Analysis of Interpreter of Maladies

Analysis of Major Characters Mr. Kapasi Mr. Kapasi believes that his life is a failure and longs for something more. In his efforts to lift his existence out of the daily, monotonous grind it has become, Mr. Kapasi develops a far-fetched fantasy about the possibility of a deep friendship between himself and Mrs. Das. This fantasy reveals just how lonely Mr. Kapasi’s life and marriage have become. His arranged marriage is struggling because his wife cannot recover from her grief over the loss of their young son or forgive him for working for the doctor who failed to save their son’s life. His career is far less than what he dreamed it might be. He uses his knowledge of English in only the most peripheral way, in high contrast to the dreams of scholarly and diplomatic greatness he once had. In his isolation, he sees Mrs. Das as a potential kindred spirit because she also languishes in a loveless marriage. He imagines similarities between them that do not exist, yearning to find a friend in this American woman. Not surprisingly, the encounter ends in disappointment. When Mrs. Das does confide in him, he feels only disgust. The intimacy he thought he wanted revolts him when he learns more about Mrs. Das’s nature. In both of Mr. Kapasi’s jobs, as a tour guide and an interpreter for a doctor, he acts as a cultural broker. As a tour guide, he shows mostly English-speaking Europeans and Americans the sights of India, and in his work as an interpreter, he helps the ailing from another region to communicate with their physician. Although neither occupation attains the aspirations of diplomacy he once had, Mrs. Das helps him view both as important vocations. However, Mr. Kapasi is ultimately unable to bridge the cultural gap between himself and Mrs. Das, whether it stems from strictly national differences or more personal ones. Mr. Kapasi’s brief transformation from ordinary tour guide to “romantic” interpreter ends poorly, with his return to the ordinary drudgery of his days. Mrs. Mina Das Mrs. Das’s fundamental failing is that she is profoundly selfish and self-absorbed. She does not see anyone else as they are but rather as a means to fulfilling her own needs and wishes. Her romanticized view of Mr. Kapasi’s day job leads her to confide in him, and she is oblivious to the fact that he would rather she did not. She persists in confiding even when it is clear that Mr. Kapasi has no advice to offer her. Mrs. Das is selfish, declining to share her food with her children, reluctantly taking her daughter to the bathroom, and refusing to paint her daughter’s fingernails. She openly derides her husband and mocks his enthusiasm for tourism, using the fact that they are no longer in love as an excuse for her bad behavior. Although Mrs. Das has been unfaithful, she feels the strain in her marriage only as her own pain. She fails to recognize the toll her affair takes on her husband and children. Rather than face the misery she has caused, Mrs. Das hides behind her sunglasses and disengages from her family. Likewise, when her attempt at confiding in Mr. Kapasi fails, she leaves the car rather than confront the guilt that Mr. Kapasi has suggested is the source of her pain. Mrs. Das embodies stereotypically American flaws, including disrespect for other countries and cultures, poorly behaved children, and a self-involvement so extensive that she blames others for

her feelings of guilt about her infidelity. She is messy, lazy, and a bad parent. She has no concern for the environment or her effect on it and drops her rice snacks all over the ground, riling the local wildlife. She represents what is often called the “ugly American,” a traveler who stands out in every situation because of her expansive sense of self-importance and entitlement.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes The Difficulty of Communication

Communication breaks down repeatedly in “Interpreter of Maladies,” often with hurtful consequences. Mr. Kapasi, who is the interpreter of maladies, as Mrs. Das names him, has lost his ability to communicate with his wife, forcing him to drink his tea in silence at night and leading to a loveless marriage. He has also lost his ability to communicate in some of the languages he learned as a younger man, leaving him with only English, which he fears he does not speak as well as his children. Mr. and Mrs. Das do not communicate, not because of a language barrier but because Mrs. Das hides behind her sunglasses most of the time and Mr. Das has his nose buried in a guidebook. The children do not listen to their parents, nor do they listen to Mr. Kapasi about the monkeys. All these frustrated attempts at communicating with one another lead to hurt feelings. The Kapasis are trapped in a failing marriage. The Dases are openly hostile to each other. The Das children run rampant over their parents and everyone else. And Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das are unable to reach a level of friendship that they both may have sought, if only they could speak with one another openly. When Mrs. Das loses Mr. Kapasi’s address at the end of the story, it marks the termination of the possibility that they could reach out to each other and the definite end to all communication between them. The Danger of Romanticism

Every time a character in “Interpreter of Maladies” fails to see the truth about another person, the results are in some way harmful. The main conflict of the story centers on two people who romanticize each other, although in different ways. Mr. Kapasi sees Mrs. Das as a lonely housewife who could be a perfect companion to him in his own loneliness. He misses or ignores cues that she may not be interested in him for his own sake because, at some level, he wants her to be this companion. He sees many details about her, such as her bare legs and Americanized shirt and bag, but he passes over others, such as the way she dismisses her children’s desires and her selfishness with her snack. Such unflattering details do not fit with his conception of her. Likewise, Mrs. Das wants Mr. Kapasi to become a confidante to her and solve her personal and marital difficulties. She views him as a father figure and helper and misses or ignores indications that he may not fit those roles. For example, she doesn’t notice that he is uncomfortable with her personal revelations and presses him for help even when he explicitly tells her that he cannot give it to her. Besides romanticizing one another, the characters also romanticize their surroundings, resulting in insensitivity and danger. Mr. Das, for example, photographs the Indian peasant whose suffering he finds appropriate for a tourist’s shot. He sees only what he wants to see—an interesting picture from a foreign land—not the actual man who is starving by the roadside. Even

when Bobby is surrounded by monkeys, in genuine distress, Mr. Das can do nothing but snap a picture, as though this scene is also somehow separate from reality. Throughout their trip, Mr. Das fails to engage with India in any substantial way, preferring to hide behind the efficient descriptions in his guidebook. His romanticized tourist’s view of India keeps him from connecting to the country that his parents call home. Motifs Seeing

Each character in the story has a distorted way of seeing the others, as each views others through some artificial means. Mr. Das views the world through his camera. His camera is always around his neck, and he sees even harsh realities through its lens. For example, he takes pictures of the starving peasant, even though doing so blatantly ignores the peasant’s essential reality. Mrs. Das hides behind her sunglasses, seeing the others through their tint and blocking others’ view of her eyes. Additionally, her window does not roll down, so she cannot directly see the world outside the taxi cab. Mr. Kapasi watches Mrs. Das through the rearview mirror, which distorts his view of her and prevents him from looking at her directly. Each child is wearing a visor, which suggests that their vision will one day be as distorted as their parents’ is. Finally, Mr. Das and Ronny closely resemble each other, whereas Mr. Das and Bobby have little in common. Mr. Kapasi simply observes this fact but draws no inference from it, even though this simple fact hints at the deeper truth: that Mr. Das is not Bobby’s father. Because Mr. Kapasi sees the Das family as a unit, he never suspects this truth. His idea of family distorts the reality of the situation. Symbols The Camera

Mr. Das’s camera represents his inability to see the world clearly or engage with it. Because he views the world through his camera, Mr. Das misses the reality of the world around him, both in his marriage and in the scenes outside the cab. Mr. Das chooses to have Mr. Kapasi stop the cab so that he can take a photograph of a starving peasant, wanting the picture only as a souvenir of India and ignoring the man’s obvious need for help. His view of the man’s reality is distorted because he sees the man only through the camera lens. Mr. Das snaps pictures of monkeys and scenery, taking the camera from his eye only when he turns back to his guidebook. Rather than engage actively with the India that surrounds him, he instead turns to the safety of frozen images and bland descriptions of ancient sites. He has come to visit India, but what he will take away with him—pictures and snatches of guidebook phrases—he could have gotten from any shop at home in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mr. Das also uses the camera to construct a family life that does not actually exist. His children are insolent and his wife is distant, yet Mr. Das tries to pose them in pictures that suggest harmony and intimacy. When Mrs. Das refuses to leave the car when they visit the monastic dwellings, Mr. Das tries to change her mind because he wants to get a complete family portrait— something, he says, they can use for their Christmas card. This “happy family” that Mr. Das aspires to catch on film is pure fabrication, but Mr. Das does not seem to care. He would rather

exist in an imaginary state of willful ignorance and arm’s-length engagement than face the disappointments and difficulties of his real life. Mrs. Das’s Puffed Rice

Puffed rice, insubstantial and bland, represents Mrs. Das’s mistakes and careless actions. Physically, Mrs. Das is young and attractive, but she is spiritually empty. She does not love her children or husband and is caught in the boredom of her life as a housewife. Her depression and apathy distance her from her family, but she harbors a secret that could tear the entire family apart. She carelessly scatters the puffed rice along the trail at the monastic dwellings, never thinking about the danger her actions pose to others. Even when she realizes the danger to Bobby, as monkeys surround and terrify him, Mrs. Das does not take any responsibility for the situation, just as she refuses to acknowledge any guilt about her affair with Mr. Das’s friend. If Mrs. Das’s secret is ever revealed, Bobby will be the true victim of that carelessness as well. Conceived out of anger, boredom, and spite and then lied to about his real father, Bobby is surrounded by deceit. Mr. Kapasi feels the urge to tell Bobby the truth as he carries him away from the monkeys. He knows that the safety he is providing for the boy—scattering the monkeys and lifting Bobby away from danger—is insubstantial. He delivers Bobby back to Mrs. Das, whose distance and carelessness fail to provide true safety.

Point of View “Interpreter of Maladies” is told from third-person limited point of view—that is, the story is told by an objective narrator who reveals the perceptions of Mr. Kapasi’s perceptions but not those of the other characters. Events unfold primarily as Mr. Kapasi, not Mrs. Das, sees them. For example, when the characters leave the taxi at the temple, the narrator follows Mr. Kapasi, who walks ahead so as not to disturb Mrs. Das, and does not show us what Mrs. Das is doing until she again enters Mr. Kapasi’s view. Likewise, when Mrs. Das leaves the taxi to take Tina to the bathroom, the narrator stays in the car with Mr. Kapasi, who waits alone while the boys and Mr. Das get out of the car. Even the characters’ names reflect the focus on Mr. Kapasi. Instead of calling Mrs. Das by her first name, Mina, as both her husband and her children do, the narrator refers to her exclusively as Mrs. Das, which is how Mr. Kapasi sees her. Likewise, the narrator does not disclose information that Mr. Kapasi would not know. We do not, for example, ever learn the exact ages of Ronny and Tina. We do, however, hear about how Mr. Kapasi has only two suits, the better of the two is the one he wears in the story. By using this point of view, Lahiri limits the scope of our knowledge about the Das family and emphasizes the disconnection between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi. Although Mr. Kapasi interprets Mrs. Das’s comments as flattering and even flirtatious, Mrs. Das likely did not intend her comments to be construed this way. Mr. Kapasi wishes for an intimate connection with Mrs. Das, but when she finally does spill her secrets—her affair, her true feelings about her husband, the heated beginning of their relationship—Mr. Kapasi is overwhelmed and disgusted. She was unaware of how crass and inappropriate her revelations would seem to Mr. Kapasi, just as she is oblivious to how insulting it is for her to expect him to have a “cure” for her pain. Mr. Kapasi thinks he and Mrs. Das have a connection because he recognizes in her situation the distant

spouse and troubled marriage from his own life. However, any connection between them is only in his mind.

Character Development To develop characters in “Interpreter of Maladies,” Lahiri layers small, specific details in her descriptions of each character, giving them depth and richness. From the first paragraph of the story, details such as the bickering about who will accompany Tina to the bathroom and the fact that Mrs. Das does not hold Tina’s hand tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Das are at odds, at least in some small way, and that Mrs. Das is a somewhat careless mother. These details are important because the narrator tells us few explicit facts about the Das family. Rather, we must infer information about them from the way they act. We learn about Mr. Das’s distance and willful ignorance from his picture taking and absorption in his guidebook, and we learn about the children’s insolence through small behaviors, such as Tina’s playing with the car locks and Ronny’s approaching the goat with gum. Mr. Kapasi infers what he knows about the Das family from the same set of details. The small pieces of information that we have about Mrs. Das almost overwhelm her big confession toward the end of the story. What we know of her character is based less on the substantial knowledge that she has committed adultery with her husband’s friend and borne a child of the affair and more on the less significant fact that she does not share her puffed rice with her children or husband, does not care to be in the photographs they take at the monastery, and wears insensible shoes while she goes sightseeing. Mrs. Das is, with Mr. Kapasi, the most important character in the story, but what we know of her comes from the fact that she wears sunglasses, wears a shirt with a strawberry on it, shaves her legs, and carries a large, overstuffed purse. By providing so many small, specific details, Lahiri vividly portrays Mrs. Das but also allows for some ambiguity. Mr. Kapasi perceives the same details but misconstrues what they mean about Mrs. Das, mistakenly believing that she shares with him some problem or connection.

Culture Clash Central themes of all of Lahiri’s work, “Interpreter of Maladies” included, are the difficulties that Indians have in relating to Americans and the ways in which Indian Americans are caught in the middle of two very different cultures. We learn quite a few details about where the Das family fits into this cultural divide. Mr. and Mrs. Das were both born and raised in America, although their retired parents have now moved to India to live. The Dases visit every few years, bringing the children with them. They are Indian but not of India, and their dress and manner are wholly American. Although Mr. Kapasi recognizes some common cultural heritage, the Dases are no more familiar with India than any other tourist. Mr. Das relies on a tourist guidebook to tell him about the country through which they are traveling, and Mrs. Das could not be more uninterested in her surroundings if she tried. Although India is their parents’ home, Mr. and Mrs. Das are foreigners. Mr. Das even seems to take pride in his status as a stranger, telling Mr. Kapasi about his American roots with an “air of sudden confidence.”

