Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

A TEMPORARY MATTER

WHEN MR. PIRZADA CAME TO DINE

INTERPRETER OF MALADIES

A REAL DURWAN

SEXY

MRS. SENS

THIS BLESSED HOUSE

THE TREATMENT OF BIBI HALDAR

THE THIRD AND FINAL CONTINENT

"A Temporary Matter"

The story is about a husband and wife who tell each other secrets during nightly blackouts.
For five days, the electricity in a Boston neighborhood would be cut off for one hour, starting
at 8 p.m., while repairmen fixed a line that had gone down in a snowstorm. Shoba and
Shukumar had lost a baby six months ago, and they finally, decide to tell each other things in
the dark that they'd never told before.

During four nights, they reveal each other little secrets. For example: Shoba tells Shukumar
that, when they'd first started dating, she'd looked in his address book to see if he'd written
her in. Shukumar tells Shoba that the first time they went out to dinner; he forgot to tip the
waiter.

The morning of the fifth night, they get a notice from the electric company saying that the line
had been repaired ahead of schedule. However, that night they turn the lights off and eat in
the dark, but then Shoba turns the light on and she tells him that she needs some time alone
and that she has rented a flat on Beacon Hill. Shukumar is shocked. He tells her what he had
promised himself he never would: Their baby was a boy. She had not wanted to know during
her pregnancy. But Shukumar had arrived at the hospital while she was asleep and he had
held the baby. Shoba turns the lights off again, and the two weep together, "for the things they
now knew."

"When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"

The story begins with another history about what happened to Dacca during the splitting of
Pakistan, told through the story of Mr. Pirzada's appearance.
Mr. Pirzada came from Dacca, he seems a classic husband and dad to seven daughters. Mr.
Pirzada gets to escape the civil war because the Pakistani government sends him to America
to study New England's fall leaves since he's a botanist.

Mr. Pirzada ends up at the narrator's house, he eats dinner and watches TV at Lilia's house
with her Indian parents. Lilia, who is 10 years old, bonds with Mr. Pirzada because he gives
her candy every time he visits and she keeps the candy in a special box. Mr. Pirzada is
stressed because his seven daughters and his wife are all missing in Pakistan.

Finally, Mr. Pirzada returns to Pakistan and searches for his family. After months, Lilia's family
hears from Mr. Pirzada, who's fine with his family (they had escaped to some relative's
mountain house during the war).

Lilia finally understands that Mr. Pirzada's happy ending with his family means that he will
never come back to be with Lilia and her family. In other words, no more candy. When Lilia
finds out that Mr. Pirzada is okay, she throws away all her candy because they remind her of
him.

