Sicknesses and Saviors

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” presents two families that, although they are from different cultures and countries, share a lack of center. The Das family, which we are introduced to as characters, is crude, immature, and hides a dark secret. Mr. Kapiri’s family, which we learn about through Mr. Kapiri’s inner thoughts, is sad and based on a sense of obligation and tradition, rather than truth or love. The families have in common a spouse dissatisfied with a counterpart, regardless of whether the marriage came to be through a parent’s direct arrangement (Mr. Kapiri) or a parent’s gentle expectation (the Das family). However, the characters differing viewpoints on how to deal with their similarly disappointing situations, based on inherent differences in upbringing, are most interesting to me.
To Mr. Kapiri, the Das family looks Indian but “dresse[s] as foreigners [do]” (2). Mrs. Das’s has tried to solve the problem of not loving her husband by being unfaithful and searching for an outside vitality, which she attempts to excuse through her unhappiness. Mr. Kapasi, on the other hand, has spent his entire life finding different jobs and “the countless other ways he tried to console his wife,” working hard to appease his sense of duty (77). Mrs. Das is imaginative and creative, seeing “a big responsibility” in what Mr. Kapasi had always thought of as “a thankless occupation” (74, 76). Mrs. Das confesses her dark secrets to Mr. Kapasi because she thinks of his job on a higher level; instead of a literal interpreter of patient’s words, he is a metaphorical instructor, a guru-translator that can find her a spiritual “remedy” for all her moral ills (160). Mr. Kapasi, the solid, hard-working, straightforward man, is confused by her beliefs. Although he is flattered at first by her attention, he eventually realizes that she is crude, selfish, and almost repulsive, as evidenced by her blatant disregard of his instructions not to let the monkeys have food that leads to Bobby’s near dismemberment.
In contrast to Mrs. Das, whom he at first admires and is dazzled by, Mr. Kapasi has traditional values and a straightforward mindset. He does his job and he does it well; he is of the old country whereas Mrs. Das is of the selfish new generation. Mr. Kapasi’s sadness is based off of a sense of unfulfilled potential; when he was young, he reminisces, he knew nine languages and an intense intellectual curiosity. Over the years, due to familial stresses and the day-to-day grind, his knowledge has disintegrated to “only a handful of European phrases” (77). Mrs. Das, on the other hand, has never really worked for intellectual advancement; she spent all her time in college with Mr. Das, to the point of having little to no friends. She is incurious and not intellectual. Eventually, Mr. Kapasi realizes that he has merely been hoping for Mrs. Das to be the different type of woman he needs; the one with whom he can exchange letters and have an affair of the mind. Finally, however, when the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi’s address “flutter[s] away in the wind,” he does not protest because he has recognized his complete incompatibility with Mrs. Das (179). In the end, “Interpreter of Maladies” is a story about two lost souls, ailing in similar ways but needing different cures.
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