Though Mr. Kapasi and the Dases do share an Indian heritage, their marriages reveal the extent of how different their cultures really are. Mr. Kapasi believes that he can relate to Mrs. Das’s unhappy marriage because he himself is in an unhappy marriage. He seeks this common ground as a way to find friendship and connection. However, the connection fails because the marriages are so vastly different. Mr. Kapasi’s parents arranged his marriage, and he and Mrs. Kapasi have nothing in common. By contrast, Mrs. Das fell in love with Mr. Das at a young age, and although their union was encouraged by their parents, her marriage was not arranged. Mrs. Das’s comments about her and Mr. Das’s sexual behaviors during their courtship shock Mr. Kapasi, who has never seen his wife naked. Furthermore, Mr. Kapasi is offended by the concept of infidelity in Mrs. Das’s marriage. This lack of understanding reflects a differing understanding of duty and family between the two cultures. The two marriages may both be unhappy, but the causes, remedies, mistakes, and results of that unhappiness have no overlap whatsoever. Mr. Kapasi’s fantasy of forging a friendship with Mrs. Das is shattered even before he sees his address slip away in the wind. The cultural divide between him and Mrs. Das is, from his view, simply too vast. nterpreter of Maladies was Lahiri’s first book and an immediate success. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, making Lahiri the first person of South Asian descent to win an individual Pulitzer Prize. Her collection triumphed over the work of two established writers—Close Range: Wyoming Stories, by Annie Proulx, and Waiting, by Ha Jin. The title story, “Interpreter of Maladies,” won an O. Henry Award for Best American Short Stories and was included in the anthology Best American Short Stories in 1999. Although Lahiri never lived in India, her frequent visits to Calcutta familiarized her with the city, and she chose to marry there in 2001. Most of Lahiri’s work focuses on the lives of Indian Americans, and the stories in Interpreter of Maladies are set in India or parts of the United States, including Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an unnamed university town very much like Cambridge. In her stories, characters come together for reasons that are not intimate and wind up finding themselves in intimate situations. For example, in “Interpreter of Maladies,” the two main characters find themselves together in a car because one of them hires the other as a tour guide. Other stories in the collection involve a landlady and her tenants, an after-school caretaker and her ward, and a married couple in crisis. Lahiri tells many of the stories through the unexpected narrative perspective of someone who is not closely related to the person under observation. Few of the stories involve dramatic plot lines, although most involve the aftershocks of some major life-changing event, such as an affair, a miscarriage, or immigration. India looms large in each story, although its influence varies in each story as it does in each character’s life. India is a country of linguistic diversity. The central government uses both Hindi and English, as is required by the Indian constitution, and an additional twenty-two languages are recognized as official languages of India. By some counts, there are more than 400 languages spoken in India, while others prefer to say that there are more than 2,000 dialects. Indians have immigrated to the United States in astonishing numbers since the 1960s. Largely well educated and highly skilled, Indian immigrants come for a variety of reasons, but often to seek work in technological fields. Indian Americans now constitute the third-largest Asian American community in the United States.

In 2003, Lahiri published her second book, The Namesake, and continues to publish individual short stories. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two children.

tory Summaries and Analysis A Temporary Matter This book is told from the third-person perspective of the husband, this story deals with the disintegrating relationship of an Indian couple, Shoba and Shukumar. Their stillborn child has created distance between the two of them, and Shukumar observes as Shoba transforms from the attentive wife into someone more aloof and self-absorbed. As in most of Lahiri’s stories, food plays a significant role in the couple’s relationship. Shoba had always given the impression that their pantries were stuffed with endless supplies of food. When she begins to neglect this, Shukumar simply observes as the food vanishes, cooking what he can of it using Shoba’s old recipes. He makes no moves to create a new supply. In fact, he makes no move to cover up the signs of neglect throughout the house that he holds Shoba accountable for when in fact his own apathy and grief are to blame as well. Likewise, he does little to comfort Shoba in her grief, not quite realizing the seriousness of their relationship problems. One day, they receive notice that their electricity will be out for one hour every night for five days. They spend each of these nights in the dark sharing secrets with each other, things they had never shared before. Each confession becomes more bold and reveals a larger flaw in their marriage, until their impending separation becomes clear.

This Blessed House Sanjeev and Twinkle, a newly married couple, are exploring their new house in Hartford, which appears to have been owned by fervent Christians: they keep finding gaudy Biblical paraphernalia hidden throughout the house. While Twinkle is delighted by these objects and wants to display them everywhere, Sanjeev is uncomfortable with them and reminds her that they are Hindu, not Christian. This argument reveals other problems in their relationship; Sanjeev doesn’t seem to understand Twinkle’s spontaneity, whereas Twinkle has little regard for Sanjeev’s discomfort. He is planning a party for his coworkers and is worried about the impression they might get from the interior decorating if their mantelpiece is full of Biblical figurines. After some arguing and a brief amount of tears, a compromise is reached. When the day of the party arrives, the guests are enamored with Twinkle. Sanjeev still has conflicting feelings about her; he is captivated by her beauty and energy, but irritated by her naivete and impractical tendencies. The story ends with her and the other party guests discovering a large bust of Jesus Christ in the attic. Although the object disgusts him, he obediently carries it downstairs. This action can either be interpreted as Sanjeev giving into Twinkle and accepting her eccentricities, or as a final, grudging act of compliance in a marriage that he is reconsidering.

Sexy One of only two stories in this collection told by a non-Indian narrator, “Sexy” tells the story of a young woman, Miranda, and her affair with a married Indian man named Dev. Aside from what

she hears from her one Indian friend at work, a woman named Laxmi, Miranda knows very little about India and its culture. The first time she meets Dev, she is not able to discern his nationality. However, she is instantly captivated by his charm and the thrill of being with an exotic, older man. The title of the story refers to something he whispered to her in the Mapparium, a moment that she would remember for its intimacy but would later come to be seen as a sign of an unhealthy relationship. She has pangs of guilt because he is married, and this is highlighted by the fact that Laxmi’s cousin has recently been abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. One day, Laxmi’s cousin comes to Boston and Miranda is asked to babysit her seven-year-old son, Rohin. Rohin ends up giving Miranda some insight into his mother’s grief and calls to her attention the more unglamorous aspects of being the “other woman.” This experience eventually leads her to call off her affair. Analysis of A Temporary Matter, This Blessed House, Sexy Lahiri's objective in opening her collection with "A Temporary Matter" is to start from nothing; the story is clearly about a failed relationship. By starting with a defeat, Lahiri seems to foretell that her stories will be about the hardships of communication and relationships, but that each has the possibility of success. Even in "Sexy," where the featured couple ends up separating, Miranda is actually stronger for ending her relationship with Dev because she can see that it has no potential.[1] Food is also a common theme among the stories. In "A Temporary Matter", the haunting absence of food in the household is a parallel to the lack of affection in their marriage. In "This Blessed House", Twinkle is not at all the accomplished cook that Shoba is. Having grown up in California instead of in India like Sanjeev, she doesn't seem to have any background knowledge in Indian cooking. However, she surprises Sanjeev with her spontaneous creative streak in the kitchen. Although he's annoyed that she cannot cook authentic Indian food, he is still pleasantly surprised by the meal she serves him. His attitude toward her food mirrors his attitude toward her. In "Sexy" food plays a much smaller part. Miranda's only significant encounter with Indian food in the story is when she visits an Indian grocery looking for a movie. She comes across the Hot Mix that Laxmi is always eating, but the grocer tells her it is too spicy for her. Miranda feels uncomfortable in the grocery store, and doesn't buy the Hot Mix for Laxmi because she feels like she needs to give an excuse for being in an Indian store in the first place. This guilt or feeling of ostracism highlights the fact that she feels uncomfortable with Dev; she knows so little about him and his background, and yet their relationship is so intimate that it seems inappropriate for her not to understand more about India.[2]

Interpreter of Maladies Mr. and Mrs. Das, Indian Americans visiting the country of their heritage, hire middle-aged tour guide Mr. Kapasi as their driver for the day as they tour. Mr. Kapasi notes the parents’ immaturity. Mr. and Mrs. Das look and act young to the point of childishness, go by their first names when talking to their children, Ronny, Bobby, and Tina, and seem selfishly indifferent to the kids. On their trip, when her husband and children get out of the car to sightsee, Mrs. Das sits in the car, eating snacks she offers to no one else, wearing her sunglasses as a barrier, and painting her nails. When Tina asks her to paint her nails as well, Mrs. Das just turns away and rebuffs her daughter.

Mr. and Mrs. Das ask the good-natured Mr. Kapasi about his job as a tour guide, and he tells them about his weekday job as an interpreter in a doctor’s office. Mr. Kapasi’s wife resents her husband’s job because he works at the doctor’s clinic that previously failed to cure their son of typhoid fever. She belittles his job, and he, too, discounts the importance of his occupation as a waste of his linguistic skills. However, Mrs. Das deems it “romantic” and a big responsibility, pointing out that the health of the patients depends upon Mr. Kapasi’s correct interpretation of their maladies. Mr. Kapasi begins to develop a romantic interest in Mrs. Das, and conducts a private conversation with her during the trip. Mr. Kapasi imagines a future correspondence with Mrs. Das, picturing them building a relationship to translate the transcontinental gap between them. However, Mrs. Das reveals a secret: she tells Mr. Kapasi the story of an affair she once had, and that her son Bobby had been born out of her adultery. She explains that she chose to tell Mr. Kapasi because of his profession; she hopes he can interpret her feelings and make her feel better as he does for his patients, translating without passing judgment. However, when Mr. Kapasi reveals his disappointment in her and points out her guilt, Mrs. Das storms off. As Mrs. Das walks away towards her family, she trails crumbs of puffed rice snacks, and monkeys begin to trail her. The neglectful Das parents don’t notice as the monkeys, following Mrs. Das’s food trail, surround their son, Bobby, isolating the son born of a different father. The monkeys begin to attack Bobby, and Mr. Kapasi rushes in to save him. Mr. Kapasi returns Bobby to his parents, and looks on as they clean up their son. Analysis The story centers upon interpretation and its power. The interpreter has power as a vehicle of understanding. Mr. Kapasi’s work enables correct diagnosis and treatment by understanding the pains and troubles of patients—effectively, he enables the saving of lives. Mrs. Das looks for this understanding from him, seeking absolution for the secret of her adultery. In confessing to Mr. Kapasi, she endows him with a sort of priestly power, expecting her confession to draw out forgiveness and consolation. Interpretation also becomes a means of communication and connection, something for which both Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das yearn. Both feel a disconnect from their spouses and their families, unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives.[1] Mr. Kapasi interprets her marital situation in relation to his own, and she asks him to interpret her secret marital violation as a connection exclusively between them. Lahiri also establishes a contrast in this story between characters who care and those who don’t.[1] Mr. Kapasi cares about this family he has only just met; he ponders them and considers their situation. He also quickly begins to care about Mrs. Das, developing attentiveness to her every move. On the other hand, the Das parents exhibit complete carelessness, neglecting to keep an eye on their children, ignoring each other, acting completely self-centered. Main Theme—Interpretation/Seeing This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

In the story of “Interpreter of Maladies” each character has a deformed way of viewing each other. Mr. Das views the world through the lens of his camera (one of the symbols in the story). Since his camera is always around his neck, he sees even tough realities through the lens of his camera, which are not commented upon by other characters. For example, he takes pictures of the starving peasant, and doing so openly ignores the peasant's fundamental reality. Mrs. Das, always wearing her sunglasses, sees others through their tint and this blocks others from seeing her eyes. Furthermore, when in the taxi, her window does not roll down, so she can not directly see the world outside. Mr. Kapasi watches Mrs. Das through the rearview mirror, which distorts his view of her and prevents him from looking at her directly. All the children in the story are wearing a visor, this suggests that one day, their vision will be as distorted and deformed as their parents' visions are. Mr. Das and Ronny closely resemble each other, whereas Mr. Das and Bobby have little in common. Mr. Kapasi simply observes this fact but draws no inference from it, even though this simple fact is a hint to the deeper truth. Because Mr. Kapasi sees the Das family as a unit, he never suspects the simple truth that Mr. Das is not Bobby's father. His idea of family deforms the reality of the situation.

A Real Durwan Boori Ma is a feeble 64-year-old woman from Calcutta who is the stair-sweeper, or durwan, of an old brick building. In exchange for her services, the residents allow Boori Ma to live on the roof of the building. While she sweeps, she tells stories of her past: her daughter’s extravagant wedding, her servants, her estate and her riches. The residents of the brick building hear continuous contradictions in Boori’s storytelling, but her stories are seductive and compelling, so they let her contradictions rest. One family in particular takes a liking to Boori Ma, the Dalal’s. Mrs. Dalal often gives Boori Ma food and takes care of her ailments. When Mr. Dalal gets promoted at work, he improves the brick building by installing a sink in the stairwell and a sink in his home. The Dalal’s continue to improve their home and even go away on a trip to Simla for ten days and promise to bring back Boori Ma a sheep’s hair blanket. While the Dalal’s are away, the other residents become obsessed with making their own improvement to the building. Boori Ma even spends her life savings on special treats while circling around the neighborhood. However, while Boori Ma is out one afternoon, the sink in the stairwell is stolen. The residents accuse Boori Ma of informing the robbers and in negligence for her job. When Boori Ma protests, the residents continue to accuse her because of all her previous inconsistent stories. The residents' obsession with materializing the building dimmed their focus on the remaining members of their community, like Boori Ma. The short story concludes as the residents throw out Boori Ma’s belongings and begin a search for a “real durwan.”

The Treatment of BibiHaldar This section requires expansion. (April 2011) Analysis of A Real Durwan and The Treatment of BibiHaldar "A Real Durwan" and "The Treatment of BibiHaldar" are both examples of the effects of globalization in India. Globalization has caused many women to be or to be on the path to poverty. Although the Indian government officially eliminated the caste system in 1949, it is still

a part of the social structure in India because of its deep-rooted tradition in history. Because a person is usually born into a caste, the caste rarely changes from generation to generation. Most women in poverty are in lower castes. The women who are lucky to be employed are paid poorly and exploited for their long hours of labor. Women are seen as "replaceable and disposable".[citation needed] Many women enter the "unorganized, underground economy".[citation needed] In this type of economy, there are extended hours, horrible conditions, poor wages, and they are treated unfairly. Both Boori Ma and BibiHaldar were a part of the unorganized, underground economy because they were paid in food and shelter instead of legal, monetary compensation. Boori Ma was thrown out of her building because the community saw her as inferior and unequal. Furthermore, women's poverty is a direct link to the lack of access to education and legitimate healthcare. If BibiHaldar had access to proper healthcare and a good doctor, her illness may have been diagnosed correctly and she would have received the right medication.[3] Another factor that has an effect of BibiHaldar is the involvement of her neighbors. In Indian culture, not only does your family look after you, but so does your community.

