For this assignment, you will write a 2-page compare and contrast paper on two of the authors from this week’s reading or video. Be sure to give equal weight to each author. You may include some background information on your authors, especially if their backgrounds impacted their subject matter. When writing about short stories, you do not want to simply restate the plot or events in the story, but instead, focus on the details of how each author handled the theme of the story. In this case, you might want to examine how the author explored gender roles in the time period of the story. Remember, this may not be in the same period as the author is writing but could be a different period in history.
Ideas to consider when comparing and contrasting (these are not required, just suggested):
Do both stories reflect the same theme? If not, what is the theme of each story?
What are the characters’ conflicts? How does each character resolve that conflict or do they?
Are there any epiphanies? (An epiphany is where the character changes as a result of the conflict)
What about symbolism? Are any major symbols or metaphorical images used?
Happy Endings
MARGARET ATWOOD
[b. 1939]
John and Mary meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.
John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.
Mary falls in love with John but John doesnt fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, youll notice that he doesnt even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after hes eaten the dinner he fucks her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he wont think shes untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so shell look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesnt even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He doesnt take off Marys clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if shes dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesnt, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely hell get used to her, hell come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six oclock and they do the whole thing over again.
Mary gets run-down. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she cant stop. People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isnt good enough for her, but she cant believe it. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.
One evening John complains about the food. He has never complained about the food before. Mary is hurt.
Her friends tell her theyve seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. Its not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: its the restaurant. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that its not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes hell discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.
John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.
John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because hes worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though shes not in love with him. She met him at work. Shes in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.
John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isnt impressed by him, shes impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. Freedom isnt the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away.
John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he cant leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time.
One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than youd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Marys apartment. He finds them stoned and entwined. Hes hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless hes overcome with despair. Finally hes middle-aged, in two years hell be bald as an egg and he cant stand it. He purchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practicethis is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with laterand shoots the two of them and himself.
Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.
Fred and Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches. Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and lucky. Finally on high ground they clasp each other, wet and dripping and grateful, and continue as in A.
Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be Madge, cancer, guilty and confused, and bird watching.
If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. Youll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.
Youll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Dont be deluded by any other endings, theyre all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.
The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.
So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since its the hardest to do anything with.
Thats about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.
Now try How and Why.
Interpreter of Maladies
JHUMPA LAHIRI
[b. 1967]
At the tea stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet. Eventually Mrs. Das relented when Mr. Das pointed out that he had given the girl her bath the night before. In the rearview mirror Mr. Kapasi watched as Mrs. Das emerged slowly from his bulky white Ambassador, dragging her shaved, largely bare legs across the back seat. She did not hold the little girls hand as they walked to the rest room.
They were on their way to see the Sun Temple at Konarak. It was a dry, bright Saturday, the mid-July heat tempered by a steady ocean breeze, ideal weather for sightseeing. Ordinarily Mr. Kapasi would not have stopped so soon along the way, but less than five minutes after hed picked up the family that morning in front of Hotel Sandy Villa, the little girl had complained. The first thing Mr. Kapasi had noticed when he saw Mr. and Mrs. Das, standing with their children under the portico of the hotel, was that they were very young, perhaps not even thirty. In addition to Tina they had two boys, Ronny and Bobby, who appeared very close in age and had teeth covered in a network of flashing silver wires. The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors. Mr. Kapasi was accustomed to foreign tourists; he was assigned to them regularly because he could speak English. Yesterday he had driven an elderly couple from Scotland, both with spotted faces and fluffy white hair so thin it exposed their sunburnt scalps. In comparison, the tanned, youthful faces of Mr. and Mrs. Das were all the more striking. When hed introduced himself, Mr. Kapasi had pressed his palms together in greeting, but Mr. Das squeezed hands like an American so that Mr. Kapasi felt it in his elbow. Mrs. Das, for her part, had flexed one side of her mouth, smiling dutifully at Mr. Kapasi, without displaying any interest in him.
As they waited at the tea stall, Ronny, who looked like the older of the two boys, clambered suddenly out of the back seat, intrigued by a goat tied to a stake in the ground.
