The title “Interpreter of Maladies” throws me off because I had initially expected to read something about a doctor curing diseases and what not. Instead it is about a tour guide who also acts as in interpreter in a doctor’s office. A man who didn’t think much because of his job because his wife doesn’t seem to care for it was able to gain a new point of view of it. It’s ironic how an adulteress uses the word “romantic” in the story because there is no romantic relationship between her and her husband. While reading it, I continued to wonder to myself who the protagonist was. I definitely didn’t think it was Mr. Das as there was little focus on his interactions with the other characters compared to Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das.

Between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi, she tells him about how she feels terrible about her husband and children. She has felt terrible for eight years about how she cheated and has a life that she doesn’t care for. Mr. Kapasi has this romantic feeling towards her but can’t express it because they are both married and would never see each other again after she returns to America. There is a lack of communication between Mr. and Mrs. Das, but Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das have such an intimate interaction about how she feels guilt and wants Mr. Kapasi to offer a cure because he is, after all, an interpreter of diseases. She compares guilt to sickness.

While I was reading this story, I found it to be pretty interesting especially the part when Mrs.Das told Mr.Kapasi about her affair with a friend of Mr.Das. At the beginning of the story, Mr.Kapasi was in love with Mrs.Das. However, shortly after she reveals her story and her affair with another man, Mr.Kapasi changes his perspective on Mrs.Das. He doesn’t like Mrs.Das anymore and he insults her that its more than her guilt about her affair that is causing her pain. It was kind of ironic that she told a person that Mr.Das hired as a tour guide about her affair and her relationship with her husband and her affair was a friend of Mr.Das. I was surprised that she didn’t tell her truth to her husband that she known since she was a child. I was able to see the connection of Mrs.Das and her son, Bobby. After, Mrs.Das reveals her affair and her relationship with her husband, her son was attacked by the monkeys. The monkeys was feeding off of the puffed rice that she dropped after she got off the car. I can see that her son being attacked by the monkeys was a direct consequence of her action and confession to Mr.Kapasi.

Mr. Kapasi, an interpreter and tour guide, meets a family with a lot more secrets than he had expected. He explains his other occupation to Mr. and Mrs. Das in the car, and how he worked in a doctor’s office to serve as a translator between both parties. Although he does not see much in himself or anything special with the job, he is delighted when Mrs. Das calls it ‘romantic’ – a word that he has never heard anyone describe the occupation with, especially from his own wife who finds it distasteful. Throughout the text, the reader can tell that Mr. Kapasi begins to fall for Mrs. Das. Not just from her lovely appearance but her interest in his patient stories and him as a person. Around the end of the text, Mrs. Das reveals that Bobby was not actually Mr. Das’s child and exclaims that she did not tell anyone for eight years. She asks Mr. Kapasi for an answer to her pain because of his occupation as an interpreter and expects him to provide her with a solution to ease her suffering.

I believe that the scene where Bobby being attacked by monkeys is an analogy to Mrs. Das’s truth being exposed and is facing the consequences of them. Instead of telling her husband to save Bobby, she yells at Mr. Kapasi to – a stranger, who was simply supposed to drive them to the Sun Temple but gets caught in the ties of this family. The rice that she left a trail of symbolizes her mistakes that she caused and the carelessness that affects those around her.  Bobby, the child who is surrounded by lies, is the one who is the most damaged from the actions of his family. Mr. Das sees the world through his camera, refusing to let it go even as Bobby is being attacked by animals and instead snaps a picture of it. He was slightly more aggressive when Mrs. Das refuses to get out of the car to take a picture. This made me think that he is trying to ‘bring’ his family together and only sees the world through pictures, rather than facing reality through his own eyes. I believe that this text illuminates the harsh reality with some families and not everything can be seen just from being seen together.

While reading the text, Interpreter of Maladies, the character Mr. Kapasi made me realize that I too often refuse to acknowledge the importance of an aspect of my life until someone else does it. In the text, Mr. Kapasi claims that he never considers his job of interpreter for the doctor’s office as a noble or influential position. But his ideas changes when Mrs. Das pointes out how crucial he is to the treatment of the patients who visit that doctor’s office. I find this feature of the story relevant to my own experience. In one instance, I was complaining to my mom of how unlucky I am for having to do so much school work. She then reminded me about the cousins who can’t even afford to go to school.

However, throughout the text, I was wondering why Mrs. Das considers Mr. Kapasi’s position as “romantic”. One of my assumptions is that author wants the character of Mr. Kapasi to like Mrs. Das in a sexual way. It allowed the author to craft Mr. Kapasi’s character who then goes onto fantasizing about having a relationship with Mrs. Das. But when Mrs. Das reveals her secret about her relationship, Kapasi becomes less interest in her. She seems to be in pain and guild about that secret. Which prompts Kapasi to leave her alone and stop fantasizing about her.

