Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies

Some books pop out and grab the reader all at once. Others take longer and then sneak up on you. This is one of the those.

I enjoyed reading Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. Of course I read it for class this semester but I also do believe I read it in High School (another story in the book) -- not really satisfied reading the stories my teacher had chosen in that collection. Yes, it is definitely not a jump - in - your - face collection, but I guess once you read many stories written by Lahiri, you can get a general gist of what underlying theme consists in his stories.

In Lahiri‘s “Sexy,” the protagonist is someone more American than Indian who is confronted with the specter of India of her ancestors, the alien nature of its’ gods and foods and thinking. “Can I help you?”- the man standing at the cash register asked. He was eating a samosa, dipping it into some dark brown sauce on a paper plate. Below the glass counter at his waist were trays of more plump samosas, and what looked like pale, diamond-shaped pieces of fudge covered with foil, and some bright orange pastries floating in syrup. Unaware of the Indian culture, Miranda still fell for Dev and started to have an affair with this man (though he was married to Laxmi)!

Apart from Laxmi and Dev, the only Indians whom Miranda had known were a family in the neighborhood where she’d grown up. I think I could relate to this story a lot since it was about Indian culture and there were a few words that I knew straight up what they meant. For example in the above passage, the word “samosa” is a really tasty Indian dish that can be eaten as an appetizer! Also, Madhuri Dixit is a famous Indian actress and there was a reference to her in the story when Miranda mentioned that Laxmi was as beautiful as her!

Thus, I thought of this story as a combination of life stories and characterizations of both Indians in India and Indians in America. The stories take place in that traditional culture and in New England. There is a clash of cultures. These are people who both are and possibly aren’t comfortable in their place or culture and are feeling their way through life with doubts and fears.