Dont touch it, Mr. Das said. He glanced up from his paperback tour book, which said INDIA in yellow letters and looked as if it had been published abroad. His voice, somehow tentative and a little shrill, sounded as though it had not yet settled into maturity.
I want to give it a piece of gum, the boy called back as he trotted ahead.
Mr. Das stepped out of the car and stretched his legs by squatting briefly to the ground. A clean-shaven man, he looked exactly like a magnified version of Ronny. He had a sapphire blue visor, and was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The camera slung around his neck, with an impressive telephoto lens and numerous buttons and markings, was the only complicated thing he wore. He frowned, watching as Ronny rushed toward the goat, but appeared to have no intention of intervening. Bobby, make sure that your brother doesnt do anything stupid.
I dont feel like it, Bobby said, not moving. He was sitting in the front seat beside Mr. Kapasi, studying a picture of the elephant god taped to the glove compartment.
No need to worry, Mr. Kapasi said. They are quite tame. Mr. Kapasi was forty-six years old, with receding hair that had gone completely silver, but his butterscotch complexion and his unlined brow, which he treated in spare moments to dabs of lotus-oil balm, made it easy to imagine what he must have looked like at an earlier age. He wore gray trousers and a matching jacket-style shirt, tapered at the waist, with short sleeves and a large pointed collar, made of a thin but durable synthetic material. He had specified both the cut and the fabric to his tailorit was his preferred uniform for giving tours because it did not get crushed during his long hours behind the wheel. Through the windshield he watched as Ronny circled around the goat, touched it quickly on its side, then trotted back to the car.
You left India as a child? Mr. Kapasi asked when Mr. Das had settled once again into the passenger seat.
Oh, Mina and I were both born in America, Mr. Das announced with an air of sudden confidence. Born and raised. Our parents live here now, in Assansol. They retired. We visit them every couple years. He turned to watch as the little girl ran toward the car, the wide purple bows of her sundress flopping on her narrow brown shoulders. She was holding to her chest a doll with yellow hair that looked as if it had been chopped, as a punitive measure, with a pair of dull scissors. This is Tinas first trip to India, isnt it, Tina?
I dont have to go to the bathroom anymore, Tina announced.
Wheres Mina? Mr. Das asked.
Mr. Kapasi found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his wife by her first name when speaking to the little girl. Tina pointed to where Mrs. Das was purchasing something from one of the shirtless men who worked at the tea stall. Mr. Kapasi heard one of the shirtless men sing a phrase from a popular Hindi love song as Mrs. Das walked back to the car, but she did not appear to understand the words of the song, for she did not express irritation, or embarrassment, or react in any other way to the mans declarations.
He observed her. She wore a red-and-white-checkered skirt that stopped above her knees, slip-on shoes with a square wooden heel, and a close-fitting blouse styled like a mans undershirt. The blouse was decorated at chest-level with a calico appliqué in the shape of a strawberry. She was a short woman, with small hands like paws, her frosty pink fingernails painted to match her lips, and was slightly plump in her figure. Her hair, shorn only a little longer than her husbands, was parted far to one side. She was wearing large dark brown sunglasses with a pinkish tint to them, and carried a big straw bag, almost as big as her torso, shaped like a bowl, with a water bottle poking out of it. She walked slowly, carrying some puffed rice tossed with peanuts and chili peppers in a large packet made from newspapers. Mr. Kapasi turned to Mr. Das.
Where in America do you live?
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Next to New York.
Exactly. I teach middle school there.
What subject?
Science. In fact, every year I take my students on a trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. In a way we have a lot in common, you could say, you and I. How long have you been a tour guide, Mr. Kapasi?
Five years.
Mrs. Das reached the car. How longs the trip? she asked, shutting the door.
About two and a half hours, Mr. Kapasi replied.
At this Mrs. Das gave an impatient sigh, as if she had been traveling her whole life without pause. She fanned herself with a folded Bombay film magazine written in English.
I thought that the Sun Temple is only eighteen miles north of Puri, Mr. Das said, tapping on the tour book.
The roads to Konarak are poor. Actually it is a distance of fifty-two miles, Mr. Kapasi explained.
Mr. Das nodded, readjusting the camera strap where it had begun to chafe the back of his neck.
