to visit while she was a lonely housewife, and she has
never told anyone about it. She tells Mr. Kapasi because he is an interpreter of maladies and she
believes he can help her. Mr. Kapasi’s crush on her begins to evaporate. Mrs. Das reveals that she no
longer loves her husband, whom she has known since she was a young child, and that she has
destructive impulses toward her children and life. She asks Mr. Kapasi to suggest some remedy for
her pain. Mr. Kapasi, insulted, asks her whether it isn’t really just guilt she feels. Mrs. Das gets out of
the car and joins her family. As she walks, she drops a trail of puffed rice.
Meanwhile, the children and Mr. Das have been playing with the monkeys. When Mrs. Das rejoins
them, Bobby is missing. They find him surrounded by monkeys that have become crazed from Mrs.
Das’s puffed rice and are hitting Bobby on the legs with a stick he had given them. Mr. Das accidentally

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