Mrs. Sen's In this story, 11-year old Eliot begins staying with Mrs. Sen - a university professor's wife - after school. The caretaker, Mrs. Sen, chops and prepares food as she tells Elliot stories of her past life in Calcutta, helping to craft her identity. Like "A Temporary Matter," this story is filled with lists of produce, catalogs of ingredients, and descriptions of recipes. Emphasis is placed on ingredients and the act of preparation. Other objects are emphasized as well, such as Mrs. Sen's colorful collection of saris from her native India. Much of the plot revolves around Mrs. Sen's tradition of purchasing fish from a local seafood market. This fish reminds Mrs. Sen of her home and holds great significance for her. However, reaching the seafood market requires driving, a skill that Mrs. Sen has not learned and resists learning. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sen attempts to drive to the market without her husband, and ends up in an automobile accident. Eliot soon stops staying with Mrs. Sen thereafter. Analysis of Mrs. Sen's Mrs. Sen, the eponymous character of Lahiri’s story demonstrates the power that physical objects have over the human experience. During the entire story, Mrs. Sen is preoccupied with the presence or lack of material objects that she once had. Whether it is fish from her native Calcutta or her special vegetable cutting blade, she clings to the material possessions that she is accustomed to, while firmly rejecting new experiences such as canned fish or even something as mundane as driving a car. While her homesickness is certainly understandable given her lack of meaningful social connections, her item-centric nostalgia only accentuates the fact that the people she meets in America are no barrier to her acclimation. The man at the fish market takes the time to call Mrs. Sen and reserve her special mmuff. The policeman who questions Mrs. Sen after her automobile accident does not indict her. For all intents and purposes, the people in the story make it easy for Mrs. Sen to embrace life in America. But despite this, Mrs. Sen refuses to assimilate to any degree, continuing to wrap herself in saris, serving Indian canapés to Eliot’s mother, and putting off the prospect of driving. By living her life vicariously through remembered stories imprinted on her blade, her saris, and her grainy aerograms, Mrs. Sen resists assimilation through the power of material objects and the meaning they hold for her.

The Third and Final Continent In the story "The Third and Final Continent" the narrator lives in India, then moves to London, then finally to America. The title of this story tells us that the narrator has been to three different continents and chooses to stay in the third, North America. As soon as the narrator arrives he decides to stays at the YMCA. After saving some money he decides to move somewhere a little more like home. He responds to an advertisement in the paper and ends up living with an elderly woman. At first he is very respectful and courteous to the elderly women. The narrator does not feel that he owes the old woman anything and does not really go out of his way for her. But after he discovers that the elderly woman is one hundred and three years old he then changes. He becomes more caring and even amazed that this old woman has lived for one hundred and three years. Because of this woman's age she is not accustom to the modern times in which this story takes place. The narrator just like the elderly women is not accustom to the times in America but also America in general. So this may help the narrator to feel more comfortable in his new setting. After living with the elderly woman for about three months the narrator grows somewhat attached to this woman. Once his wife who he was set up to marry arrives in America he then decides to move to a bigger home. Upon this decision he also realizes that he is going to have to look out for and nurture his new wife. After living with his wife for some time whom of which he had barely known: he soon finds out that the elderly woman of whom he had once lived with is now dead. This hurts him because this is the first person in America of which he had felt any feeling for. After the woman's death he then becomes more comfortable with his wife. Not because the woman died but because of the time he is spending with his wife. Just like his relationship with elderly woman the more time he spends with a person the closer he becomes with them. After time the narrator becomes in love with his wife and is constantly remembering the elderly woman whom which he had once lived with. Analysis of The Third and Final Continent In contrast to depictions of resistance to Indian culture found in several of the stories in Lahiri’s collection, "The Third And Final Continent" portrays a relatively positive story of the IndianAmerican experience. In this story, the obstacles and hardships that the protagonist must overcome are much more tangible, such as learning to stomach a diet of cornflakes and bananas, or boarding in a cramped YMCA. The protagonist’s human interactions demonstrate a high degree of tolerance and even acceptance of Indian culture on the part of the Americans he meets. Mrs. Croft makes a point of commenting on the protagonist’s sari-wrapped wife, calling her “a perfect lady” (195). Croft’s daughter Helen also remarks that Cambridge is “a very international city,” hinting at the reason why the protagonist is met with a general sense of acceptance. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 into law, abolishing several immigration quotas. This piece of legislation resulted in a massive surge of immigration from Asian countries, including India during the late 1960s and 1970s. In particular, this allowed many Asians to come to the US under the qualification of being a “professional, scientist, or artist of exceptional ability” contributing to the reputation of Asian-Americans as being intelligent, mannered, and a model minority. In this story, the only reason the narrator even meets Mrs. Croft is because he is an employee of MIT, a venerable institution of higher learning.

Whereas prior to the INS Act of 1965, Asians were often seen as a yellow menace that was only tolerable because of their small numbers (0.5% of the population), by the time the Asian immigration boom tapered off in the 1990s, their reputation as a model minority had been firmly cemented, building a reputation for Asian Americans of remarkable educational and professional success, serving as the cultural backdrop in Lahiri’s The Third and Final Continent.[4] By ending on a cultural tone of social acceptance and tolerance, Lahiri suggests that the experience of adapting to American society is ultimately achievable.

Critical Reception Overall the book received generally positive reviews. Interpreter of Maladies garnered universal acclaim from a myriad of publications. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times praises Lahiri for her writing style, citing her "uncommon elegance and poise." Time applauded the collection for "illuminating the full meaning of brief relationships -- with lovers, family friends, those met in travel".[5] Noelle Brada-Williams argues that the Interpreter of Maladies is not just a collection of random short stories that have common components, but that the stories are combined to create a "short story cycle." She argues that Lahiri intentionally connects the themes and motifs throughout them to produce a cumulative effect on the reader. She goes on to argue that Indian American literature is under-represented and Lahiri deliberately tries to give a diverse view of Indian Americans so as not to brand the group as a whole. Brada-Williams also examines the idea of care and neglect in all of the stories. She points out that this recurring theme is present in all nine short stories and helps to support the notion that Lahiri intended to create a short story cycle.[1] Ketu H. Katrak reads The Interpreter of Maladies as reflecting the trauma of self-transformation through immigration, which can result in a series of broken identities that form "multiple anchorages." Lahiri's stories show the diasporic struggle to keep hold of culture as characters create new lives in foreign cultures. Relationships, language, rituals, and religion all help these characters maintain their culture in new surroundings even as they build a "hybrid realization" as Asian Americans.[6] Laura Anh Williams observes the stories as highlighting the frequently omitted female diasporic subject. Through the foods they eat, and the ways they prepare and eat them, the women in these stories utilize foodways to construct their own unique racialized subjectivity and to engender agency. Williams notes the ability of food in literature to function autobiographically, and in fact, Interpreter of Maladies indeed reflects Lahiri’s own family experiences. Lahiri recalls that for her mother, cooking "was her jurisdiction. It was also her secret." For individuals such as Lahiri's' mother, cooking constructs a sense of identity, interrelationship, and home that is simultaneously communal and yet also highly personal.[2][7] ANALYSIS The process of assimilation if very difficult for Mrs. Sen. Unlike the narrator of The Third and Final Continent or even Lilia’s parents, Mrs. Sen finds it impossible to integrate into her new country. Her refusal to learn how to drive is the culmination of her distress. Her frustration is voiced loudly only to Eliot, who is dealing with his own distress. There is a childish, tantrum-

like angle to Mrs. Sen’s complaints. She even remarks to Eliot that he is much wise than she was at that age; she never thought for a moment that she would be separated from her family. While the reader sympathizes with her plight, her stubbornness seems greater than it need be. Her husband tries to accommodate her, the policeman does not arrest or fine her for the accident, and the workers at the fishmarket put product on hold for her. In the end, it is Mrs. Sen’s responsibility to make an effort. Unlike Mala in The Third and Final Continent – who was equally distraught about leaving her family – Mrs. Sen does not try to adjust. She is trapped in a cage of her own making. As in Sexy, the main characters have mirror images within the story. Here, Eliot and Mrs. Sen are quite similar. He is trapped in his life as well. The loneliness and distress that Mrs. Sen expresses are familiar emotions. He has front row seats for his mother’s sadness. Unlike Mrs. Sen, Eliot is unable to tell anyone about his plight because, again unlike Mrs. Sen, he is truly powerless. The sympathy one has for Eliot reflects harshly on Mrs. Sen as one realizes that she could try. The symmetry is evoked in anecdotes, like the parties that Mrs. Sen and Eliot experience. Mrs. Sen’s lively party in Calcutta is contrasted with Eliot’s story as Eliot is only a witness and not a participant. Lack of communication is employed once again in Mrs. Sen’s to create a sense of tragedy. Though it is unclear how much Mr. Sen knows of his wife’s displeasure, Eliot seems to bear the brunt of her tantrums. In the very least, Mr. Sen does not broadcast his wife’s problems. After the accident, he tells Eliot’s mother that his wife is sleeping although Eliot hears her crying. Eliot is witness to both Mrs. Sen’s and his mother’s despondence. Eliot’s mother tells Mrs. Sen that she ate a big lunch when refusing her Indian snacks. Eliot knows it’s an excuse because she doesn’t like the flavors and that she eschews lunch to feast on wine, bread, and cheese when she gets home from work; her white lie is twofold. At the end of the story, Eliot assures his mother that he is okay though he is clearly troubled. In Mrs. Sen’s, honesty is not the policy. Nature has a voice in Mrs. Sen’s. The grey waves outside Eliot’s window as he tells his mother he’s fine represent the truth of his inner turmoil. The Sens' trip to the shore at the beginning of winter is marked by a violent and exciting wind. Though it would seem that Mrs. Sen would react negatively to the wind and cold, she delights in it. There is a possibility of her assimilation to America if she allows herself to enjoy the world around her. As Mrs. Sen places so much weight on artifacts from her life in Calcutta, Lahiri quite deftly expresses meaning through objects throughout Mrs. Sen’s. Her kitchen blade, the tape of her family’s voice, the aerograms, and her saris exist in stark contrast to her American world. The knife has a history and triggers many happy tales for Mrs. Sen. Eliot marvels at both the blade and her skill, but Mrs. Sen will not let him come near. The knife is a representation of her adherence to her old ways and also the looming danger of her attachment. Mrs. Sen seeks solace in both the aerograms and the tape, but they are poor facsimiles of what she truly craves – faceto-face communication with her family. By the time the letter is read (and reread), the events that are detailed in them have already happened. This echoes Lilia’s sentiment about life happening on the other side of the world and in a different time. After the death of her grandfather, the tape with his voice no longer soothes her. It becomes a representation of all she is missing. Within this period of grief, Eliot notices the lampshades wrapped in plastic, casting a temporary and deathly

pall over the home. Even the fish is a symbol of Mrs. Sen’s unwillingness to assimilate. The fish caught in the Atlantic Ocean can never compare to the fish caught in Calcutta. With a different attitude, these objects can all be transformed as part of her new life in America.

Major Themes The Immigrant Experience/Assimilation The immigrant experience takes several forms in Interpreter of Maladies. For some characters, like the narrator of The Third and Final Continent, the transition to a new life is challenging but smooth. The narrator looks forward to the opportunity that the new country can afford. For Lilia's parents, the move to America also affords them a wealth of opportunity not open to them in India, but the price is paid by Lilia in terms of connection to her culture. Mrs. Sen flat-out refuses to assimilate. For her, "everything" is in India and there is no reason to attempt to make a life in her new home. There is an emotional trade-off when moving to a new land. Each character in this collection wrestles with identity, whether newly displaced or descended from immigrants. There is a longing felt for the place of one's birth, a fear of losing one's culture and fear of not being accepted. Marriage/Love Love and marriage are complicated in Interpreter of Maladies. A marriage is the beginning of a new joint life for two people. In these stories, a marriage is an occasion of joy but also of secrets, silences, and mysteries. Twinkle and Sanjeev's relationship crystalizes the disparate attitudes and attributes of marriage in Lahiri's collection. Although they are both born in America and their marriage is not arranged, Twinkle and Sanjeev are nearly strangers to one another. No matter what romantic feelings transpire within couples, each husband and wife in the stories remain individuals, each with their own secrets and desires. Sanjeev doubts his love for his wife because of this disconnect. But, as is proved by the narrator of The Third and Final Continent, that distance can be closed by shared experience. Marriage is not a solid institution but a fluid invention. Shukumar and Shoba are radically altered by the death of their child, and the toll is taken on their marriage. They are no longer the same people as when they met. Love is found in unexpected places and can shift in the wake of experience. By reading Sexy from the point of view of a mistress, the reader also understands that each romantic connection is a unique and personal affair. There are no absolutes or strict moralities. Communication Lahiri has stated that much of her writing is concerned with communication and its absence. Miscommunication or unexpressed feelings weigh on several characters, destroying their wellbeing. A Temporary Matter is the best example of secrecy taking its toll on a marriage. Shukumar and Shoba, lost in their own grief, cease communicating with one another. Blackouts allow them the freedom to share secrets they have never shared. They are unfailingly honest and can no longer maintain the illusion that their marriage is still viable. Mrs. Das tries to unburden herself by telling Mr. Kapasi the secret of Bobby's conception. But only Mr. Das can absolve her of her guilt. At the end of the story, nothing has changed in their marriage because she is not able to

communicate her lack of love for her family to anyone other than a stranger. Twinkle and Sanjeev have different outlooks on life which cause initial discord between the newlyweds. Communication is necessary to healthy relationships. Parent/Child Relationships As children grow older, the relationship between them and their parents shift, becoming either adversarial or enriched with understanding. During the bulk of When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine the narrator Lilia is 10 years old. She brings a childlike innocence to her relationship with Mr. Pirzada, who she thinks is no different from her parents despite being a Pakistani. Lilia's parents are frustrated by her ignorance of current events in their homeland - the byproduct of her schooling in America. There is a disconnect between parents and children, both across generational and cultural lines. There is an unspoken truth between Eliot and his mother. Eliot is keenly aware of his mother's sadness and also of his powerlessness to help. Conversely, the narrator of The Third and Final Continent takes care of his mother when she is ill. He is forced to assume the role of the adult in their relationship. Rohin is also keenly aware of his mother's pain and the situation that has caused the pain. Lilia, Rohin, and Eliot all understand the grownups' sorrows and offer high-level observations on the nature of love and loss. Religion and Tradition Maintaining old traditions and customs while learning new ones is part of the assimilation process for immigrants. Mr. Pirzada is puzzled by Halloween - the pumpkins, the costumes and the candy all mystify him. In part, Mr. Pirzada worries enough over his daughters and the thought of Lilia freely inviting danger is too much for him. Twinkle reassures Sanjeev that they are "good little Hindus" despite her affection for discovered Christian iconography. Just because she is charmed by the statuettes does not mean that she has forsaken the customs of her ancestors. Mrs. Sen, unwilling to settle in America, obstinately upholds the patterns and routines of her life in Calcutta. Adopting new customs is the mark of a successful transition into a new country. Mala's effortless absorption of the American customs preferred by her husband indicates that her assimilation will not be as painful as Mrs. Sen's. Partition Partition as a historical event and as a metaphor is employed by Lahiri. Characters are divided against others and also divided within themselves. Mr. Pirzada and Boori Ma are victims of Partition. Boori Ma is a refugee who may or may not have lost her family and luxurious home in the forced exile of Hindus and Muslims from each other's territories. Her new life is in shambles and she lives on the fringes of society. Boori Ma represents the disastrous effects of the events of 1947. Lilia's reaction to Mr. Pirzada is Lahiri's critique of the skirmish between the two religions. She is unable to see any real difference between Mr. Pirzada and her parents. Her naivete taps into an overarching humanism that Partition erodes. Someone like Miranda, who is neither Indian nor Indian-American, is not immune to such a divide. Though she feels guilty about her tryst with Dev, her desire for him lingers. In Lahiri's fiction, each person is their own continent. Environment/Nature

The environment often reflects the inner turmoil of its characters. The rubble-filled Sun Temple that sits atop a dry river is indicative of the ruin of the marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Das as well as the well of disappointment that Mr. Kapasi carries with him. The gray waves outside Eliot's window belie a sadness that he is unable to express. The snow that thaws only after Shukumar and Shoba return to honesty directly relates to the thaw between the characters. In The Treatment of BibiHaldar, the changing seasons chart the life of the troubled main character. In the fall, she is shunned and in the winter she is isolated. In the spring, she is pregnant and emerges from her misery. There is a rhythm of life reflected in the changing seasons.

