The Interpreter of Maladies is a book made up of nine short stories of different people who have no connection at all except that most of the characters are Indiana American or were currently living in India. The Author Jhumpa Lahiri is a daughter to two Indian Immigrants who were born in Bengali, and lived in London and eventually moved to Rhode Island in the United States. Lahiri is able to bring a lot of knowledge and personal experience to these short stories because she has connections to India and knows what it’s like for Indian immigrants because of her parents. Most of these stories talk about life in India before moving away, relationships between couples, and talks about the Indian Partition.
In 1947 the British colonizers left India, after being there for 300 years. After this happened it split up into two separate countries, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. This caused Muslims who were living in what was then India to Pakistan and Hindus who were living in Pakistan to move to India. Later down the road violence grew between the two groups, “massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions, and savage sexual violence” (Dalrymple). According The New Yorker British soldiers and Journalist who had also seen Nazi death camps said it was worse than that. It ended with between one and two million deaths. In the Interpreter of Maladies, in the story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, we often hear about him struggling and worried about his family who was still back in India while the Partition was stilling going on, while he was safe in the United States. The Partition is seen by as one of the biggest events in Asian history to many. By the middle of the 20th century things were still heated between the Hindus and Muslims, and they felt as if they could never live together again peacefully.
Dalrymple, William, et al. “The Mutual Genocide of Indian Partition.” The New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies: Stories. Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.
“Jhumpa Lahiri.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Jhumpa-Lahiri.
I had heard about the violence between India and Pakistan before, but never knew how extreme it was until reading your post. Thank you for sharing this information that is crucial to understanding the history of the country of India. My lack of knowledge on the subject shows just how easy it is to live in the United States and not learn much about other parts of the world. Thank you for educating me with your post, it was well written and well done!
Hi, I really enjoyed your context presentation and thought you provided great information. I thought you did a great job explaining some of the historical backgrounds that are relevant and seen in the book. It is interesting learning about the extreme violence and internal conflict of India that is not normally taught or touched on. It is definitely important to recognize the struggles and hardships that many Indian immigrants face when leaving people behind to face harsh circumstances. Understanding the different perspectives and context allows for a deeper understanding of the short stories. Overall, I thought you did a good job conveying important information clearly and concisely.
Hi, I really liked your background topic for your context presentation. The information about the British leaving and causing the Partition. I can’t imagine having America split along religious boundaries like they were in India and Pakistan. I actually read When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine so this is especially helpful in understanding how he was feeling about his family back in India. I’m surprised that I’ve never heard about this Partition before because it sounds so significant and brutal. Do you think Britain should have stayed in control of the area to prevent things like the Partitions from happening? I didn’t even know Pakistan was right next to India until you brought up this conflict. I liked that you also gave some background into the author and her writing topic as I had no idea what I was about to read coming into this week.
I appreciate your context presentation and how you continued to explain what has happened in regards to the British colonizers in India. The history you provided helped me to truly understand what has happened and how it opens my eyes to the struggles that people face around the world. I have had a lack of knowledge about immigration and Indian immagration specifically so I appreciate the different perspectives and stories that help me gain a better understanding.
I really liked this presentation and it’t interesting to see you converse about the British colony and their affect on Indian immigration. “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” was one of the stories that I did not read so to imagine what he went through or people like him as an Indian immigrants go through, especially during the Partition, it seemed traumatizing, but I do like how it informed me of just this specific time period.
This is a very good presentation that really highlights the distress that India experienced as a result of the British colonization and abandonment. I truly had no idea that this kind of conflict had existed in India, and actually know very little of Indian history as a whole. These short stories were eye-opening as to what Indian immigrants go through during the immigration process. If there’s one thing that I believe can be learned from all these stories we have read the past few weeks, it’s that immigration processes should be improved so that so many people do not have to experience the same conditions as those who have come before.
Hello, I think that you did a good job giving a brief history on the area in your post. Reading about “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine” was hard because knowing what type of situation that he was in. Being in another country while your family is living in the middle of a war is hard. I think that a lot of people are not familiar with this war, I have never heard about it until reading this book. Great post