"Interpreter of Maladies" Jhumpa Lahiri

I believe there is great significance in Mrs. Das asking for Mr. Kapasi's address, then later losing it. It represents the relationship between the two characters. At the beginning of the story Mrs. Das shows interest in Mr. Kapasi's job as an interpreter for a doctor in his town, which causes Mr. Kapasi to feel important. This feeling of importance made him feel appreciated, and he never felt appreciated by his wife. Later that day, Mrs. Das asked him for his address, and he was worried that he had written it down wrong and he would never recieve the picture she had promised him. He began imagining them as sort of pen pals that would discuss their lives through letters. This idea pleased him, until later that evening when she told him her secret of one of her children not being her husband's. I feel that this idea sickened him, because, earlier that day, he was loving the attention that she had been giving him. It made him feel that his infatuation was a sin, and he could have been the father of another child that Mr. Das thought was his own. So when the address flew out of her purse that night, he was not upset by it at all. In a way, I think he was relieved, which suggests the resolution that one should not covet the lives of others, but accept their own.