A Temporary Matter SUMMARY Husband and wife Shukumar and Shoba are notified that their electricity will be turned off at 8:00PM for five evenings in a row in order to fix a power line. Shoba tells her husband this news. He looks at her, noticing that her makeup has run from her time at the gym. He reminisces about how she would look in the morning after a party in happier times. Shoba insists that the electric company should work on the lines during the day. Shukumar takes slight offense at this idea; since January, he has worked at home on his dissertation. The outages begin that evening. Six months earlier, Shoba went into labor prematurely when Shukumar was attending a conference out of town. Shukumar remembers the station wagon cab that took him to the airport. For the first time, the images of parenthood that flashed through his mind – Shoba handing out juice boxes to their children in the back seat of their own station wagon – were welcome. While out of town, Shukumar was alerted of the labor complications, but by the time he arrived at the Boston hospital, their child had died. Lately, editor Shoba spends more time at work, leaving before Shukumar wakes and coming home late. Shukumar had been granted more time to work on his dissertation, but he finds himself unable to work. He and his wife have become strangers, experts in avoiding one another. A half an hour before the lights are due to go out, Shukumar continues cooking their dinner while Shoba showers. Reminded of a dentist appointment, Shukumar brushes his teeth with a toothbrush purchased long ago in case of overnight guests. Shoba was always prepared for what might happen. Groceries were purchased in bulk, Indian chutneys and marinades were prepared on the weekend, and dishes frozen for future use. A lavish feast could be whipped up on a moment’s notice. Now, Shukumar was working his way through their provisions, cooking dinner each evening just for the two of them to eat separately – Shukumar in the study that was to become the nursery and Shoba in front of the TV with her editing assignments spread out in front of her. Shukumar pretends to work when Shoba comes to visit each night, forcing herself to enter the room. Tonight, in the dark, would be the first time they ate together in months. Shukumar finds a half-empty box of birthday candles leftover from a surprise party Shoba had thrown for her husband last spring. At the party, she held his hand all night as they chatted easily with friends they now avoid. The only visitor they’d had since their baby died was Shoba’s

mother, who somewhat blames Shukumar for his child’s death. Shukumar sets the table with a potted ivy to hold the candles and glasses of wine. Just as the meat is ready, the house goes dark. When the power would go out while visiting relatives in India, Shoba’s family would share jokes or poems.Shoba suggests they tell each other secrets in the dark. First, she confesses that when they began dating, she looked for her name in his phone book the first time she went to his apartment. Shukumar tells Shoba that he forgot to tip the waiter on their first date. He was distracted by the thought he might marry her. The next night, Shoba comes home earlier so they can eat together before the lights go out. When they lose power, they decide to sit outside in the unseasonably warm winter night. Shukumar wonders what Shoba will tell him since he feels they know everything about each other. Shoba shares first. When Shukumar’s mother came for a visit, she lied about working late and went out for a martini with her friend Gillian instead. Shukumar remembers the visit, his mother still in mourning for her husband twelve years after his death. Without Shoba there to say the right things, Shukumar felt awkward with his grief-stricken mother. Shukumar admits that, fifteen years ago, he cheated on an exam. His father had died only a few months earlier. Shoba takes his hand. They sit outside until the lights come on and then retreat to their home, still holding hands. Without speaking about it, their time in the dark turned into an exchange of confessions about how they had hurt or disappointed each other or themselves. On the third night, Shukumar tells Shoba that he returned the sweater vest she had given him for their third anniversary. He exchanged it for cash and got drunk in the middle of the day. She tells him that she once let him speak to the chairman of his department with food on his chin. On the fourth night, he admits he kept a picture of a woman torn out of a magazine in his wallet while Shoba was pregnant. The desire for the unknown woman was the closest he ever came to infidelity. Shoba tells him she never liked the only poem he had ever published. Shukumar and Shoba are able to be intimate in the dark. On the third night, they kiss and on the fourth night, they make love. The next day, they receive a notice that the power line has been repaired ahead of schedule. It is the end of their game. Shoba suggests they still light candles and eat by their glow. After dinner, Shoba blows out the candles and opens a second bottle of wine. She turns the lights back on, telling Shukumar that she wants to see his face when she tells him her biggest secret. Before coming home that evening, she had signed the lease on her own new apartment. Shukumar is relieved but sickened. Shoba had been preparing for a life without him and the game had been proposed so she could work up her nerve to break the news to him. It is Shukumar’s turn to speak and he decides to confess something he swore he’d never tell. When she was pregnant, Shoba wanted the gender of their child to remain a surprise until birth. When the child died, she did not know if they had lost a son or daughter. Shoba took refuge in that mystery, spared of that knowledge. When Shukumar arrived at the hospital, Shoba was asleep. The doctor suggested he hold the child before it was cremated in order to begin the grieving process. Shukumar recoiled, but then agreed. He tells Shoba that he held their son. He describes what the child looked like, how his fingers were curled just as hers curl in the night.

Shukumar takes their plates to the sink, leaving Shoba alone in the living room. He watches their neighbors walk arm in arm and the lights suddenly go out. He turns to find Shoba at the light switch. They sit together and weep for their new knowledge. ANALYSIS A Temporary Matter is a story about grief and the secrets people keep from one another. Husband and wife Shukumar and Shoba are reeling from the loss of their child six months earlier. They avoid each other and their friends, Shoba filling her time with work and Shukumar procrastinating in finishing his dissertation. A deus-ex-machina in the form of systematic power outages allows for intimacy between the couple not achieved since the death of their son. The importance of communication within a marriage is a prevalent theme in Interpreter of Maladies. Here the sorrow of the lost child causes a communication breakdown in the relationship of Shukumar and Shoba. This silence between them eventually destroys them because, in their grief, Shukumar and Shoba grow to become different people. Since they no longer share experiences, the couple grows apart. Their final secrets are painful ones – Shoba intends to move out and Shukumar violates the wishes of his wife by revealing the gender of the child. Secrecy eventually leads to broken trust. Ultimately, it is the baby who will never cry who tears the two apart. A Temporary Matter is told from the third-person perspective of Shukumar. Though the narrator is omniscient, we understand the events in the story through his experiences. The story unfolds largely in memory as each item Shukumar touches triggers a memory to a happier time in the couple’s life together. For instance, the birthday candles used during the blackout remind him of a surprise party Shoba threw for him. Only through Shoba’s confessions do we fully appreciate her point of view in this story about the end of a marriage. Environment plays a key role in the story. The darkness is both a metaphor for Shukumar and Shoba’s relationship and a safe space for the couple to bond. Both have been groping around in the dark for the sense of normalcy that was destroyed by the death of their child. The planned blackouts force an intimacy that the couple hasn’t known for a long time. By the second day, they are so liberated by the darkness that they begin to anticipate it. Finally, they turn off the lights when the planned outages cease. Darkness ushers in intimacy, which allows the couple to make love for the first time since the child’s death. By the end of the week, the snow outside begins to melt. This thawing mimics the freedom both Shukumar and Shoba now feel from their grief. Though both are now in pain stemming from the end of their marriage, they are feeling once again. Food, an important part of Indian culture, also plays a significant role in this story. Shoba’s trips to the market are exhilarating for Shukumar in the beginning of their marriage. In happier times, Shoba would prepare lavish meals and a particular gourmet cake for his birthday. Shoba would buy in bulk and prepare meals and chutneys that could be warmed and served in the matter of moments. In this way, their home was always open to others and always filled with love. After the baby’s death, Shukumar started running through the provisions prepared by Shoba. This is a

symbol of their dwindling affections and the unpredictability of life. Ultimately, Shoba is unable to control or prepare for the worst.

When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine SUMMARY In the autumn of 1971, Mr. Pirzada comes to Lilia’s house to dine each night. Mr. Pirzada is from Dacca, then a part of Pakistan. He left behind his wife and seven daughters for a fellowship to study the foliage of New England. Since his fellowship provided for only a meager dorm room, he comes to Lilia’s home to eat with her parents and to watch the news of the Indo-Pakistan War. Dacca had been invaded by the Pakistani army and torched and shelled. Thousands of people were tortured or killed. Although Mr. Pirzada writes a letter to his family each week, he had not heard from them in six months. Lilia is 10 years old, living with her parents near a university north of Boston. Her parents, originally from India, miss their homeland and seek out names similar to their own in the university directory. This is how they found Mr. Pirzada. Lilia calls him “the Indian man,” but her father explains that he is no longer Indian; though he is Bengali, he is also a Muslim. In 1947, after winning independence from England, the country was sliced in two. This partition put Hindus in India and Muslims in Pakistan. Lilia’s father tells her that during Partition, violence erupted between Muslims and Pakistan. Lilia can’t understand this. Mr. Pirzada speaks the same language as her parents, they tell the same jokes and eat the same food. Lilia’s father complains to her mother that their daughter is unaware of the current events of India and Pakistan. Lilia’s mother is proud that their daughter was born in the United States and that she is an American. She is assured a safe life, access to education and endless opportunities. Her father is not pleased that she does not seem to learn about the world. When Mr. Pirzada arrives, Lilia takes his coat and is rewarded with a candy. Lilia savors the candy, storing the treats in a sandalwood box that belonged to a grandmother she never met. She eats the confections with ceremony, enjoying one only after laying out her clothes for school the next day. Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s family eat in living room in front of the TV. Lilia, upon learning that Mr. Pirzada is not an Indian, watches him carefully. He takes out a silver pocket watch that is set 11 hours ahead – the time in Dacca. Lilia marvels that Mr. Pirzada’s family was already waking up the next morning. Theirs was the ghost life, lagging behind where Mr. Pirzada really belonged. Lilia pays attention to the news broadcast, wondering if they would catch a glimpse of Mr. Pirzada’s daughters waving from their balcony. But only images of tanks and clamoring refugees fill the screen. That night, Lilia eats a piece of candy, letting it melt on her tongue while saying a prayer for Mr. Pirzada’s family. She falls asleep with sugar in her mouth, afraid to wash away the prayer by brushing her teeth. At school, Lilia is assigned a presentation on the surrender at Yorktown with her friend Dora. While at the library to read about the American Revolution, Lilia’s teacher Mrs. Kenyon catches her reading a book on Pakistan. She is chastised.

The news from Pakistan dwindles as the reports are censored. A death toll is announced along with only a recap of what is happening. More poets are executed and more villages set ablaze. In spite of this, Mr. Pirzada often stayed until midnight playing Scrabble, drinking tea and joking about the spelling of English words with Lilia’s parents. On the other side of the world, a nation was being born. In October, Mr. Pirzada asks about the pumpkins he sees on the doorsteps of Lilia’s neighbors. She tells him that it is used to scare people. He helps her carve a jack-o’-lantern while a TV reporter mentions Dacca. It appears as if India will go to war with Pakistan. Mr. Pirzada’s knife slips, leaving a deep gash in the pumpkin. The mouth is fixed so that it appears that the jack-o’lantern is frozen in astonishment. Lilia dresses as a witch for Halloween with her friend Dora. It is the first year she is allowed to trick-or-treat unattended. Mr. Pirzada worries, asking her parents if there is any danger. Lilia’s mother assures him that it is only an American custom. Lilia tells him not to worry. Outside, Dora asks Lilia why Mr. Pirzada wanted to come with them. She says his daughters are missing, but immediately regrets it, as if saying it will make it true. Lilia corrects herself, saying that the girls are in another country and that their father misses them. When Lilia arrives home later, she finds their jack-o’-lantern has been smashed. Inside, Lilia’s parents sit on the couch. Mr. Pirzada’s head is in his hands. India and Pakistan are on the brink of war. The U.S.A. sides with West Pakistan, the Soviet Union with India and what will become Bangladesh. During the twelve days of the war, Lilia’s mother only cooks boiled eggs and rice. They lay out a blanket for Mr. Pirzada to sleep on the couch. Lilia’s parents call their relatives in Calcutta for updates. The house rings with fear. In January, Mr. Pirzada flies home to what is left of Dacca. Dacca’s new leader is released from prison and must lead its people through famine and unemployment and refugees returning from India. Lilia imagines Mr. Pirzada when gazing at her parents’ now out-of-date map. Months later, Lilia’s family receives a letter from Mr. Pirzada. He is reunited with his family who were kept safe from harm by his wife’s family. He thanks their family deeply for their hospitality. Lilia’s mother makes a special supper that evening, but Lilia does not feel like celebrating. She misses Mr. Pirzada. Since he left in January, she continued to eat a piece of candy in prayer for his family. But now there was no longer a need. Eventually, she throws the rest of the candy away. ANALYSIS The story is told from the first person perspective of Lilia, primarily in her 10th year. Choosing to tell this story through the eyes of a child somewhat mitigates the heavy topic. The war between India and Pakistan in 1971 is witnessed from a distance both geographically and emotionally. While Lilia’s parents fret over a skirmish thousands of miles away, Lilia is more concerned with her own life. The candy that Mr. Pirzada lavishes on Lilia becomes a prayer for the safety of his daughters. Her awareness of the contrast between her situation and Mr. Pirzada’s daughters opens her eyes to the complicated political struggle on a personal level. In this case, the lessons learned by Lilia are the same learned by the reader but in a more literary, less didactic way.

