Question

Explain the relationship between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi in Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies." Why does Mrs. Das feel comfortable with Mr. Kapasi?

Accepted Answer

Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi are, initially, simply a tourist and a driver. However, when she learns of his job as a translator in a doctor's office, she begins to warm to him. He interprets her friendliness as romantic interest. He is wrong. She feels comfortable telling him her secret because of his interpreter job: she wants him to suggest a remedy for her own emotional pain, not accepting that what she feels is guilt for her wrongdoing.

Answer

Initially, Mr. Kapasi—a driver for tourists—observes Mrs. Das with some reserve. She is not interested in her children very much, and she is dressed somewhat provocatively. She also does not appear to be in love with her husband: "They were all like siblings, Mr. Kapasi thought." Mrs. Das doesn't say much until Mr. Kapasi reveals that his main job is his work in a doctor's office. Although the doctor was not able to save Mr. Kapasi's son, who died, Mr. Kapasi took a job in his office as an interpreter: the doctor does not speak Gujarati, but many of his patients only speak Gujarati. Because Mr. Kapasi's father was Gujarati, he is fluent in the language. Patients will explain their physical symptoms to him, and he translates for the doctor so that they can receive the proper treatment. Mrs. Das finds this to be "so romantic," and she "break[s] her extended silence" and lifts her sunglasses for the first time. Suddenly, she begins to treat Mr. Kapasi like a person, sharing her gum and asking him more about his job. Because "Mr. Kapasi had never thought of his work in such complimentary terms," he begins to feel somewhat flattered. He'd always thought of his job as "a sign of his failings." Stuck in a loveless marriage with a wife who resents his work, Mr. Kapasi begins to believe that Mrs. Das has some romantic feelings for him. He imagines that they will write to one another, and he even counts the weeks until he thinks he can reasonably expect to hear from her. She, however, does not feel the same. Perhaps she is trying to butter him up, so to speak, so that he can explain or fix the feelings of pain that she sees as her own malady. She even asks him to stop calling her Mrs. Das, saying that Mr. Kapasi "probably [has] children [her] age."
Mrs. Das feels comfortable talking to him, sharing the details of her marital infidelity and who her son, Bobby's, father really is because of Mr. Kapasi's "talents," as she says. She wants him to say something "about how terrible [her situation] makes [her] feel." She says, "I feel terrible looking at my children, and at Raj, always terrible. I have terrible urges [...] to throw things away [....]. Don't you think it's unhealthy?" She believes it is his "job" to "interpret" for her, to "help [her] feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy." Mr. Kapasi considers how different Mrs. Das and her "common, trivial little secret" is from the patients who seek his help because they are "desperate." When he tries to help her, however, implying that she feels guilt and not pain, she turns on him because she cannot accept responsibility for the pain that she feels; she seems to feel like she's an innocent victim, like the patients he serves, when really she is a perpetrator of wrongdoing. It becomes clear that neither Mr. Kapasi nor Mrs. Das is particularly good at "interpreting" their own and others' feelings at all.

Answer

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” presents three adults who suffer from their own maladies.  The story takes place in India in modern times. The Das family, who are Indian, has come to holiday in India although they are Americans.  The other character in the story is Mr. Kapasi, the tour guide and driver, who is also the “interpreter of maladies.”
 Mr. and Mrs. Das are not a happy couple.  Mr. Kapasi describes them as acting like brother and sister.  The husband sticks his nose in a travel guide and ignores the family as much as he can.  Mrs. Das seems to be the ultimate self-centered woman who wishes that she were someone else and someplace else.  She does not share her snacks, tries to avoid doing anything with her children, and subtlety fusses with her husband.
Mr. Kapasi is not only a travel guide but an interpreter of maladies.  He works for a doctor that does not understand the language and interprets for the patient what he is suffering from.   His life has not gone as he wanted.  With an affinity for languages, he intended to be a diplomatic interpreter. 
Now, he observes this family and thinks about his own family situation. He and his wife have a lost a child to illness.  Neither of them has been able to comfort the other. The wife blames her husband and cannot stand to hear about his work.  They have no intimacy between them. 
During the ride, Mrs. Das shows an interest in Mr. Kapasi when he tells her about his second job.  She seems to give the job a prestige that Mr. Kapasi does not readily understand.  She includes him in the family picture and even asks for his address to send a copy. 
Mr. Kapasi begins to imagine the two of them having a special relationship…he is intrigued both sexually and emotionally by her attention. When they finally are alone, Mrs. Das shares her guilt over her affair with her husband’s friend and the subsequent birth of her youngest son.  Because of his job as an interpreter for a doctor, the misguided lady believes that the Mr. Kapasi can help her.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say? About my secret, and about how terrible it makes me feel.  I feel terrible, always terrible. I have terrible urges, Mr. Kapasi, to throw things away.  One day I had the urge to throw everything I won out the window….Don’t you think it’s unhealthy?”

He realizes that she looks at him as a father figure. Her confessions depress him.  Ironically, he does, in fact, help her identify her feelings as coming from the guilt that she feels from her indiscretion.  His diagnosis shocks and troubles her, but as she contemplates what Kapasi has told her that she seems to absorb his explanation.  Disturbed, she exits the car.
 Kapasi dislikes Mrs. Das as she has forced him to confront his own problems.  He must face the silence of his own marriage, which “now oppressed him.”  He looks at them as she accidentally lets his address blow away.  The family seems to convey a scene of normal familial happiness which is what Mr. Kapasi will remember about them.

Interpreter of Maladies

Explain the relationship between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi in Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies." Why does Mrs. Das feel comfortable with Mr. Kapasi?

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