Before starting the ignition, Mr. Kapasi reached back to make sure the cranklike locks on the inside of each of the back doors were secured. As soon as the car began to move the little girl began to play with the lock on her side, clicking it with some effort forward and backward, but Mrs. Das said nothing to stop her. She sat a bit slouched at one end of the back seat, not offering her puffed rice to anyone. Ronny and Tina sat on either side of her, both snapping bright green gum.
Look, Bobby said as the car began to gather speed. He pointed with his finger to the tall trees that lined the road. Look.
Monkeys! Ronny shrieked. Wow!
They were seated in groups along the branches, with shining black faces, silver bodies, horizontal eyebrows, and crested heads. Their long gray tails dangled like a series of ropes among the leaves. A few scratched themselves with black leathery hands, or swung their feet, staring as the car passed.
We call them the hanuman, Mr. Kapasi said. They are quite common in the area.
As soon as he spoke, one of the monkeys leaped into the middle of the road, causing Mr. Kapasi to brake suddenly. Another bounced onto the hood of the car, then sprang away. Mr. Kapasi beeped his horn. The children began to get excited, sucking in their breath and covering their faces partly with their hands. They had never seen monkeys outside of a zoo, Mr. Das explained. He asked Mr. Kapasi to stop the car so that he could take a picture.
While Mr. Das adjusted his telephoto lens, Mrs. Das reached into her straw bag and pulled out a bottle of colorless nail polish, which she proceeded to stroke on the tip of her index finger.
The little girl stuck out a hand. Mine too. Mommy, do mine too.
Leave me alone, Mrs. Das said, blowing on her nail and turning her body slightly. Youre making me mess up.
The little girl occupied herself by buttoning and unbuttoning a pinafore on the dolls plastic body.
All set, Mr. Das said, replacing the lens cap.
The car rattled considerably as it raced along the dusty road, causing them all to pop up from their seats every now and then, but Mrs. Das continued to polish her nails. Mr. Kapasi eased up on the accelerator, hoping to produce a smoother ride. When he reached for the gearshift the boy in front accommodated him by swinging his hairless knees out of the way. Mr. Kapasi noted that this boy was slightly paler than the other children. Daddy, why is the driver sitting on the wrong side in this car, too? the boy asked.
They all do that here, dummy, Ronny said.
Dont call your brother a dummy, Mr. Das said. He turned to Mr. Kapasi. In America, you know ¦ it confuses them.
Oh yes, I am well aware, Mr. Kapasi said. As delicately as he could, he shifted gears again, accelerating as they approached a hill in the road. I see it on Dallas, the steering wheels are on the left-hand side.
Whats Dallas? Tina asked, banging her now naked doll on the seat behind Mr. Kapasi.
It went off the air, Mr. Das explained. Its a television show.
They were all like siblings, Mr. Kapasi thought as they passed a row of date trees. Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents. It seemed that they were in charge of the children only for the day; it was hard to believe they were regularly responsible for anything other than themselves. Mr. Das tapped on his lens cap, and his tour book, dragging his thumbnail occasionally across the pages so that they made a scraping sound. Mrs. Das continued to polish her nails. She had still not removed her sunglasses. Every now and then Tina renewed her plea that she wanted her nails done, too, and so at one point Mrs. Das flicked a drop of polish on the little girls finger before depositing the bottle back inside her straw bag.
Isnt this an air-conditioned car? she asked, still blowing on her hand. The window on Tinas side was broken and could not be rolled down.
Quit complaining, Mr. Das said. It isnt so hot.
I told you to get a car with air-conditioning, Mrs. Das continued. Why do you do this, Raj, just to save a few stupid rupees. What are you saving us, fifty cents?
Their accents sounded just like the ones Mr. Kapasi heard on American television programs, though not like the ones on Dallas.
Doesnt it get tiresome, Mr. Kapasi, showing people the same thing every day? Mr. Das asked, rolling down his own window all the way. Hey, do you mind stopping the car. I just want to get a shot of this guy.
Mr. Kapasi pulled over to the side of the road as Mr. Das took a picture of a barefoot man, his head wrapped in a dirty turban, seated on top of a cart of grain sacks pulled by a pair of bullocks. Both the man and the bullocks were emaciated. In the back seat Mrs. Das gazed out another window, at the sky, where nearly transparent clouds passed quickly in front of one another.