Time is an interesting construct in this story as well. Lilia remarks that events are unfolding eleven hours ahead of her time zone. She feels as if the events are playing out in the future and her life is somehow a ghost life. This has two separate meanings for Lilia. First, there is a remove between herself and the girls culturally as Lilia is a first-generation American born to immigrant parents. Second, since this is also a coming of age story, Lilia struggles for some semblance of maturity. As a child, she feels as if her life has already been experienced by others who have gone before her. Lilia also narrates from the present, adding yet another layer of remove into the story. All that is occurring in the time frame of the story actually has already happened. The facts of the war, she says, were a “remote mystery with haphazard clues.” Lilia narrates the story from the remoteness of childhood, only understanding after years have passed. Assimilation of Indians to America is one of the overarching themes in Interpreter of Maladies. Lilia and her parents are on either side of a divide. Identity issues are typically compounded generation to generation. Though Lilia’s parents remember their own experiences in India vividly, Lilia is an American and therefore a step removed from the culture of her parents. Lilia’s father is dismayed that she is ignorant of current events in India. Lilia does, in fact, attempt to study the history of Pakistan but she is unable to do so on school time. Lilia does have an interest in her parents’ world, but she is fully enmeshed in, to Mr. Pirzada, unthinkable customs. Halloween, a purely American holiday, mystifies Mr. Pirzada. Customs shared by Lilia and her parents are also shared by Mr. Pirzada. From Lilia’s perspective, the division of Pakistanis and Indians is arbitrary. When her father tells her that Mr. Pirzada is no longer Indian, she inspects him and his actions for clues of difference. This echoes her own relationship with her father, who worries that her American education is making her no longer Indian. However, America allows for Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s father to dine together, worry together and laugh together. Assimilation is seen as both positive and negative. There is no mention of religion in Lilia’s family, though it can be assumed that her family is Hindu since they are unlike Mr. Pirzada. But Lili gives in to a secular type of prayer with the candy that Mr. Pirzada gives to her. Like traditions, rituals can expose belief systems of a person. Since Lilia, who says she doesn’t pray, performs a ritual to keep the Pirzada girls safe, it can be assumed that she does not typically practice the religion of her parents. Lilia can be read as a secular American, again removed from the culture of her parents.

A Real Durwan SUMMARY Boori Ma, an increasingly frail 64-year-old woman, is the durwan (live-in doorkeeper) to an apartment building of Calcutta. Each day, she trudges up the stairs, lugging her reed broom and flimsy mattress behind her. As she sweeps, her raspy voice details the losses she has suffered because of Partition. She was separated from her husband, two daughters, and home. Tied to the end of her sari is a set of skeleton keys belonging to coffer boxes that housed her valuables. She chronicles the easier times in her life, the feasts and servants and marble floor of her home. Each litany ends with the same phrase, “Believe me, don’t believe me.”

The details of her journey across the border shift in each retelling. But her tales were so impassioned that no one could dismiss her outright. Each resident of the building had a different interpretation of her tales. Mr. Dalal of the third floor can’t fathom how a landowner ends up sweeping stairs, wives think she is the victim of changing times, Mr. Chatterjee believes she simply mourns her family and wraps herself in illusion. Nevertheless, her tales harmed no one and she was entertaining. Best of all, she kept the stairs spotlessly clean and the outside world at bay. She routed away any suspicious person with a few slaps of her broom. Though there was nothing to steal from the apartments, the residents were comforted by her presence. Boori Ma suffers from sleepless nights. Mrs. Dalal, who has a soft spot for Boori Ma, comes to the roof to dry lemon peels. Boori Ma asks her to inspect her back for the mites she assumes torment her in her sleep. Mrs. Dalal finds nothing. Boori Ma talks again about her lost comforts – such comforts Mrs. Dalal can’t dream of. The women commiserate and Mrs. Dalal offers to buy the woman new bedding. Later rains turn Boori Ma’s mattress into yogurt, so she focuses on the offer of new bedding. Boori Ma is allowed to wander in and out of the apartments, offered tea and crackers for help with cleaning of children’s activities. She knows better than to sit on the furniture, so she crouches in doorways and takes in life from a distance. She visits The Dalals. Mr. Dalal asks her to help tote basins to his apartment. Mrs. Dalal is not pleased. A basin does not make up for not having a phone or a fridge, or other amenities promised but not delivered. The argument rings through the building and Boori Ma does not ask about bedding. She sleeps on newspaper that night. Mr. Dalal installs one basin – the first of the building – in his home and another in the foyer for all of his neighbors to use. Instead of being moved by the gesture, the residents of the building are awash in resentment. Why did they have to share, why were the Dalals the only ones who could improve the building, why couldn’t they buy their own basins? To appease his wife after their argument, it is rumored that Mr. Dalal purchased lavish shawls and soaps. He takes her away for ten days and Mrs. Dalal assures Boori Ma that she has not forgotten her promise of renewed bedding. While the Dalals are away, the other wives plan renovations and the stairs become choked by workmen. Unable to sweep, Boori Ma keeps to her roof, keeping an eye on her dwindling set of newspapers and wondering when she had her last glass of tea. When she grows restless of the roof, she wanders around the town spending her life’s savings on treats. She feels a tug at the end of her sari and finds her purse and skeleton keys gone. When she returns to the building, she finds the basin has been torn out of the wall. The residents carry her up to the roof and accuse her of telling robbers about the new basin. She tries to convince them, but after all of her lies, they say, how can they believe her now? The residents seek the advice of Mr. Chatterjee. He comes to the conclusion that the building needs a real durwan to keep their valuables safe. They toss Boori Ma out of on the street muttering, as her figure recedes, “believe me, believe me.” ANALYSIS

A Real Durwan is primarily a story about class and the resentment it can inspire. Boori Ma, a poor woman forced to sweep stairwells in her old age, comforts herself with tales of her previous riches. Whether or not these anecdotes are true, they have the same effect. They are an oasis for her, a way to escape the reality of her life for just a moment. When the Dalals install the basins in the building, their neighbors react with jealousy instead of gratitude. They rail against the Dalals for trying to show up the rest of the building. Mrs. Dalal, it is rumored, doesn’t think the basin is classy enough. At the end, Boori Ma is cast out of the building, blamed for the theft. Mr. Chatterjee says that they need a real durwan for their building; his desire to promote the illusion of the building's upward mobility is a fatal punishment for Boori Ma. She is a reminder of their true place in the social structure, and she is a reminder that her fate can await any of them. Casting her out is casting out the truth of their meager lives. Dismissing her means they can never be her. Partition again is a theme here. In the exile of Hindus from Muslim lands and vice versa, millions of people were left homeless. Boori Ma, though she may be lying about her previous wealth, is proven to be a refugee by her accent. As in When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, Partition feels arbitrary. By focusing in on the life of one person affected by the treaty, the reader can glean the human toll. Though the caste system – the stratification of Indians into ethnic or class categorizations – and its notion of untouchables was banned in 1950, class and race made Boori Ma untouchable. The structure of this story is built upon irony. Almost as if in an O. Henry story, Boori Ma is promised new bedding on the precise day that Mr. Dalal brings home the basin, and the precise day that her old bedding is ruined. The basin and the ensuing fight between Mr. and Mrs. Dalal pushes Boori Ma’s needs to the side. Mrs. Dalal says that she has not forgotten about her bedding before she leaves for her vacation but she does not arrive home in time to save Boori Ma, let alone to provide new bedding. Yes, Mrs. Dalal is considered flaky, but Boori Ma is cast out when she is out of town and unable to protect her. The irony here less a dramatic device than a comment on the fickle nature of life. Rumor and gossip also shape the story. Boori Ma’s insistence that she is telling the truth, despite the details she changes at will, is at first a source of comedy for the residents. They think that she is entertaining even though the tales are sorrowful. When the Dalals buy the basin, their neighbors gossip about the fights that take place behind closed doors. Rumor becomes fact when the Dalals leave for vacation. This blurring of lines between truth and gossip can be blamed for Boori Ma’s punishment at the end. Since the wisest man in the building, Mr. Chatterjee, has not picked up a newspaper in decades, word of mouth and hearsay are taken as gospel. In a way, this is a reflection of society as the truth is often elusive. Objects take on important meaning in A Real Durwan. The basin becomes a symbol of both wealth and resentment. The skeleton keys tied to the end of Boori Ma’s sari are both remembrances of her past life and a totem of her strength. They reassure her. When they are stolen, she is thrown out shortly thereafter. Boori Ma’s bedding, she believes, is full of mites that keep her up at night. Though the mites are a figment of her imagination and a manifestation of her worries, the bedding can be read as her livelihood. Once destroyed, her life slips away.

Sexy SUMMARY Miranda is a young, somewhat aimless, woman who works in fundraising for a public radio station in Boston. Her coworker Laxmi, already married and settled despite being only a few years older than Miranda, alerts Miranda to a personal disaster. Her cousin’s husband had a lifechanging conversation on an airplane and has left his family. Laxmi doesn’t blame her cousin for taking to bed, but her grief has made her unable to care for her son. Usually, Laxmi doesn’t need to tell Miranda family gossip, as Miranda can hear Laxmi’s phone calls through her cubicle. Today, however, Miranda is engrossed in her own phone call. She talks with her married lover Dev. Laxmi’s nephew is a genius and part Bengali, like Dev. At first Miranda thought it was a religion, but Dev pointed out the West Bengal state on a map of India. He brought the map, printed in an issue of the Economist, to show where his father had been born. When she asks about the article it appears in, he taps her playfully on the head with the magazine. He says it’s nothing she’ll ever need to worry about. But later, when he leaves, she pulls the article from the trash and looks for photos of where Dev was born. They met a week before at a makeup counter in a department store in Boston. As she paused to smell a fragrance card, her eyes found Dev, an elegant man, purchasing toiletries for a woman. Miranda engages a saleswoman so she can stay near to Dev. He watches her as the woman applies cream to her face. She tries to place his accent, guessing he is Lebanese or Spanish. They meet at the exit and Miranda inquires about the creams. They are for his wife – who will be leaving for India for a few weeks. Those few weeks, Miranda and Dev spend nearly every night together at her apartment. Dev races back to his home in the suburbs in the early mornings for a pre-arranged daily phone call with his traveling wife. He calls frequently, leaving his voice on her answering machine. He is charmed by her tiny apartment, and her bravery in moving to a city where she knows no one, and also by her long legs. Miranda and Dev both admit to their loneliness and Miranda thinks he understands her. Dev is the first man she has dated who is thoughtful, romantic, and chivalrous. Miranda keeps Dev a secret, only occasionally wanting to tell Laxmi. Dev shows Miranda his favorite parts of Boston, including the Mapparium – a domed building with a room that looks like you are standing inside a globe, with glowing stained glass panels that look like the outside of a globe. Dev’s voice echoes alluringly as he shows her details of the world. The acoustics make each sound feel as if a whisper in her ear. He stands across the room from her and whispers into the corner of a wall. She feels his voice under her skin. She says “Hi,” and he responds, “You’re sexy.” It was the first time she’d been told she was sexy. Hearing his voice in her head, Miranda goes back to the department store and buys clothes she thinks a mistress should have – seamed stockings, black heels, a black slip, and a silver cocktail dress. She imagines wearing the ensemble at dinner with Dev. But when his wife returns, he appears at Miranda’s in gym clothes,

having told his wife he was out running. The lingerie remains unworn at the back of her drawer, and the silver dress often slips off its hanger and falls to the floor of her closet. But the affair continues. Dev shares more about his life and asks Miranda about her own. He takes naps during their trysts, accustomed to taking them during hot summers as a boy. Miranda doesn’t sleep, but studies his body during, what Dev calls, “the best twelve minutes of the week.” After waking up, he goes home to his wife. Miranda recalls the Dixits, an Indian family who moved into her neighborhood when she was a child. Her peers would make fun of their name and frown upon their differences. Miranda went over to their house once for the daughter’s birthday and was so frightened by a painting of the fierce goddess Kali, that she never returned. Now, Miranda is ashamed of her behavior. When not with Dev, she walks to an Indian restaurant and tries to remember Hindi phrases from the bottom of the menu. She even tries to learn how to write her name in Bengali. Miranda’s boredom wanes during the week, but her guilt rears its head when Laxmi talks about her cousin. On Sundays, Dev would come. She asks him what his wife looks like and he responds that she looks like an actress, Madhuri Dixit. For a moment, Miranda’s heart stops. She knows she could not be the girl from her childhood, but it still spooks her. Miranda finds her way to an Indian grocery that rents videos, on the hunt to find out what Madhuri Dixit looks like. A Bollywood video plays in the deli, and she knows she must look like one of those women. Beautiful. Miranda notices a snack that Laxmi eats and the grocer tells her it’s too spicy for her. Laxmi’s cousin comes to Boston to get away from her drama. Laxmi treats her to a spa day, asking Miranda to babysit the cousin's son for the day. Rohin comes to Miranda’s apartment with a backpack full of books and a sketchpad. For a boy of 7, he looks haggard and weary. Rohin demands Miranda quiz him on world capitals, as he is having a competition with another student to memorize them all. He announces he will win. He is precocious and makes more demands of Miranda throughout the afternoon. For coffee, to watch cartoons, to look through her toiletries and to draw a picture of their day together. He says, with a precision that startles Miranda, that they will never see each other again. Rohin drags himself to her room and starts going through her closet, finding the silver dress on the floor. Rohin asks that she put it on. Miranda knows she will never wear it on a date with Dev. Now that his wife is back in town, she is nothing but a mistress. She makes Rohin wait outside, latching the door to make sure, while she changes. His eyes open wide when he sees her. Rohin tells her she’s sexy. After her heart skips a beat, Miranda asks him what it means. The boy blushes and finally admits that it means loving someone you don’t know. His father had sat down next to someone sexy on a plane and now loves her instead of his mother. Miranda goes numb. Rohin curls up for a nap and Miranda takes the dress off. Back in her jeans, she lies down next to the boy and imagines the arguments his parents must have had. Thinking about her own situation, she begins to cry. When she wakes up, Rohin is holding the issue of the Economist. He asks who DevjitMitra is. Miranda doesn’t know what to say. The next time Dev calls, she tells him not to come. She asks him what he said to her in the Mapparium, but he answers incorrectly. The following Sunday, it