As I kept reading Interpreter of Maladies, I found myself more and more intrigued. When Mr. Kapasi shares that his job is to literally act as an interpreter at a doctors office and be the connecting bridge between the patient and the doctor, I started to immerse myself in the plot more. I thought about that a little more and the fact that the story is named Interpreter of Maladies, indicating a large significance. Mr. Kapasi’s job is to communicate the hardships that a person is going through in an understandable language for all parties involved. Reading on, when Mrs. Das tells Mr. Kapasi about how unhappy she is in her marriage and how unfulfilled she feels, he is also interpreting a malady, even if it isn’t a sickness like the situations he deals with at work. He is put in a position where he is between an edge and a sword because of his feelings towards Mrs. Das. How is he supposed to interpret this specific malady that Mrs.Das expressed to him?

Furthermore, there is a theme of communication within this story, or the lack of. This story explores how hard communication can be in relationships and how it can become the wedge driving two people apart. This idea was exemplified by Mr. Kapasi’s loveless marriage itself and the lack of communication in regards to each partners wishes. The Dases marriage is also suffering a great deal due to lack of communication, causing their constant bickering. Moreover, at the end of the story when Mr. Kapasi’s address flies out of Mrs.Das’ purse, it signifies the end of their ties and the inability for them to communicate in the future.

Before reading this text I looked up the definition of the word maladies. I found out that it meant diseases, meaning that Mr. Kapasi would interpret people’s diseases. By simply knowing this, I assumed that he was some kind of curer or doctor. Later on, I found out that his job is literally to communicate what the patient is feeling to the doctor. I found it very interesting how he thought this was a failure job. Given that he knew so many languages and wanted to be an interpreter of diplomats instead, I understand why he feels this way. I felt that his job has so much more meaning than he places on it. Since his son had died from a disease, it’s interesting to see that now he is helping those who can’t communicate how they feel with the doctor as maybe his 7 year old couldn’t at the time. I agreed with Mrs. Das opinion about the true responsibility he had in his hands. Once she confessed to him about the affair I was able to see two different perspectives of this “Interpreter of Maladies” role. She expects him to provide her with a remedy because she feels that keeping that secret and not loving her husband is unhealthy. He doesn’t see how he could possibly help her malady, he thinks that she is in charge and that honesty would help her out. This is when I came to understand that Mr. Kapasi viewed his job as simply language based, while the rest of the world and even the patients viewed him as a key component of the curing process. I enjoyed the connection between the title and the central problem of the story.

I found the reading very interesting especially the character of Mr. Kapasi. Throughout the reading, I was very curious about what was going to happen between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Daz. That made me keep reading until the last page. I didn’t expect any of the things that happened in the story. I kept the title of the story in mind while reading it because I just had no idea how someone can interpret maladies. The conversation between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das when she told him about her son was one of the parts that stood out to me in the story.  Mrs. Daz spoke the same language as her husband, but she didn’t tell him anything about her son and about how she felt about it. She still needed Mr. Kapasi to interpret her feelings. Mrs. Daz thought Mr. Kapasi can feel her regret and how terrible she feels. The questions that I kept asking myself though were, how did Mrs. Daz expect Mr. Kapasi to make her feel better when she said, “I was hoping you could help me feel better”? how did she want him to interpret her feelings? I think Language here is a metaphor to our feelings as if Mr. Kapasi can interpret how the patients feel he can interpret how Mrs. Diaz feels even though they speak the same language. Sometimes language isn’t the only thing that is standing in your way to tell how you feel.

Read Jhumpa Lahiri, “Interpreter of Maladies.” Post a short (200-250 word) response to the story on the blog no later than midnight on Sunday night.

“I remembered this one time that I never told anybody about. The time we were walking. Just the three of us. I was in the middle. I don’t remember where we were walking to or where we were walking from. I just remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere”

-Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of the best books I have ever read. The book is filled with displacement from the beginning to arguably the end. The story is about an incoming high school freshman that has trouble fitting in. The displacement in the beginning is very different from the one expressed in the middle to end. In the beginning, the main protagonist, Charlie, is described as a loner and a wallflower. Charlie is currently passing through puberty and shows that the changes from child to teen can be very difficult to some. Remembering my freshman year, I’m filled with joy yet horrors. I remember the confusion of my changing body, friendships, and new feelings. The book itself has many messages in my opinion. When I first read it my freshman year of high school, I believed it was telling the reader that it was okay to be sad. As the author wrote in the book, some people are a hopeful kind of sad, the kind of sad that just takes time. Further, Charlie was very relatable to me and many others of my age. Traveling to a different place to meet new people, and learn new things was particularly overwhelming for me. To be honest, it was very hard to fit in for me. I was struggling to find a good and respectable group of friends that I could rely on. As in the book, after Charlie meets the popular kids and starts to hang out with them, life kind of falls into place and makes sense. The same thing can be said about myself. After creating friends at high school, life started to fade out and before I knew it, I was on my way to college.

Front Door
by Imtiaz Dharker

Wherever I have lived,
walking out of the front door
every morning
means crossing over
to a foreign country.

One language inside the house,
another out.
The food and clothes
and customs change.
The fingers on my hand turn
into forks.

I call it adaptation
when my tongue switches
from one grammar to another,
but the truth is I’m addicted now,
high on the rush
of daily displacement,
speeding to a different time zone,
heading into altered weather,
landing as another person.

Don’t think, I haven’t noticed
you’re on the same trip too.

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