Interpreter of Maladies: "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"

by Jhumpa Lahiri
The title story of Jhumpa Lahiri's collection explores the way people try, and fail, to communicate with one another.

Here are links to our lists for other stories in the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection:
A Temporary Matter
Interpreter of Maladies
A Real Durwan
Sexy
Mrs. Sen's
This Blessed House
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar
The Third and Final Continent

Here is a link to The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. confection
    a food rich in sugar
    In the autumn of 1971 a man used to come to our house, bearing confections in his pocket and hopes of ascertaining the life or death of his family.
  2. ascertain
    learn or determine by making an inquiry or other effort
    In the autumn of 1971 a man used to come to our house, bearing confections in his pocket and hopes of ascertaining the life or death of his family.
  3. autonomy
    political independence
    That year Pakistan was engaged in civil war. The eastern frontier, where Dacca was located, was fighting for autonomy from the ruling regime in the west.
  4. compatriot
    a person from your own country
    In search of compatriots, they used to trail their fingers, at the start of each new semester, through the columns of the university directory, circling surnames familiar to their part of the world. It was in this manner that they discovered Mr. Pirzada, and phoned him, and invited him to our home.
  5. imperceptible
    impossible or difficult to sense
    He reached into his suit pocket and gave me a small plastic egg filled with cinnamon hearts. “For the lady of the house,” he said with an almost imperceptible splay-footed bow.
  6. covet
    wish, long, or crave for
    I coveted each evening's treasure as I would a jewel, or a coin from a buried kingdom, and I would place it in a small keepsake box made of carved sandalwood beside my bed, in which, long ago in India, my father’s mother used to store the ground areca nuts she ate after her morning bath.
  7. intimidation
    being made to feel afraid or timid
    Mr. Pirzada began carving, without the least bit of intimidation, as if he had been carving jack-o’-lantems his whole life.
  8. disproportionate
    out of proper balance
    What resulted was a disproportionately large hole the size of a lemon, so that our jack-o’-lantern wore an expression of placid astonishment, the eyebrows no longer fierce, floating in frozen surprise above a vacant, geometric gaze.
  9. placid
    calm and free from disturbance
    What resulted was a disproportionately large hole the size of a lemon, so that our jack-o’-lantern wore an expression of placid astonishment, the eyebrows no longer fierce, floating in frozen surprise above a vacant, geometric gaze.
  10. geometric
    characterized by shapes and lines in design and decoration
    What resulted was a disproportionately large hole the size of a lemon, so that our jack-o’-lantern wore an expression of placid astonishment, the eyebrows no longer fierce, floating in frozen surprise above a vacant, geometric gaze.
Created on Tue May 16 10:01:58 EDT 2017 (updated Wed Jul 23 13:56:53 EDT 2025)

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