snows. The Sunday after that, Miranda makes plans with Laxmi and he doesn’t ask her to cancel. The third Sunday, she walks alone to the Mapparium and studies the city. ANALYSIS Sexy is a story that is centered on gender and race and the confusion they can inspire. Miranda, the main character, is having an affair with Dev, an older, married Indian man. She is attracted to Dev, it is suggested, for two primary reasons – his age and his race. Dev is the first adult man that Miranda has dated. He is mature, wealthy, and complementary to Miranda in a way that she has not known before. Dev is also exotic to her. When they first meet, Dev remarks that part of her name is Indian (“Mira”) and she is entranced by this. Dev can open up another world for Miranda. But appearances fall flat. Miranda decides to purchase a silver dress, black stockings and slip and high heels, fantasizing about the restaurant Dev will take her to. In a way, Miranda is playing dressup. Since she talks about the high school and college boys she’s dated, we assume that she has recently graduated from college herself and is somewhat aimless. Dev represents an adult, masculine world that Miranda wants to understand. By buying clothes suitable for a mistress, she intends to play dressup as a woman. The clothes, and the fantasy surrounding them, represent the tropes of gender that Miranda believes in. Wearing the dress, like dating Dev, will make her an adult. Dating Dev will also broaden her world. Her coworker Laxmi tacks a photo of herself and her husband at the TajMahal to her cubicle. Laxmi says it is the most romantic place on earth. Miranda fantasizes that she and Dev are in the photo and she secretly yearns to tell Laxmi about the affair. To Miranda, Dev is exotic and worldly. Dating him will transfer those experiences to her own life. She moved alone from the Midwest and her isolation is coupled with a feeling of inexperience. She tries to learn Bengali, write her name in Dev’s language, try more Indian cuisine and recalls with shame an incident of mild xenophobia from her childhood. She is ashamed that she was not more understanding with the Dixit family and dating Dev can absolve her of that shame. However, she loves Dev for what she knows about him – which is not much. In the end, she realizes that she has fallen for the surface and not the person. When the grocer tells Miranda that the Hot Mix that Laxmi eats is too spicy for her, she is dismissed with an appraisal of her race. Though she is attracted to Dev, she practices a version of exoticism that is equally damaging. There is a balance to Sexy that is created by characters that are mirror images of one another. Laxmi’s cousin is on the receiving end of infidelity. It is through her stories that Miranda’s guilt first comes to pass. Through these two women, we see the opposite sides of an affair – the mistress and the wronged wife. In this way, we do not need exposition of Miranda’s guilt because the uncomfortable situation puts the reader in discomfort as well. Children in Lahiri’s stories have definitive points of view and can affect the narrative in important ways. Lilia, the main character of When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, possesses a childlike innocence that expresses the theme of Partition and its indictment. Eliot in Mrs. Sen’s is a conduit for the loneliness of both his mother and Mrs. Sen. Rohin in Sexy is Miranda’s

conscience. The simplicity of his definition of “sexy” is remarkably prescient. Loving someone you don’t know is precisely what Dev, Miranda, and his father are doing. In his phrase, Miranda understands both that she is drawn to Dev for his surface value and also that Dev does not love Miranda for who she is. Even without the dress, she is simply a mistress – not a woman. That Dev can’t remember what he told her at the Mapparium is the death knell for the affair.

Mrs. Sen's SUMMARY Since the beginning of his school year, Eliot has been going to Mrs. Sen’s house after school. Though he is 11 and can take care of himself, Eliot’s mother wants an adult around to supervise. However, Mrs. Sen doesn’t know how to drive. At their first meeting, Eliot is taken aback by the pile of shoes by the door and the carefully covered furniture. His mother is the one who looks odd, Eliot thinks. Mr. Sen, a mathematics professor, assures Eliot’s mother that she will be able to drive by December. Mrs. Sen responds that she is a slow learner and that she had a chauffeur at home. Eliot’s mother asks if she means India and the word alone releases emotions in Mrs. Sen. She says, “Everything is there.” Eliot would often watch Mrs. Sen prepare meals. He is taken with a curved blade brought from India that Mrs. Sen would use to expertly carve vegetables in seconds. She doesn’t allow Eliot to go near her in the kitchen, afraid for his safety. She tells Eliot that there is a knife in every household and a retinue of women would gather to prepare feasts for weddings. No one could sleep over the din. Here, Mrs. Sen says, is too quiet. Eliot also dislikes his home. He and his mother live alone in a beach house. Now that the weather has turned cold, the beach is desolate and forbidding. Mrs. Sen asks Eliot whether, if she started screaming, anyone would come. At home, people would come running at the slightest commotion to share joy or grief. Eliot remembers a party that was thrown by a neighbor; he and his mother were not invited. Eliot decides that someone might call to complain. He understands that “home” to Mrs. Sen means India and not the house they’re presently in. He asks Mrs. Sen about the vermillion powder used to create a red part in her hair. She says it is like a wedding ring, but one that won’t get lost in the dishwasher. When Eliot’s mother arrives, Mrs. Sen offers her a snack. Eliot’s mother knows she doesn’t like the tastes and also that she has not taken a late lunch – her excuse for taking only one or two bites. At home, Eliot’s mother pours glasses of wine and eats bread and cheese, sometimes so much that she is not hungry for the pizza they order for dinner most nights. Mrs. Sen waits for Eliot at the bus stop each day and each day they go directly to her car so she may practice her driving. He knows that MrsSen takes Eliot driving because she is afraid. She asks if everything will improve when she gets her license, as Mr. Sen says. Eliot responds that she can go places. Mrs. Sen then asks how long it would take to get to Calcutta – 10,000 miles at 50 miles per hour. Mrs. Sen is easily distracted behind the wheel, getting nervous by the main road. Everything is too much for her.

Two things make Mrs. Sen happy – a letter from her family and fish from the seaside. When a letter arrives, Mrs. Sen calls her husband and reads the contents word for word. The letters make her restless, and she takes Eliot for a walk around the campus. She laments the birth of her sister’s child as the girl will not know her aunt for at least three years. Mrs. Sen asks if Eliot misses his mother these afternoons. The thought hadn’t occurred to him. She says he is wise – he already tastes the way things must be. Mrs. Sen calls the local fishmarket each day to request a whole, fresh fish that her husband will pick up. She is a regular, known by the market. Again, she compares the fish available here to those in Calcutta and declares them inferior. One day the market puts a fish on hold but Mr. Sen refuses to pick it up. Mrs. Sen begins to weep and then takes Eliot into her room. She flings her beautiful saris on the bed. She has nowhere to wear them, no pictures of her life she wants to send to her family back home. Mr. Sen begrudgingly arrives to take her to the fish market. Mrs. Sen refuses to drive. At the market, Eliot watches her chat with the workers. Mrs. Sen becomes despondent. She refuses again to drive, she doesn’t prepare any lavish meals, she switches on the television but doesn’t watch, and she lets tea grow cold on the counter. She plays a sad raga for Eliot and then a tape of her family cataloguing the events of the day she left India. She identifies each family member and then translates the mundane events. The next day, she repeats the tape but stops when her grandfather speaks. Eliot learns the man has just died. A week later, Mr. Sen takes Eliot and his wife back to the fish market where they purchase a large quantity of fish. It is getting cold and the blustering winds make Mrs. Sen shiver with delight. This is a good day. She laughs at everything Mr. Sen says and even allows for a photograph to be taken. Mr. Sen tells her to drive home and it is a disaster. She goes too slowly, becomes distracted by the radio, and finally pulls over to the side of the road. She hates driving and refuses to drive again. Mrs. Sen learns the bus route and begins to take Eliot to the shore herself. But the passengers complain about the smell of the fish, and Mrs. Sen is confronted and embarrassed by the bus driver. A few days later, when the next fish arrives, Mrs. Sen tells Eliot to put on his shoes. They pile into the car and Mrs. Sen attempts to merge onto the main road. The accident happens quickly. Startled by another driver, Mrs. Sen drives the car into a telephone pole. Both she and Eliot have minor scrapes and pains. Mr. Sen is called and he reasons with the police officer, explaining that she doesn’t have a license. He takes them back to the Sens. Mrs. Sen prepares a snack for Eliot and then retreats to her bedroom. Eliot can hear her crying. When his mother arrives, Mr. Sen explains what happened and offers to reimburse her for the month. From that day on, Eliot wears a string around his neck with his house key. He was no longer to be watched by a babysitter. When his mother calls and asks if he is okay, he stares out at the choppy grey waves and declares he is fine. ANALYSIS

The process of assimilation if very difficult for Mrs. Sen. Unlike the narrator of The Third and Final Continent or even Lilia’s parents, Mrs. Sen finds it impossible to integrate into her new country. Her refusal to learn how to drive is the culmination of her distress. Her frustration is voiced loudly only to Eliot, who is dealing with his own distress. There is a childish, tantrumlike angle to Mrs. Sen’s complaints. She even remarks to Eliot that he is much wise than she was at that age; she never thought for a moment that she would be separated from her family. While the reader sympathizes with her plight, her stubbornness seems greater than it need be. Her husband tries to accommodate her, the policeman does not arrest or fine her for the accident, and the workers at the fishmarket put product on hold for her. In the end, it is Mrs. Sen’s responsibility to make an effort. Unlike Mala in The Third and Final Continent – who was equally distraught about leaving her family – Mrs. Sen does not try to adjust. She is trapped in a cage of her own making. As in Sexy, the main characters have mirror images within the story. Here, Eliot and Mrs. Sen are quite similar. He is trapped in his life as well. The loneliness and distress that Mrs. Sen expresses are familiar emotions. He has front row seats for his mother’s sadness. Unlike Mrs. Sen, Eliot is unable to tell anyone about his plight because, again unlike Mrs. Sen, he is truly powerless. The sympathy one has for Eliot reflects harshly on Mrs. Sen as one realizes that she could try. The symmetry is evoked in anecdotes, like the parties that Mrs. Sen and Eliot experience. Mrs. Sen’s lively party in Calcutta is contrasted with Eliot’s story as Eliot is only a witness and not a participant. Lack of communication is employed once again in Mrs. Sen’s to create a sense of tragedy. Though it is unclear how much Mr. Sen knows of his wife’s displeasure, Eliot seems to bear the brunt of her tantrums. In the very least, Mr. Sen does not broadcast his wife’s problems. After the accident, he tells Eliot’s mother that his wife is sleeping although Eliot hears her crying. Eliot is witness to both Mrs. Sen’s and his mother’s despondence. Eliot’s mother tells Mrs. Sen that she ate a big lunch when refusing her Indian snacks. Eliot knows it’s an excuse because she doesn’t like the flavors and that she eschews lunch to feast on wine, bread, and cheese when she gets home from work; her white lie is twofold. At the end of the story, Eliot assures his mother that he is okay though he is clearly troubled. In Mrs. Sen’s, honesty is not the policy. Nature has a voice in Mrs. Sen’s. The grey waves outside Eliot’s window as he tells his mother he’s fine represent the truth of his inner turmoil. The Sens' trip to the shore at the beginning of winter is marked by a violent and exciting wind. Though it would seem that Mrs. Sen would react negatively to the wind and cold, she delights in it. There is a possibility of her assimilation to America if she allows herself to enjoy the world around her. As Mrs. Sen places so much weight on artifacts from her life in Calcutta, Lahiri quite deftly expresses meaning through objects throughout Mrs. Sen’s. Her kitchen blade, the tape of her family’s voice, the aerograms, and her saris exist in stark contrast to her American world. The knife has a history and triggers many happy tales for Mrs. Sen. Eliot marvels at both the blade and her skill, but Mrs. Sen will not let him come near. The knife is a representation of her adherence to her old ways and also the looming danger of her attachment. Mrs. Sen seeks solace in both the aerograms and the tape, but they are poor facsimiles of what she truly craves – faceto-face communication with her family. By the time the letter is read (and reread), the events that

are detailed in them have already happened. This echoes Lilia’s sentiment about life happening on the other side of the world and in a different time. After the death of her grandfather, the tape with his voice no longer soothes her. It becomes a representation of all she is missing. Within this period of grief, Eliot notices the lampshades wrapped in plastic, casting a temporary and deathly pall over the home. Even the fish is a symbol of Mrs. Sen’s unwillingness to assimilate. The fish caught in the Atlantic Ocean can never compare to the fish caught in Calcutta. With a different attitude, these objects can all be transformed as part of her new life in America.

This Blessed House SUMMARY When moving into a new house, newlyweds Twinkle and Sanjeev find Christian icons everywhere. The first is a porcelain effigy of Jesus found next to a bottle of malt vinegar left in the kitchen by the previous owners. Sanjeev tells his wife to throw both away, reminding her that they are not Christian. He feels that he has had to remind Twinkle of the obvious several times when moving in. But Twinkle is attached to the figurine and places it on the mantle – which Sanjeev notices needs dusting. Over the course of the week, Twinkle finds more items and places each on the mantle. Sanjeev doesn’t understand why his wife is so charmed by the snow globes, statuettes and 3D postcards. By the end of the week, Twinkle grows dismayed that no other objects are hiding about. Then she finds a tacky poster of a crying Jesus and, with delight, announces she will hang it up. Sanjeev, unpacking while listening to Mahler, puts his foot down. Twinkle pushes back and decides to hang the poster in her study behind the door so it will remain hidden during their housewarming party. Sanjeev sighs and thinks about the piece he is listening to – a testament to love. From the bathrrom, Twinkle tells him she finds the music boring. They bicker about the mantle on their way to Manhattan for a night, Twinkle in high heels and now taller than Sanjeev. He doesn’t understand why she is content and curious about everything. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t unpack or clean or dust as she is home all day working on a dissertation. Three days later, he comes home to a delicious fish stew concocted out of thin air and with the vinegar Sanjeev implored Twinkle to throw away. The bread basket is covered with a cloth bearing Christ’s image. Twinkle calms him by saying that the house is blessed. Sanjeev marvels at her behavior. Nicknamed after a nursery rhyme, she has yet to lose her childlike endearment. They had only known each other for four months. Their parents, old friends, arranged a meeting at the birthday party of one of the daughters in their circle. Sanjeev, in California on business, began an intense long-distance relationship with Twinkle after that night. They married in India shortly thereafter and Twinkle moved to Connecticut – where she knew no one. Sanjeev found the house before leaving for the wedding and determined that he and his bride should live there forever. A week before the housewarming party, Twinkle and Sanjeev rake the lawn of the golden leaves. Across the yard, Twinkle screams and Sanjeev runs over, thinking she has found a dead animal or snake. Instead, she has found a bust of the Virgin Mary. She screams with delight and insists

