Interpreter of Maladies

Lilia in “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” is a 10-year-old girl in 1971, when a man named Mr. Pirzada begins to visit her house to eat dinner and watch the international news. Mr. Pirzada is a stoic professor who is trapped in America when his home of Dacca—where his wife and children still live—is invaded and is taken in by Lilia’s family. Mr. Pirzada is from East Pakistan, not India like Lilia’s family, and Lilia struggles with the concept of Mr. Pirzada’s nationality in comparison to her own—she sees only their similarities. Her failure to see the distinctions between them is in part a result of her education: She is learning only American history, and her teacher attempts to suppress her interest in learning about the Indian subcontinent. When Mr. Pirzada is reunited with his family and Lilia realizes she will never see him again, she essentially loses a piece of her childhood. Only then does she realize how much his presence meant to her.

Mr. Kapasi works as a tour guide and as an interpreter in a doctor’s office. He is middle-aged and married, though his marriage is strained by the death of a child, and his wife resents that he works with the doctor who could not save their son. When a young American mother takes an interest in him, he fantasizes about growing close with her, in part because she values the work he does. He is a tragic figure since his assumptions are rooted in his own desire to have intimacy and dignity.

Boori Ma is a proud woman who has fallen on hard times in “A Real Durwan.” She is living in the doorway of an apartment building in exchange for keeping the stairwell clean and guarding the door, and she insists that she comes from a wealthy family, regaling the neighbors with stories of her past. Her pride keeps her from caring about whether she is believed, which ends up being a factor in her downfall when the building is robbed while she is away.

Miranda is a young, naïve American woman who has an affair with an Indian man, Dev, in “Sexy.” She rationalizes her situation because she has never been made to feel special, and she takes an interest in Indian culture to get to know Dev better, particularly after their relationship becomes routine instead of romantic, as she had envisioned. She realizes the error of her ways when she is confronted by a young boy, Rohin, whose own father is having an affair.

Mrs. Sen is a woman in her thirties who has come to America for her husband’s work. She is struggling to integrate into American society, and she is deeply lonely for her family and her home in India. She finds joy in getting fresh fish, which reminds her of home, but since she doesn’t know how to drive, she relies on her husband to get it for her. Her difficulty learning to drive leads to further feelings of loneliness and isolation and is emblematic of her inability to adjust.

Eliot, the 11-year-old boy she babysits, is lonely as well, and Mrs. Sen sees a kindred spirit in him. In their time together, Eliot learns about her culture, and the two come empathize with each other due to the shared bond of loneliness. When Eliot’s mother decides he is old enough not to need a babysitter, both Eliot and Mrs. Sen lose the social bond they have come to value, returning to an isolation that the story suggests is a central part of the American experience.

Sanjeev is an up-and-coming figure at his company in “This Blessed House,” and he has recently married Twinkle; he initially finds her charming, but he has begun to question whether he loves her because of their differences. Twinkle is a free spirit who is relatively content in life, and she becomes fascinated by the Christian paraphernalia that she finds in her new house with Sanjeev. She isn’t religious, but she finds the pieces charming. She is careless in the way she takes care of herself, the house, and her belongings, but she is naturally charismatic, making friends with Sanjeev’s colleagues easily. Sanjeev is concerned with appearances and proper behavior, and he married in part because he wanted to escape the loneliness of bachelorhood. He thinks that he and Twinkle are a bad match, but ultimately his fear of loneliness is greater than his growing feelings of resentment.