Interpreter of Maladies

The interpreter of Maladies is a tour guide on days off and an interpreter of maladies on working days in a clinic. The doctor at the clinic does not understand the language and Mr. Kapasi for a sufficient amount of money, which takes care of his family expenses, acts as the interpreter.

In this short story, Mr Kapasi encounters a strange Bengali-American family on his tour day. They are dressed in bright clothes and talk like brothers and sisters to each other(man, woman and three kids). The mother is clearly oblivious to the needs of her children and  the father is too busy photographing the exotic Indian experience. The mother, Mrs. Das, out of sheer boredom starts a conversation with the driver, Mr. Kapasi and gets very interested in his career as an interpreter of maladies, waiting for the right time to ask him to interpret and cure her malady of a mid-life crises (she has stopped feeling for her husband) overburdened with a one-night stand, the result of which is her youngest son.

Mr. Kapasi mistakes her attention for likeness and weaves a fantasy of his own, in which he dreams of writing her letters and hopes for a relationship with her, as she is very curious about his work and he likes her bare legs and full breasts. 

Quite realistically, none of his fantasies materialize and  he is left clicking a photograph of the entire family, right after they have saved their youngest son from the monkeys at the Sun Temple.

Lahiri could have chosen to describe the beautiful Sun temple and the long tree-ladden roads that lead to it. But throughout the short story, she is focused on the sad and monotonous life of Mr. Kapasi and how this one chance encounter with an English speaking Indian woman, fills him with hope of a second chance at life.

There is really nothing special about this short story, apart from the plot perhaps where the protagonist can interpret the physical ailments but not the maladies of the soul. Not much special attention is paid to food,tastes and colors in this one, expect of course if you consider how Mrs. Das ate channa and painted her nails.

Many critics have mentioned that the story focuses on the deformed way of viewing each other. They say this is highlighted by the fact that all of the characters are wearing glasses. Also Mr Das, instead of taking in the beauty of India, is in a hurry to capture it using his camera. He sees the world through his lens for most of the story.While in the taxi, Mrs Das, does not roll the window, although it is terribly hot, so she too is not able to see the world clearly. And finally the critics have interpreted that Mr. Kapasi, though he notices the difference in the looks of Mr.Das and one of the children, he views them as a family, the reality of which later hits him.  

Critics might say that the subtle description of the characters and the melancholy filling their lives, makes them believable and easy to identify with, but I was disappointed in the style, which is straight-jacketed, the language, which is very simple, the tense, which does not change, the plot which has been a part of many a hindi movies and the characters who are too banal even for real-life people. For a short story which would be the name of her collection of short stories, Lahiri could have perhaps done much better.