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1. What “an interpreter” means to Mr. Kapasi
The job was a sign of his failings. In his youth he’d been a devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides. He was a self-educated man. In a series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his marriage, he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he was confident that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian, not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Orissi, and Gujarati. Now only a handful of European phrases remained in his memory, scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only non-Indian language he spoke fluently anymore. Mr. Kapasi knew it was not a remarkable talent. Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television. Still, it came in handy for the tours.
2. Mr. Kapasi’s fancy about the friendship with Mrs. Das
“What’s your address, Mr. Kapasi?” she inquired, fishing for something inside her straw bag. “You would like my address?” “So we can send you copies,” she said. “Of the pictures.” She handed him a scrap of paper which she had hastily ripped from a page of her film magazine. The blank portion was limited, for the narrow strip was crowded by lines of text and a tiny picture of a hero and heroine embracing under a eucalyptus tree. The paper curled as Mr. Kapasi wrote his address in clear, careful letters. She would write to him, asking about his days interpreting at the doctor’s office, and he would respond eloquently, choosing only the most entertaining anecdotes, ones that would make her laugh out loud as she read them in her house in New Jersey. In time she would reveal the disappointment of her marriage, and he his. In this way their friendship would grow, and flourish. He would possess a picture of the two of them, eating lined onions under a magenta umbrella, which he would keep, he decided, safely tucked between the pages of his Russian grammar. As his mind raced, Mr. Kapasi experienced a mild and pleasant shock. It was similar to a feeling he used to experience long ago when, after months of translating with the aid of a dictionary, he would finally read a passage from a French novel, or an Italian sonnet, and understand the words, one after another, unencumbered by his own efforts. In those moments Mr. Kapasi used to think that all was right with the world, that all struggles were rewarded, that all of life’s mistakes made sense in the end. The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das now filled him with the same belief.
3. What Mr. Kapasi wanted from Mrs. Das
Mr. Kapasi was not certain exactly what the word suggested, but he had a feeling it was a favorable response. He hoped that Mrs. Das had understood Surya’s beauty, his power. Perhaps they would discuss it further in their letters. He would explain things to her, things about India, and she would explain things to him about America. In its own way this correspondence would fulfill his dream, of serving as an interpreter between nations. He looked at her straw bag, delighted that his address lay nestled among its contents. When he pictured her so many thousands of miles away he plummeted, so much so that he had an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her, to freeze with her, even for an instant, in an embrace witnessed by his favorite Surya. But Mrs. Das had already started walking.
4. What Mrs. Das Wanted from Mr. Kapasi
"I beg your pardon. Mrs. Das, but why have you told me this information?” Mr. Kapasi asked when she had finally finished speaking, and had turned to face him once again. “For God’s sake, stop calling me Mrs. Das. I’m twenty-eight. You probably have children my age.” “Not quite.” It disturbed Mr. Kapasi to learn that she thought of him as a parent. The feeling he had had toward her, that had made him check his reflection in the rearview mirror as they drove, evaporated a little. “I told you because of your talents.” She put the packet of puffed rice back into her bag without folding over the top. “I don’t understand.” Mr. Kapasi said. “Don’t you see? For eight years I haven’t been able to express this to anybody, not to friends, certainly not to Raj. He doesn’t even suspect it. He thinks I’m still in love with him. Well, don’t you have anything to say?” “About what?” “About what I’ve just told you. About my secret, and about how terrible it makes me feel. I feel terrible looking at my children, and at Raj, always terrible. I have terrible urges, Mr. Kapasi, to throw things away. One day I had the urge to throw everything I own out the window, the television, the children, everything. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy?” He was silent. “Mr. Kapasi, don’t you have anything to say? I thought that was your job.” “My job is to give tours, Mrs. Das.” “Not that. Your other job. As an interpreter.” “But we do not face a language barrier. What need is there for an interpreter?” “That’s not what I mean. I would never have told you otherwise. Don’t you realize what it means for me to tell you?” “What does it mean?” “It means that I’m tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I’ve been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.”
5. Disillusionment
He looked at her, in her red plaid skirt and strawberry T-shirt, a woman not yet thirty, who loved neither her husband nor her children, who had already fallen out of love with life. Her confession depressed him, depressed him all the more when he thought of Mr. Das at the top of the path, Tina clinging to his shoulders, taking pictures of ancient monastic cells cut into the hills to show his students in America, unsuspecting and unaware that one of his sons was not his own. Mr. Kapasi felt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret. She did not resemble the patients in the doctor’s office, those who came glassy-eyed and desperate, unable to sleep or breathe or urinate with ease, unable, above all, to give words to their pains. Still, Mr. Kapasi believed it was his duty to assist Mrs. Das. Perhaps he ought to tell her to confess the truth to Mr. Das. He would explain that honesty was the best policy. Honesty, surely, would help her feel better, as she’d put it. Perhaps he would offer to preside over the discussion, as a mediator. He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, “Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?” She turned to him and glared, mustard oil thick on her frosty pink lips. She opened her mouth to say something, but as she glared at Mr. Kapasi some certain knowledge seemed to pass before her eyes, and she stopped. It crushed him; he knew at that moment that he was not even important enough to be properly insulted.
Questions: 1. How do Mr. Kapasi and Mr. & Mrs. Das represent their culture, and how different are they? 2. What cultural gap was there between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das? 3. What cultural stereotypes of love and marriage are being represented here?
Some comments on “Interpreter
of Maladies”(From Sparknotes)
Culture
Clash
Central
themes of all of Lahiri’s work, “Interpreter of Maladies” included, are the
difficulties that Indians have in relating to Americans and the ways in which
Indian Americans are caught in the middle of two very different cultures. We
learn quite a few details about where the Das family fits into this cultural
divide. Mr. and Mrs. Das were both born and raised in America, although their
retired parents have now moved to India to live. The Dases visit every few
years, bringing the children with them. They are Indian but not of India, and
their dress and manner are wholly American. Although Mr. Kapasi recognizes some
common cultural heritage, the Dases are no more familiar with India than any
other tourist. Mr. Das relies on a tourist guidebook to tell him about the
country through which they are traveling, and Mrs. Das could not be more
uninterested in her surroundings if she tried. Although India is their parents’
home, Mr. and Mrs. Das are foreigners. Mr. Das even seems to take pride in his
status as a stranger, telling Mr. Kapasi about his American roots with an “air
of sudden confidence.”
Though Mr. Kapasi and the Dases do share an Indian heritage, their marriages
reveal the extent of how different their cultures really are. Mr. Kapasi
believes that he can relate to Mrs. Das’s unhappy marriage because he himself is
in an unhappy marriage. He seeks this common ground as a way to find friendship
and connection. However, the connection fails because the marriages are so
vastly different. Mr. Kapasi’s parents arranged his marriage, and he and Mrs.
Kapasi have nothing in common. By contrast, Mrs. Das fell in love with Mr. Das
at a young age, and although their union was encouraged by their parents, her
marriage was not arranged. Mrs. Das’s comments about her and Mr. Das’s sexual
behaviors during their courtship shock Mr. Kapasi, who has never seen his wife
naked. Furthermore, Mr. Kapasi is offended by the concept of infidelity in Mrs.
Das’s marriage. This lack of understanding reflects a differing understanding of
duty and family between the two cultures. The two marriages may both be unhappy,
but the causes, remedies, mistakes, and results of that unhappiness have no
overlap whatsoever. Mr. Kapasi’s fantasy of forging a friendship with Mrs. Das
is shattered even before he sees his address slip away in the wind. The cultural
divide between him and Mrs. Das is, from his view, simply too
vast.
 
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