Interpreter of Maladies ★★★★★

Jhumpa Lahiri certainly deserved her Pulitzer. I recently read the assortment of short stories in her literary debut book, Interpreter of Maladies and can safely say that she has a firm grasp on the language and story-telling abilities.

Although she was born in London and brought up in Rhode Island, US, the Indian identity is not completely lost. She successfully weaves stories around familiar sights of our daily life of an Indian, like the morning milkman, regular power outrages, and entertaining guests; the things that we have grown up with but have never stopped to notice. Her stories tend to go into painstaking detail but that only enables us to successfully visualize the torment of her characters in idyllic environs. She has an uncanny tendency to end her stories, leaving you yearning for more. Not entirely "happy endings", we have to seek solace in typical life-like scenarios that Bollywood has kept us away from. Poignant is the word that comes readily to mind if I have to describe her stories in one word.

Several stories can be continued from the point they are left off with umpteen possible directions that it can take but then that would result in overkill of the narration. You get over the sense of incompleteness when you are immersed in the next story. However, that doesn't mean that she leaves the characters half-baked; by the time you are halfway through the story, you begin to identify the characters with people that you have met in real life or even with yourself. Characters are complex and rarely black-n-white; you definitely cannot judge them because you wish to know more. The tales of the people, even the most common folk like for example, Boori Ma in "The Real Durwan" seem intricate and makes you wonder that there definitely must be six billion plus interesting stories in this world -- each with a individualistic touch that seems strangely common.

Give it a try, if you like simple tales. I definitely am going to read her next offering, The Namesake.