Jhumpa Lahiri – Interpreter of Maladies

The cover says “Stories of bengal, boston and beyond”, the word “beyond” is the most important part of this collection.

Each of the short stories is superbly thought of and extremely well written. This insight of Jhumpa Lahiri into each one of the characters is simply amazing. As I read each story, I was really caught by her talent to make the reader look at situations through the eyes (and also the mind) of each character. The impact and strength of each character make the stories sound almost autobiographical but a woman couldn’t possibly have been a tour guide, an old sweeper woman, an 11-year-old American boy or even a young Bengali librarian at the MIT!

Of the 9 stories, my favorites are A Temporary Matter, A Real Durwan, Mrs. Sen’s, The Treatment of Bibi Haldar and The Third and Final continent. I want to write out my view on all of these but don’t want to spoil the pleasure of finding your own opinion and interpretation of the short stories. I guess that’s the beauty of a short story. It can mean different things for different people at different times.

The obvious link in all the 9 stories is that they are all about relationships between different kinds of people – husband – wife; tourist – tour guide, boy – baby sitter, friends, lovers, tenants – house owners and so on. Except 2 stories, all of the others are happening with the USA as the backdrop and talk about the life of Indians living abroad – how they see the Americans and how the Americans look at the Indians. The best aspect of the book is that there are no clichéd images either of the Indians or of the Americans. Everybody is portrayed as normal people with normal jobs, perhaps with some unusual experiences.

Truly worth reading.

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