on keeping it on the property. But Sanjeev is worried about what the neighbors will think, as they are Hindu and not Christian. Twinkle doesn’t understand. Sanjeev, feeling as if he is getting nowhere with this woman he barely knows and yet shares his life with, wonders if they love one another. Sanjeev only knows for certain that love is not what he had in his old life – full of takeout meals and classical CDs arriving by mail. Later, with Twinkle in the bath, Sanjeev declares he is going to throw out the statue. She rises up and marches downstairs in a towel. She tells Sanjeev she hates him, then collapses in his arms in tears. The statue ends up in an alcove out of sight from the main road but still visible to all who visit their home. The night of the housewarming party, Twinkle avoids removing the objects from the mantle and Sanjeev hopes his guests – mostly colleagues – will notice the bones of the house more. When the guests arrive, Twinkle charms them easily. Sanjeev is asked if he is Christian, but it is not as big of an issue as it appears. His friends are impressed by Twinkle, but he still feels a bit lost. He steals a moment alone in the kitchen. Replenishing the champagne from the cellar, he hears Twinkle explain the figurines and how each day is like a treasure hunt. Soon, she mobilizes the party to search the attic, much to Sanjeev’s dismay. While everyone is in the attic, he fantasizes removing the ladder and truly having the house to himself. He thinks of sweeping the figurines off of the mantle and into the trash in silence. Sanjeev finds Twinkle’s discarded shoes and places them in the doorway of their master bedroom. For the first time since they married, the shoes create a pang of anticipation in Sanjeev. He thinks of Twinkle slipping her soles into the shoes, touching up her lipstick and rushing to hand out their guests’ coats at the end of the night. It reminds him of the anticipation he would feel before one of their long talks when she was still living in California. Twinkle’s voice rings out. The party has found an enormous silver bust of Jesus in the attic. She asks if they can put it on the mantle, just for the night. Sanjeev hates it, especially because she loves it so much, and he knows it will never find a home in her study as she promises. He knows she will have to explain to their guests to come, in their many years together. She rejoins the party and he follows. ANALYSIS This Blessed House is another exploration of love and marriage and the effects of communication. Sanjeev and Twinkle are newlyweds who have known each other for only a short time. Though their marriage is not an arranged one in the traditional sense, they are matched by their parents and wed after only a brief, long-distance courtship. It is this longdistance aspect to their relationship that both helps and hurts the marriage. Twinkle and Sanjeev do not know each other that well and both fail to live up to the other’s expectations of what a husband or wife should be. Marriage in Interpreter of Maladies is often fraught with loneliness. Here, the communication breakdown that happens between the couple exacerbates Sanjeev’s loneliness. Ultimately, the pangs of anticipation that Sanjeev feels when she would visit from California are revealed to be the sparks of love at the end of the story. Throughout, Sanjeev doubts their connection, commitment, and even the nature of love. But he is a person who has never

experienced love and, in some ways, his story is his coming of age. Twinkle is more open to contentment and wonder – which Sanjeev labels as “childish.” The fight that Twinkle initiates actually starts a dialogue. In the end, there is acceptance on Sanjeev’s behalf of his wife’s idiosyncrasies and one feels that they have happy years in their future, like Mala and her husband and unlike Mr. and Mrs. Das. The religious iconography irks Sanjeev for several reasons. First, Twinkle’s obsession with them signifies their differing personalities. For Twinkle, the “treasure hunt” is a game of discovery. For Sanjeev, the leftover artifacts are mere trash. Sanjeev is concerned about how the pieces will reflect on him. Trying to impress his coworkers is made difficult when he is concerned about what the items say about him. Sanjeev bristles a bit when he has to explain that there are Christians in India. He does not want to have to explain things relating to his culture as he is trying to assimilate. He introduces his wife under her given name of Tamina rather than Twinkle because he is embarrassed to appear as anything other than a responsible American. In the end, his acceptance of the items signal an acceptance of his wife, her idiosyncrasies, and the cultural differences that should be celebrated rather than hidden. All manner of Indian cuisine carry different emotions in This Blessed House. The stew that Twinkle concocts using the vinegar that Sanjeev urges be thrown out ends up delicious – evidence that her way of doing things may not be wrong after all. This meal can be compared to the take-out Indian meals that Sanjeev would pick up in his bachelorhood. Those meals were both comforting and lonely. At the housewarming party, Sanjeev’s Indian male friends join him in the kitchen to snack on the trays of homemade rice that he has prepared. That togetherness occurs over food known to all is indicative of the comfort factor of one’s native food as seen in Lahiri’s stories. Objects also carry significance and reflect the emotions throughout the story. In particular, the weeping Jesus poster that Twinkle insists on keeping is a hit at the party. Twinkle does compromise and hangs the poster on the back of the door to her study but then ends up pointing the poster out to guests, to Sanjeev’s dismay. Her willingness to compromise is undone by her going against his wishes. The Virgin Mary statue found in the garden precipitates a fight between the couple. Twinkle’s poetry book falls in to the bath, signifying both her carelessness and her upset. But the fight does unlock the stalemate between the two.

The Treatment of BibiHaldar SUMMARY 29-year-old BibiHaldar is gripped by a mysterious ailment. Myriad tests and treatments have failed to cure the woman. She has been told to stand on her head, shun garlic, drink egg yolks in milk, to gain weight and to lose weight. The fits that could strike at any moment keep her confined to the home of her dismissive elder cousin and his wife. Bibi keeps the inventory of her brother's cosmetics stall and is watched over by the women of their community. She is provided only meals and a room and a length of cotton to replenish her wardrobe each year. Bibi sweeps the store, wondering loudly why she was cursed to this fate, to be alone and jealous of the wives and mothers around her.

The women come to the conclusion that she wants a man. When they show her artifacts from their weddings, Bibi proclaims what her own wedding will look like. Bibi is inconsolable at the prospect of never getting married. The women try to calm her by wrapping her in shawls, washing her face or buying her new blouses. After a particularly violent fit, her cousin Haldar emerges to take her to the polyclinic. A remedy is prescribed – marriage. “Relations will calm her blood.” Bibi is delighted by this news and begins to plan and plot the wedding and to prepare herself physically and mentally. But Haldar and his wife dismiss this possibility. She is nearly 30, the wife says, and unskilled in the ways of being a woman. Her studies ceased prematurely, she is not allowed to watch TV, she has not been told how to pin a sari or how to prepare meals. The women don’t understand why, then, this reluctance to marry her off if she such a burden to Haldar and his wife. The wife asks who will pay for the wedding? One morning, wearing a donated sari, Bibi demands that Haldar take her to be photographed so her image can be circulated among the bachelors, like other brides-in-waiting. Haldar refuses. He says she is a bane for business, a liability and a loss. In retaliation, Bibi stops calculating the inventory for the shop and circulates gossip about Haldar’s wife. To quiet her down, Haldar places an ad in the paper proclaiming the availability of an “unstable” bride. No family would take the risk. Still, the women try to prepare her for her wifely duties. After two months of no suitors, Haldar and his wife feel vindicated. Things were not so bad when Bibi’s father was alive. He created charts of her fits and wrote to doctors abroad to try to cure her. He also distributed information to the members of the village so they were aware of her condition. But now only the women can look after her while being thankful, in private, that she is not their responsibility. When Haldar’s wife gets pregnant, Bibi is kept away from her for fear of infecting the child. Her plates are not washed with the others, and she is given separate towels and soap. Bibi suffers another attack on the banks of the fish pond, convulsing for nearly two minutes. The husbands of the village escort her home in order to find her rest, a compress, and a sedative tablet. But Haldar and his wife do not let her in. That night, Bibi slept in the storage room. After a difficult birth, Haldar’s wife delivers a girl. Bibi sleeps in the basement and is not allowed direct contact with the girl. She suffers more, unchecked fits. The women voice their concern but it goes unheeded. They decide to take their business elsewhere and the cosmetics in the stall soon expire on their shelves. In autumn, Haldar’s daughter becomes ill. Bibi is blamed. Bibi moves back into the storeroom and stops socializing – and stops searching for a husband. By the end of the year, Haldar is driven out of business and he packs his family up and moves away. He leaves Bibi behind with only a thin envelope of cash. There is no more news of them and a letter written to Bibi’s only other known relative is returned by the postal service. The women spruce up the storeroom and send their children to play on their roof in order to alert others in the event of an attack. At night, however, Bibi is left alone. Haggard, she circles the parapet but never leaves the roof.

In spring, vomit is discovered by the cistern and the women find Bibi, pregnant. The women search for traces of assault, but Bibi’s storeroom is tidy. She refuses to tell the women who the father is, only saying that she can’t remember what happened. A ledger with men’s names lay open near her cot. The women help her carry her son to term and teach her how to care for the baby. She takes Haldar’s old creams and wares out of the basement and reopens his shop. The women spread the word and soon the stall is providing enough money for Bibi to raise her boy. For years, the women try to sniff out who had disgraced Bibi but to no avail. The one fact they could agree upon is that Bibi seemed to be cured. ANALYSIS The malady that afflicts BibiHaldar has many possible interpretations. The undiagnosed ailment sounds like epilepsy but also references female hysteria, a diagnosis of emotional imbalance in women common in the Victorian era, that would be remedied by sexually stimulating the patient. Female hysteria has long been discredited as based on misogynist interpretations of women’s physical and emotional states. The cure that is ultimately suggested for Bibi - “relations” echoes hysteria in both the treatment and diagnosis. That she is not diagnosed with epilepsy signifies the poor health care that a woman in her position can receive. She is paid only in room and board and neglected by her cousin/boss. Bibi’s class makes comprehensive health care unattainable. That the child “cures” Bibi is an interesting notion. It gives legitimacy to the claim that she needs “relations,” but it could also be interpreted in another way. At first, Bibi is viewed as not able to take care of herself. She is given meager tasks and not seen as worthy of marriage. When she is abandoned, first she withdraws. After the child, Bibi has no choice but to put her life together in order to take care of her child. Being given responsibility for the first time in her life, Bibi takes control and proves her cousin wrong. All Bibi needed was a chance and some trust. It is a testament to the power of the individual and also the power of the women. Gender roles are explored in The Treatment of BibiHaldar. The opinion that Bibi can be cured not by medicine but by a man is indicative of the male dominance in the town where Bibi resides and the antiquated mentality of the villagers. There is much discussion about how Bibi is not a woman. Biology is trumped by the learned activities relating to caring for men and children. Cooking, sewing, pleasing a man and his family constitute “a woman.” Bibi’s story is narrated by the women in her village who look after her. This compounds the theories on gender roles present in the plot. Women have the authority in the narrative even if they do not in their village. The women do wield whatever power they have. In retaliation of the treatment of Bibi, they withdraw their business from Haldar’s cosmetics shop, ruining him. But they only act collectively, not as individuals. The only men who are referenced are Bibi’s dismissive cousin and the mystery man who impregnates Bibi. In the end, the child's lack of a father is made irrelevant by the child's whole village of mothers. The narrative carefully avoids any implications regarding Bibi'simpregnancy. Was she raped or otherwise coerced into intercourse, by a stranger or potentially by her cousin? There is no evidence to suggest so. There is also no evidence to suggest otherwise. We, and the women of the

town, are given no information with which to draw conclusions or even suspicions about the baby's father. It is as though the pregnancy were spontaneously generated. As far as the pregnancy as a narrative device is concerned, it was. In its place in the story cycle, The Treatment of BibiHaldar harkens back to A Real Durwan. Boori Ma and BibiHaldar are similar characters – women who exist on the fringes of society and blamed for events beyond their control. Unlike Boori Ma, Bibi is able to find a place for herself in the world after the birth of her baby. Bibi has the benefit of a village of support. BibiHaldar’s neighbors do not suffer from class resentment and help her more than Boori Ma’s. The structure of The Treatment of BibiHaldar follows the natural rhythm of the yearly seasons. Bibi’s attempts to find a husband occurs in the summer – when her father had determined her worst attacks occur. In the autumn, Bibi is cast out when her niece falls ill. In the winter, she is abandoned entirely. By the spring, she is pregnant and gives birth during the summer. The spring, a time of rebirth, marks a new chapter in Bibi’s life. The title of the story contains a pun. BibiHaldar's "treatment" refers both to the "relations" prescribed to cure her condition, and the way she is treated by her cousin and by her community. We are asked to determine whether her treatment is just better treatment.

The Third and Final Continent SUMMARY In 1964, an Indian man leaves his native country to sail to London. He studies at the London School of Economics, sharing an apartment with a group of other expatriate Bengalis. Five years later, at age 36, the man gets a job offer from a library at MIT. Around the same time, his marriage was arranged so he flies first to his wedding in Calcutta and then onwards to Boston. He reads a guidebook warning that America is less friendly than Britain. On the plane he learns that two men have landed on the moon. He studies the differences and expectations and finds a cheap room at the YMCA in Central Square for his first weeks in the country. The fist meal he has in America is a bowl of cornflakes. He is on a budget, resolving to spend little money until his wife arrives, but the noise of Massachusetts Avenue outside his window is too much to bear. He spends each day drinking tea out of a newly purchased thermos, reading the Boston Globe cover to cover and then sleeping fitfully in his room. He comes across an ad for a room for rent and calls. He is told the room is only rented to boys from Harvard or Tech (MIT). He makes an appointment for the following day. He finds the house with the room for rent on a pretty, tree-lined street. It would be the first detached house he lived in, and the first home without Indians. The woman who owns the house is the quite old Mrs. Croft. She is dressed as if she lived in the turn of the century. They talk of the moon landing and Mrs. Croft demands that the man call it “splendid.” The man is baffled, but clearly she is impressed that he is punctual, that he declares the event “splendid,” and that he does indeed work for MIT. He moves in. warned against “no lady visitors.”

He thinks about his wife Mala in Calcutta awaiting her green card. After their wedding, she wept every night thinking of her family only five miles away. He reflects on the death of his mother, which happened in the same bed, years before. She had gone crazy after the death of her husband and it fell to the narrator to take care of her and light her funeral pyre. When the narrator moves in, he finds Mrs. Croft sitting on the piano bench. She slaps the seat next to her, imploring him to sit down. This becomes a routine, the pair sitting together for 10 minutes a day and declaring the moon walk splendid. He does not have the heart to tell her that there is no longer a flag on the moon – that the astronauts took it with them when they flew back to earth. When rent is due, instead of putting it on the ledge above the piano as requested, he hands the envelope stuffed with dollar bills to Mrs. Croft. She is confused and doesn’t take it at first. That night, when he returns from work, she is still holding the envelope. They do not talk about the moon walk. She tells him that what he had done was very kind. Mrs. Croft’s daughter Helen, dressed in modern clothes, comes to visit and to bring her mother food. Helen tours the narrator’s room and they chat. She says he is the first boarder her mother has called a gentleman. Mrs. Croft yells for them to come downstairs and they fear the worst. But Mrs. Croft chides them for the indecency of a man and woman sharing a room without a chaperone. The narrator helps Helen carry the groceries to the kitchen. The narrator is shocked to learn that Mrs. Croft is 103 years old. The piano, Helen explains, was the source of income when Mrs. Croft was widowed. The narrator thinks of his own mother, destroyed by her widowhood. Six weeks are spent with the narrator worrying about Mrs. Croft’s health, but, ultimately, he has no obligation to her. He prepares for his wife's arrival from Calcutta, anticipating it as if simply another season. He sees an Indian woman walking in Cambridge, an overcoat fastened over a sari. A dog tugs at the free end of her sari and the narrator thinks of Mala and the protection she will need in her new home. He moves into a furnished apartment found through the housing office at MIT and says goodbye to Mrs. Croft without ceremony. Compared to the century she has lived, his six weeks with her are a blink of an eye. The narrator meets Mala at the airport, also without fanfare. He speaks to her in Bengali – the first time in America – and he takes her home. She presents him with two blue sweaters she has made him, but they fit poorly. It takes time for him to get used to having someone there, anticipating his needs. He and Mala are like strangers. He reluctantly gives her a few dollars, thinking only that it is a duty and, when he returns, he finds more kitchen tools and a tablecloth. Mala is making the apartment their home. Still, they talk little. One day, the narrator suggests they go out. Mala dresses in a beautiful sari and parts her hair in an elegant fashion. The narrator regrets the suggestion immediately, as she is overdressed. But they go walking out into the balmy night. Finding himself on her street, the narrator takes Mala to Mrs. Croft’s house. Helen answers the door. He is alarmed to realize that Mrs. Croft has broken her hip. She tells the narrator that she called the police and he responds “Splendid!” Mala laughs. Mrs. Croft tells Mala to stand up. Mrs. Croft appraises her and the narrator wonders if she had ever seen a woman in a sari. But Mrs. Croft is pleased – Mala is a lady! The narrator laughs now, and he and Mala share a smile, the first real intimacy they’ve shared.

