Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies - final interpretation

The nine short stories have been written in a very humane fashion that is, though Lahiri touches upon some very sensitive issues like those of treatment of women( in post - independence India), the condition of the lower classes, the caste system, the India - Pakistan rift, the Indian - American experience, but rather than going into the details of these, she decides to explore the human feelings in situations full of turmoil - divorce, a still-born child, an extra-marital affair, mental illnesses, incompatibility in marriage etc. Its almost as if she has altered the fairy tale romantic set-up to a background of more believable realities.

The time-line in all the stories is linear, no multiple narrators are seen in any, and except for Mrs Sen's and Sexy, the narrator is an Indian. Lahiri has no biases towards male or female narrators, and as the requirements of the story, so the tone of the narrator. 

The plots are not spectacular, but fairly real daily life situations. The characters are believable and have been painted beautifully by their emotions. One thing Lahiri specializes in and is probably what made her win the prize, is portraying human emotions in a very subtle manner. Nowhere in her stories are the useless dialogues about one's feelings or the crying of one or more dejected characters. No, she does not explore any one's thoughts about loneliness or sadness or rejection or loss.Instead she supports them through near-by surroundings. Like in the story ' A temporary matter ' , the husband notices how old his wife had started to look and how careless she had gone about her appearance and this tells us that she is sad and that the death of her child has affected her and that she no longer feels motivated in life.

The human emotions make this collection a bearable read, but the feeling of melancholy stays with the reader long after the book has been put down. Not a book you would read twice.