Interpreter of Maladies presents a fascinating view of marriage. Throughout the novel, we read of marriages plagued by frustration and dishonesty. It would seem logical to assume that this collection takes a position against marriage. Yet the only thing that seems to work out worse than marriage is being unmarried.
This can be clearly seen in the story “Sexy”, which tells the story of an affair between the unwedded Miranda and the married Dev. Early in the story, we hear about the disaster that marriage can be from her friend Laxmi, who tells the story of her cousin's husband having an affair. Then ironically, the relationship between Miranda and Dev starts. At the beginning, this works out for Miranda as she gets to be with this charming and “sexy” man. However, things start to go poorly for her, as she is significantly more interested in him than he is in her. Eventually, she breaks it off, feeling disgusted with the whole thing and regretful that it ever happened. Intriguingly, things work great for Dev, as he gets to both be with Miranda, and at the end still gets to be with his wife. So, it's basically a win-win for him and amazingly seems to indicate that it's better to be the married one in an affair.
The value of marriage is seen again in “A Real Durwan”. Boori Ma, as a result of no longer being married, is forced to work as a pseudo-durwan for the married families in the apartment. This works for a while, but in the end, she ends up being kicked out to the streets. This was a result of her roamings, which were a result of her loneliness. Clearly, the unmarried life doesn’t work out for her.
The craziest support of marriage though comes in the story of Bibi Haldar. She is afflicted with a mysterious illness, which unbeknownst to modern medicine and the majority of homeopathy practitioners, can only be cured by marriage (or almost marriage). After nearly a decade of illness, she is cured by raising a kid. While that wasn’t the marriage that was supposed to cure her, it was the result of her seeking a marriage and what appears to be the villainous actions of an unknown man. Yet, somehow this cures as she now has someone to look after. Overall, I found Interpreter of Maladies support of marriage to be unexpected and quite interesting. Although, some of the anecdotes that are pro-marriage seem to be so ridiculous that they might just be sarcastic. What do you think?