From that moment on, Mala and the narrator explore Boston with each other and fellow Bengalis. The time is like a honeymoon. Month later, Mala consoles the narrator when he learns that Mrs. Croft has died. She is the first person he mourns in America. It is a sad milestone. The narrator continues to present day, when he and Mala have been married for decades and can barely remember a time when they didn’t know each other. They have a son who attends Harvard. They haven’t strayed much farther than Boston, living outside of the city and still remembering important landmarks from their lives despite the changing city. He and Mala have chosen to live their lives in this country. The narrator knows he is not the first person to seek fortune in another country, another life. But he still marvels at the distance traveled. ANALYSIS As the final story of Interpreter of Maladies, The Third and Final Continent leaves the reader with a decidedly positive notion of the immigrant experience in America. The narrator recalls his school days in London, rooming with other expatriate Bengalis, with a wistful tone. After his wedding, the narrator sits in bed poring over a guidebook of the USA, excited about his future in a new country. The only negative experience he has is at the YMCA. The narrator cannot adjust to the noise outside of his window. It is a moment that recalls Mrs. Sen’s line “Everyone, this people. Too much in their world.” Rather than hiding his head in the ground, however, the narrator tries to make good of it. The narrator’s distress with the noise drives him to seek another residence. This leads her to Mrs. Croft’s boarding house. Mrs. Croft ends up being the first person the narrator mourns in America. Coupled with his ambivalence about Mala’s arrival, Mrs. Croft’s acceptance gives the narrator a hope for his new country. After the death of his widowed mother, there is nothing that draws the narrator to India. Again, this is a contrast to both Mrs. Sen and Lilia’s father. He does not mourn his past and his homeland and the family he has left behind. He is more like Lilia’s mother who understands that the opportunities afforded by a move to America outweighs the pull of the homeland. In The Third and Final Continent, positive assimilation occurs hand in hand with a healthy marriage. At first, Mala, like Mrs. Sen, weeps for her family when she moves just five miles outside her ancestral home. But when she arrives in Cambridge, she comes with two sweaters for her husband. Although they do not quite fit, Mala is making an effort. She asks for money and spruces up the apartment and, importantly, adapts to her husband’s adherence to American practices, foods, and customs. Unlike Mrs. Sen, Mala is willing to put in an effort. When the narrator takes his wife out for a day, he is at first dismayed at her dress. Rather than dressing casually, Mala puts on a beautiful sari, parts her hair in a special way, and applies jewelry fit for a night at a nice restaurant. The narrator feels a bit of unease in his relationship. It was an arranged marriage, and the two are strangers. He thinks only of the burden of taking care of her and of educating them both in American custom. On their time out, the narrator suddenly wants to show Mala his old haunts; he wants her to understand his past. At Mrs. Croft’s, the two share their first meaningful glances and laughs. These moments of shared experience create intimacy and their marriage truly begins in Mrs. Croft’s home.

Mrs. Croft also calls Mala a “perfect lady.” Mrs. Croft, born in the 1800s, has antiquated views of how women should dress. At first, the narrator is worried about what Mrs. Croft will think of his wife – as Sanjeev worries about his colleagues’ reaction to Twinkle. But Mrs. Croft finds her elegant and appropriately dressed. This moment of acceptance is an important one in the overall arc of assimilation. Being accepted by someone with even outdated opinions can lead one to believe that they will be accepted by everyone. It helps that the narrator and his wife live in “international” Cambridge, but it is crucial that they are open to this acceptance, lest they end up like Mrs. Sen. Mrs. Croft marvels at the thought of an American flag on the moon, prompting the narrator to respond “splendid” every time the subject is mentioned. Being born in the 1800s, Mrs. Croft has seen an incredible amount of progress and human achievement unfold in front of her eyes. The moon walk to her is unthinkable. The coda at the end of The Third and Final Continent reveals the narrator is now an older man choosing to grow old with Mala in New England rather than return to India. They have a son who attends Harvard; their life is in America. To the narrator, the achievements of his own life are just as extraordinary as Neil Armstrong’s. He says he knows he is not the first person to seek a new life in a new land, but every life is a miracle. This coda leaves the reader with a satisfied and optimistic view of life following some tragedies both major and minor. Lahiri’s ultimate message is that life is unpredictable, carrying great sorrow and love, but special and extraordinary.

The Partition of India, 1947 At midnight on August 15th, 1947, Pakistan was created. With the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the release of control by the British would also split what was known as British India into two distinct countries whose borders were determined by the religious groups that most densely populated the areas. The Union of India (later Republic of India) would be secular but with a Hindu majority and Muslims would control the Dominion of Pakistan (later divided further still into Pakistan and Bangladesh.) The states of Bengal and Punjab were also sliced in two along the Radcliffe Line, as well as the Army, Treasury, Navy, and Railway industry. Growing tensions between Hindus and Muslims throughout the 1940s precipitated the desire for a Muslim state. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who is regarded as the father of Pakistan, believed that a unified nation would only lead to marginalization of Muslims and, eventually, violence and civil war. An independent state seemed a solution to this danger. However, the division of the country led to the displacement of millions of people. Hindus and Muslims who suddenly found themselves in different countries on August 15th fled their home in fear of violence. The refugees were housed in military barracks. The population of cities like Delhi swelled with the influx of Hindus. Suddenly people had to choose how to define themselves - by their homeland or their religion. Uprooted from their homes, refugees were forced to make a new life in a fledgling country. Many became homeless overnight. Several conflicts and wars have followed Partition and tensions between the countries seem to escalate every year. Explosions of violence happen periodically, as they have in the more than 50 years since Partition, including the orchestrated attacks in Mumbai in November of 2008.

Pakistani extremists claimed responsibility for the attack, targeting a railway station and hotels and cafes frequented by foreigners. Nearly 300 people were killed. Conceived to prevent sectarian violence, Partition instead stoked flames between Hindus and Muslims by forcing a division between them. "My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God." - Mohandas Gandhi's reaction to the proposal of a separate Muslim state. In the collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, JhumpaLahiri uses food and dining as a vehicle to display the deterioration of familial bonds, community, and culture through the transition from Indian to American ways of life. This is most evident in the short stories “A Temporary Matter,” “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” and “Mrs. Sen’s.” In “A Temporary Matter,” Shoba and Shukumar have grown estranged from one another, despite being married and living together. They no longer eat meals together or cook together, until they receive a notice that repair workers will cut their power for an hour every night, which forces them to eat together by candlelight: “Tonight, with no lights, they would have to eat together. For months now they’d served themselves from the stove, and he’d taken his plate into his study, letting the meal grow cold on his desk before shoving it into his mouth without pause, while Shoba took her plate to the living room and watched game shows, or proofread files with her arsenal of colored pencils at hand” (Lahiri 8). Lahiri uses this as an example to show how modern American relationships often fall apart, partially as a result of (or resulting in) the lack of family dinners. In M.S.A. Rao’s contributions to Food, Society, and Culture, he states, “if a shift in residence occurs across the cultural regions, then the question whether the migrants retain the same food habits or change in favor of the dietary style of the locals in the new place of residence, becomes a significant one” (Khare and Rao 122). In this story, Shoba, more than Shukumar, appears to have adopted a relatively local dietary habit. The first night with no power, Shukumar puts out placemats, makes an expansive dinner, breaks out a bottle of wine, and lights candles. Shoba shows surprise at this when she sees it, compliments his work, and thanks him. This enforced dinner brings the two of them closer together than they have been for months, and the resulting conversation is therapeutic to their relationship. As the week goes on, they both look forward to these meals; Shoba comes home earlier than usual, Shukumar goes to the market to pick up special food items, and their conversations deepen. Lahiri demonstrates here how their relationship improves with the time spent together over these meals. Lahiri also uses the preparation of food in “A Temporary Matter” as a measure of one’s affection for another. Shukumar dutifully cooks dinners for Shoba, noting “if it weren’t for him…Shoba would eat a bowl of cereal for her dinner” (Lahiri 8). This is a demonstration of his concern for Shoba’s health, as he makes certain that she eats complete meals, even though he could easily make cheap microwave dinners or just leave her to her own means. Later, he reminisces that “for their first anniversary Shoba had cooked a ten-course dinner just for him” (Lahiri 18), while

for their most recent anniversary she bought him a sweater. Lahiri shows here that the time and effort put into preparing a meal for a loved one helps to keep the relationship strong. In “When Mr. Pirzada Comes to Dine,” even Lilia’s initial description of Mr. Pirzada shows how integral food is in Indian culture. She notes that he carries a photo in his wallet of his daughters “at a picnic, their braids tied with ribbons, sitting cross-legged in a row, eating chicken curry off of banana leaves” (Lahiri 24). Throughout her relationship with him, Lilia associates Mr. Pirzada with the sweets he always brings her when he comes to dine, and describes his gifts as a “steady stream of honey-filled lozenges, raspberry truffle, [and] slender rolls of sour pastilles” (Lahiri 29). She considers these candies highly valuable, and “inappropriate…to consume…in a casual manner” (Lahiri 29). Lilia also describes the lengths to which her mother went to prepare meals: “From the kitchen my mother brought forth the succession of dishes: lentils with fired onions, green beans with coconut, fish cooked with raisins in a yogurt sauce” (Lahiri 30). Lahiri uses this to expand upon dining traditions in India, where every meal was important and required hours of work. Lilia mentions early on that her mother complains about neighbors never dropping by, and that her parents would hunt through the phone book for Indian surnames to find potential friends of the same heritage. This is attributable to the fact that acquaintances held dinners more often in India. In The Migrant’s Table, Krishnedu Ray’s study of Bengali-American households, he notes: “women do express and maintain their social position in the community through food work. They keep account of friends and neighbors who have invited them for dinner and the number of times they have been invited”

Additionally, one of the few American traditions that Lilia’s family adopts is that of Halloween: one involving food like pumpkin seeds and candy. At the end of the story when Lilia’s family receives word from Mr. Pirzada that he had reunited with his family and all of them were well, Lilia’s family commemorates the occasion with food. She notes that: “to celebrate the good news my mother prepared a special dinner that evening, and when we sat down to eat at the coffee table we toasted out water glasses” (Lahiri 42). Lahiri uses Lilia’s family and Mr. Pirzada to show the vital role that food and dining plays in Indian culture. In “Mrs. Sen’s,” dining yet again plays a central role. Mrs. Sen constantly labors away over meals, a mark of her dedication to her family and the little boy under her charge. Eliot finds this the most fascinating thing about her: “He especially enjoyed watching Mrs. Sen as she chopped things, seated on newspapers on the living room floor. Facing the sharp edge [of the blade] without ever touching it, she took whole vegetables between her hands and hacked them apart: cauliflower, cabbage, butternut squash. She split things in half, then quarters, speedily producing florets, cubes, slices, and shreds. She could peel a potato in seconds” (Lahiri 114). The blade mentioned in this scene plays a very important role in Mrs. Sen’s culture. She tells Eliot of its significance in India during weddings or large celebrations: “all the neighborhood

women…bring blades just like this one, and then they sit in an enormous circle of the roof of our building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night” (Lahiri 115). With this, Lahiri shows that such strong sense of community is lost in America, as Mrs. Sen chops her vegetables alone and painfully misses her country. This point is reinforced by Eliot’s mention of Mrs. Sen insisting that “his mother sit on the sofa, were she was served something to eat: a glass of bright pink yogurt with rose syrup, breaded mincemeat with raisins, a bowl of semolina halvah” (Lahiri 118). This kind gesture from Mrs. Sen is a mark of her courtesy, and of her loneliness, that she has no guests to cook for other than the mother of the boy she watches. Ray states in The Migrant’s Table that the results of a survey conducted indicated “many of the female respondents considered dinner—the most labor-intensive part of the daily meal cycle—to be very important in a keeping the family together” (125). Mrs. Sen embodies this consideration perfectly. Lahiri also comments here on the distant nature of American mothers: “the first thing she did when they were back at the beach house was pour herself a glass of wine and eat bread and cheese, sometimes so much of it that she wasn’t hungry for the pizza they normally ordered for dinner” (Lahiri 118). Lahiri uses Eliot’s mother and her failure to prepare a proper meal for her son as an example of a careless parent. Lahiri also uses Mrs. Sen to show how important food is to Indian culture, by the lengths to which Mrs. Sen is willing to go to acquire it. When the man who runs the fish market calls to say that he has a whole fish for her, she is delighted and flattered. When her husband will no longer go to the market to retrieve it for her, she steps out of her area of comfort and takes a bus out to the seaside. After receiving an unpleasant experience on the bus, Mrs. Sen works past her fear and hatred of driving to try to make it to the fish market on her own. The importance of this particular dish to her is enough to bring her to this desperate act, despite the fact that she has no license. It is also worth noting that Mrs. Sen keeps her freezer stocked with popsicles, perhaps because ice cream and sorbets are a novelty in India (Visser 288-289). Throughout the entirety of Interpreter of Maladies, JhumpaLahiri uses the food customs and dining traditions of her Indian-American characters to illuminate the importance of family and community. Ray quotes Alice Waters, a chef and culinarian in The Migrant’s Table: ‘“If you see the same ingredients every place you go you lose a sense of time and place. Then nothing is special’” (Ray 132). He explains, “that is exactly why immigrants crave some of the distinctive products of their homeland, notwithstanding time or place” (Ray 132). Lahiri shows how immigrants’ assimilation into the fast-paced, time-consuming, and generally demanding American society can create a struggle to retain a sense of culture and identity— a sense strongly reinforced by the presence of traditional foods and dining customs.