"Interpreter of Maladies"
Mr. Kapasi is a tour guide who's driving the Das familyethnic Indians born in Americato
the Sun Temple in India. Mr. and Mrs. Das, the couple, do not really enjoy taking care of their
three kids, Tina, Ronny and Bobby.
Mr. Kapasi reveals to the couple that he has another job as an interpreter at a doctor's office.
Mr. Kapasi only took the job at the doctor's office because his son got sick and it was the only
way Kapasi could pay the doctor back. Mrs. Das suddenly show interest in Mr. Kapasi. That's
because she thinks being an interpreter is really important and romantic. Mrs. Das asks him
to eat lunch with the family at a rest stop. They take pictures together, which Mrs. Das'
promises to send to Mr. Kapasi's address
Mr. Kapasi is totally flattered by her attention and starts to develop a crush on her, so he
suggests that he take the whole family to another tourist sitesome hills with monastic
homes on themso he can spend more time with them.
At the tourist site, Mrs. Das, who stays behind, suddenly reveals to Mr. Karpasi that her son
Bobby isn't Mr. Das's son but that no one knows except Mrs. Das. Mrs. Das tells Mr. Kapasi
that she confided in him because of his job as an interpreter. She seems to think that Mr.
Kapasi has special powers of some type that can heal her "terrible" pain. This information
completely makes Mr. Kapasi lose respect for Mrs. Das, so he starts to feel depressed and
then insults her.
Then, Mrs. Das leaves his car to tour the site with her family. Only she doesn't really pay
attention to all the monkeys around them and ends up accidentally leading the monkeys to
Bobby. Mrs. Das calls out to Mr. Kapasi who shoos away the monkeys and delivers Bobby
safely back to his parents.
Then she reaches into her handbag to get a hairbrush to straighten his hair, and the paper
with Mr. Kapasis address on it flutters away. Not a family Mr. Kapasi (or anyone) can really be
fond of.
"A Real Durwan"
Boori Ma is a durwan, a gatekeeper, in a middling-level apartment building in India. She's a
fabulist who likes to tell stories that are supposedly true the way that your grandfather's
stories about his childhood are supposedly true (i.e. not all that true).
People in her building like her well enough because she's pretty good at her "job" (she's not
paid and she just kind of assigned herself to the position). In return for sweeping the stairwell
and other chores, Boori Ma gets to sleep behind the gate and hover outside of the residents'
apartments, maybe occasionally score a free cup of tea.
Mrs. Dalal, one of the kinder residents, notices that Boori Ma's blankets are pretty worn and
dirty, so she promises her a new one. Meanwhile, Mr. Dalal comes home with two new sinks
one for their apartment and one for common use in the building.
The sinks bring havoc to the apartment because, first, they make the other residents jealous
of the Dalals; second, the residents decide to start renovating the whole building since they
don't want the Dalals to feel like they're the only ones who can spruce up the common areas.
While the Dalals are away on vacation, Boori Ma decides change up her boring life by
spending some afternoons walking in the neighborhood and visiting the markets. Her keys to
the building and her money are stolen. And while she's gone, someone steals the communal
sink from the apartment building.
When she gets back to the building, the residents blame her for allowing the theft to occur. As
a result, she's thrown out onto the street. She never does get that new blanket that Mrs. Dalal
promised her.

"Sexy"
Miranda's a young white woman who falls for a married Bengali man. He thinks she's "sexy"
and she thinks he's handsome and exotic. Their affair is pretty conventional even though
Miranda's prone to flights of fancy about this guy.
Eventually, though, Miranda starts to see how he's really not that great a catch, what with his
(beautiful, Indian) wife. The turning point? She babysits a mini-version of Dev (her lover) for
her co-worker's cousin.
While she's babysitting, the little boywhose parents are splitting because his father's a
cheater toostarts to make some weird, disturbing requests. Stuff like asking Miranda to
wear her sexy cocktail dress and crawling into her bed. Yeah. We'll let you judge that part on
your own.
Anyway, he ends up telling her what he thinks "sexy" means (hint: super-important to the
story), which makes a huge impression on her. She realizes the effect his father's affair has
on the boy. Miranda slowly splits from Dev and finds her independence. (Which we think
makes this one of the happier endings in the book because Dev? He's really not that cool.)

"Mrs. Sen's"
Ever like your babysitter more than your own parents? That's Eliot's situation. He's an eleven-
year-old who doesn't really need to be watched anymore, but whose mother worries about
those emergency situations. Since his mother's a working single mom who's constantly
stressed, she sends him to Mrs. Sen, the young wife of a professor at the local university and
a willing after-school babysitter. Mrs. Sen's homesick for her family in India and doesn't have
much to do while her husband is at work. She hasn't made many friends here and she's glad
to have Eliot around.
Mrs. Sen is warm and attentive to Eliot; plus, she loves to cook (his mom orders pizza most
nights). She also really likes fresh fish, which is what gets them in trouble. Since Mrs. Sen
doesn't drive, she depends on Mr. Sen to pick up fresh fish from the fish market.
But one day, Mrs. Sen decides to drive herself and Eliot to the market; they get into a car
accident. So of course, Eliot's mother pulls Eliot from Mrs. Sen's care. She's never been all
that comfortable with the environment at Mrs. Sen's anywayall that weird food and strange
smells of Indian spices.
In the end, tired of dealing with babysitters, especially since Eliot's pretty mature and
independent, Eliot's mom gives him a key to the house and he becomes a latchkey kid. He
never sees Mrs. Sen again.

