Interpreter of Maladies: A Real Durwan and This Blessed House

A Real Durwan
            This is a story of wishing for a grander life and how far you’ll go to get it. Boori Ma constantly tells stories of her old life, which may or may not be true, because she longs for the luxury of that life. Mr. Dalal buys two sinks as an indulgence after being promoted at work. The tenants of the building are incited by this to improve the building in other ways, and therefore, improve their standard of living. But all this comes at a price, which is the moral of the story it seems. The tenants’ rush to improve their building caused Boori Ma’s usually vigilance to be rendered impossible and the improvements made the building a target for thieves. Then, Boori Ma’s perpetually retold tales of past lavishness caused the tenants not to believe her when she pleaded innocent to their accusations of conspiring with the sink thief.
            Jhumpa Lahiri writes from the point of view of a third person narrator, giving a sense of the characters through their actions and the eyes of those around them. Boori Ma, for example, is minimally described by the narrator herself, but the reader still gets a good sense of Boori Ma’s character from her dedication to her unofficial position as stair sweep and durwan, as well as the other tenants’ view of her: “What kind of land owner ended up sweeping stairs? That is what Mr. Dalal of the third floor always wondered as he passed Boori Ma […]. Bechareh, she probably constructs tales as a way of mourning the loss of her family, was the collective surmise of most of the wives. And ‘Boori Ma’s mouth is full of ashes, but she is a victim of changing times’ was the refrain of old Mr. Chatterjee”(pg.72). Small things, like Boori Ma being the only person to wish Mr. and Mrs. Dalal a safe journey when they went of vacation, say a lot about her and about the other tenants.
            Jhumpa also weaves themes throughout the story. One being Boori Ma’s signature catch phrase, “believe me, don’t believe, such comforts you can not even dream them,”(pg.71) though the spot in the phrase where “comforts” resides is replaced with vary words to fit the situation. This phrase changes noticeably and profoundly at the end to “believe me, believe me”(pg.81) as she is cast out from her home behind the gates of the building, whether it be under the letter boxes, on the roof, or occasionally passing through the homes of the tenant (but of course, not sitting on the furniture).
This Blessed House
            This story is not about little Christian trinkets, but instead, about Sanjeev’s relationship with his new wife, Twinkle. Jhumpa just uses the trinkets as a running theme to carry the story along. Much like in the first story, she uses the daily lives of her characters to showcase the complicated mess that is human nature and emotion, becoming a sort of Interpreter of Maladies herself. Her characters are very relatable because of this. I saw myself in both Sanjeev and Twinkle, and saw others in them as well.
Jhumpa’s style is also prevalent in this story. She has the narrator describe Sanjeev and Twinkle through actions. For example, “Sanjeev was organizing his engineering texts from MIT in alphabetical order on a bookshelf,”(pg.137) and “a few ashes had fallen to the floor where she’d been standing. He bent down, pinched them between his fingers, and deposited them in his cupped palm”(pg.140). But the narrator also gets into Sanjeev’s head much more than the narrator in the first story had gotten into Boori Ma’s. The reader is made aware of every instance Sanjeev is feeling irritated, baffled, or even questioning his love for Twinkle.

-Erin

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 31, 2017 at 10:44 PM

    Hello, Erin

    I was wondering about the title that Lahiri chose in capsulizing this collection of short stories. I like the way you describe the narrator as interpreting the maladies of the characters in each of the stories. I see this title befitting "A Real Durwan" story, because the ending is solemn; however, the term "maladies" seems a bit extreme for "This Blessed House" at first glance. But when I think about the compromise that Sanjeev makes by the end of the story, I can see how his tolerance and even giving up the "good fight" with Twinkle, can be it's own sort of malady. I also like how you pinpoint the change in Boori Ma's phrase by the end of the story. She does not include "riches" in her last lines, "believe me, believe me." The riches, that so devastated the lives of the tenants, and inevitably uprooted Boori Ma from her safe place, is lost by the end, and therefore is not necessary to mention.

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