Kudos to Mr. Donno your name. But yes, he speaks English. He calls himself ‘Students’ Friend’ and sells books at Nehru Place, New Delhi, at scrap prices, literally. I got it at Rs 60/-. No, not the original version, but a pirated version of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Printed, I guess, somewhere in or around Delhi. This is how I came across Interpreter of Diseases. A collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, the first. Nine stories make up the 270-odd-page book, one of the best collections of short stories I’ve found.
The book is correctly subtitled. Stories from Bengal, Boston and beyond. Capture in words, the feeling called Nostalgia in myriad forms. How you long for your own country, your own people, your own culture while abroad. How you begin to compare with your home everything from food, dresses, markets to the way people talk and behave at a party or in bed. How do you want to go back to your roots? Not because the new place isn’t good or the people are rude or you’re sick of work. But because you miss the faces you were so used to, or you miss that special Adda with your friends, or you crave fresh fish and frown at the lack of variety.
I really don’t know if the author lived in Bengal. But the way the little things are presented makes you feel like you are in a typical Bengali kitchen, or in a Kolkata fish market, or in that 3-story building in Dhaka, or in that building where Boori Maa lived. Bengali sentiments related to fish, sindoor and Calcutta are dealt with quite objectively. You feel like you are not reading a book, but watching a movie.
The characters are from real life. He may have seen them while having a cup of coffee in the cafeteria, or while working out at the gym, or at a train station, or his next-door neighbor, or his colleague. However, in some cases, it could be you. Like the estranged couple, or the Bengali teacher in the US in times of domestic turmoil, or the cheating executive, or the lady who happily becomes a lover and then suddenly regrets doing so.
Some stories take a sudden turn, sometimes tragic, sometimes what you would like it to become. Like the story of two married people, but separated by the death of their son. Like the story of an Interpreter (read the story to know what this word means, literally and metaphorically) and a tourist lady when the former interprets the lady’s illness. But unlike the story of Boori Maa.
The only worthless story is that of a couple who keep finding various ‘blessed’ objects like statues of Jesus and Mary, or a tablecloth with Jesus and the like. I hate to see a story like that in this otherwise excellent book. When a story ends, you crave more. You think ‘Why does the story end?’ He won’t stop for anything less than a whole novel about each of the characters. I guess I better start with the namesake now.