"This Blessed House"

So you've got this couple who've just gotten married and moved into a new house in
Connecticut. The husband's a successful, up-and-coming business guy who graduated from
MIT. The wife's a young English grad student from Stanford.
Even though these two seem well-matched according to the matchmaker, they're totally
different from each other. Twinkle's the cool one, laid-back, self-assured, beautiful and smart.
Sanjeev, on the other hand, isn't relaxed at all; he's smart but he's very uptight and cares a lot
about what others think. He's up for a promotion at work and needs to impress.
Twinkle finds a treasure trove of Christian paraphernalia that the previous owners of the
house left behind. She's wants to display them because she's way into kitsch (tacky,
sentimental stuff). Sanjeev, not so much, especially since they're Hindu.
They throw a housewarming party and, predictably, Twinkle's the life of the party while
Sanjeev, not so much. Twinkle leads the guests on a scavenger hunt for more Christian
knickknacks. But while running around the house cleaning up and preparing more food,
Sanjeev notices a pair of Twinkle's shoes outside their bedroom door. Sanjeev's suddenly
overcome with tenderness for Twinkle. We don't know why exactly (although he's a little
drunk, so that may help).
At the end, Twinkle finds a silver bust of Jesus and asks Sanjeev if they can put it on the
mantel. Sanjeev agrees and carries the bust in his arms back to the party.

"The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"

Bibi Haldar is basically a grown orphan, 29 and single, who's subject to random seizures and
spells. No one knows why and no one has a cure for her. She lives with her cousin Haldar
and his wife, and she helps him with inventory at his shop (unpaid, by the way).
Bibi's obsessed with finding a husband. A doctor even tells her that she needs to find a
husband in order to be cured. The community surrounding Bibi support her plan to find a
husband, but her cousin's a pretty heartless jerk who refuses to put time and money into what
he sees is a hopeless cause.
Haldar's wife becomes pregnant and is paranoid about Bibi transmitting her illness to her
baby. At his wife's insistence, Haldar kicks Bibi out to live in a storage room. That situation
becomes permanent once the baby is born and gets sick.
Everyone thinks Haldar and his wife are total (fill in this blank with your favorite curse words).
To get back at Haldar, the community stops buying from his shop. The boycott works and
Haldar's shop goes out of business. He packs up, leaving Bibi behind.
One day, Bibi turns up pregnant. No one knows who made her pregnant since she won't talk,.
Bibi turns out to be stronger than she looks because, with the support of the community, she
gives birth to a baby boy and turns Haldar's shop into her own. She becomes successful and
lo and beholdis cured of her illness.

"The Third and Final Continent"

A Bengali man immigrates to London and then to Boston in order to make a life for himself
and, later on, for his wife of an arranged marriage. When he gets to Boston, he ends up
rooming at a house owned by a Mrs. Croft, who's 103. If you're thinking, "where's the
excitement here?" we're going to have to break it to you that it's just not that kind of a story.
The guy, our narrator, is the perfect tenant: he's polite and respectful to Mrs. Croft and checks
on her regularly. But he realizes that he needs a better apartment for him and his wife Mala to
live in once she arrives from India.
He and Mala live together at the new place and, at first, don't feel all that close to each other
(um, because they hardly know each other). But then one Friday, the narrator takes Mala on
an evening walk and decides to show her the house where he used to live with Mrs. Croft.
Mrs. Croft meets Mala and proclaims her a lady, which gives the narrator and Mala something
to smile about together.
It's a sweet moment that makes them begin to fall in love with each other. The narrator
continues the story by summarizing what happens afterward: he and Mala live happily
together in a town outside of Boston and have a son who now attends Harvard.
So there's your happy ending to the book.
The final continent: He is from India (Asia), then moved to London (Europe) to study and
finally he moved to Boston (America) to work.