I look forward to it, actually, Mr. Kapasi said as they continued on their way. The Sun Temple is one of my favorite places. In that way it is a reward for me. I give tours on Fridays and Saturdays only. I have another job during the week.
Oh? Where? Mr. Das asked.
I work in a doctors office.
Youre a doctor?
I am not a doctor. I work with one. As an interpreter.
What does a doctor need an interpreter for?
He has a number of Gujarati patients. My father was Gujarati, but many people do not speak Gujarati in this area, including the doctor. And so the doctor asked me to work in his office, interpreting what the patients say.
Interesting. Ive never heard of anything like that, Mr. Das said.
Mr. Kapasi shrugged. It is a job like any other.
But so romantic, Mrs. Das said dreamily, breaking her extended silence. She lifted her pinkish brown sunglasses and arranged them on top of her head like a tiara. For the first time, her eyes met Mr. Kapasis in the rearview mirror: pale, a bit small, their gaze fixed but drowsy.
Mr. Das craned to look at her. Whats so romantic about it?
I dont know. Something. She shrugged, knitting her brows together for an instant. Would you like a piece of gum, Mr. Kapasi? she asked brightly. She reached into her straw bag and handed him a small square wrapped in green-and-white-striped paper. As soon as Mr. Kapasi put the gum in his mouth a thick sweet liquid burst onto his tongue.
Tell us more about your job, Mr. Kapasi, Mrs. Das said.
What would you like to know, madame?
I dont know, she shrugged, munching on some puffed rice and licking the mustard oil from the corners of her mouth. Tell us a typical situation. She settled back in her seat, her head tilted in a patch of sun, and closed her eyes. I want to picture what happens.
Very well. The other day a man came in with a pain in his throat.
Did he smoke cigarettes?
No. It was very curious. He complained that he felt as if there were long pieces of straw stuck in his throat. When I told the doctor he was able to prescribe the proper medication.
Thats so neat.
Yes, Mr. Kapasi agreed after some hesitation.
So these patients are totally dependent on you, Mrs. Das said. She spoke slowly, as if she were thinking aloud. In a way, more dependent on you than the doctor.
How do you mean? How could it be?
Well, for example, you could tell the doctor that the pain felt like a burning, not straw. The patient would never know what you had told the doctor, and the doctor wouldnt know that you had told the wrong thing. Its a big responsibility.
Yes, a big responsibility you have there, Mr. Kapasi, Mr. Das agreed.
Mr. Kapasi had never thought of his job in such complimentary terms. To him it was a thankless occupation. He found nothing noble in interpreting peoples maladies, assiduously translating the symptoms of so many swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots on peoples palms that changed color, shape, or size. The doctor, nearly half his age, had an affinity for bell-bottom trousers and made humorless jokes about the Congress party. Together they worked in a stale little infirmary where Mr. Kapasis smartly tailored clothes clung to him in the heat, in spite of the blackened blades of a ceiling fan churning over their heads.
The job was a sign of his failings. In his youth hed been a devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides. He was a self-educated man. In a series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his marriage, he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he was confident that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian, not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Orissi, and Gujarati. Now only a handful of European phrases remained in his memory, scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only non-Indian language he spoke fluently anymore. Mr. Kapasi knew it was not a remarkable talent. Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television. Still, it came in handy for the tours.
He had taken the job as an interpreter after his first son, at the age of seven, contracted typhoidthat was how he had first made the acquaintance of the doctor. At the time Mr. Kapasi had been teaching English in a grammar school, and he bartered his skills as an interpreter to pay the increasingly exorbitant medical bills. In the end the boy had died one evening in his mothers arms, his limbs burning with fever, but then there was the funeral to pay for, and the other children who were born soon enough, and the newer, bigger house, and the good schools and tutors, and the fine shoes and the television, and the countless other ways he tried to console his wife and to keep her from crying in her sleep, and so when the doctor offered to pay him twice as much as he earned at the grammar school, he accepted. Mr. Kapasi knew that his wife had little regard for his career as an interpreter. He knew it reminded her of the son shed lost, and that she resented the other lives he helped, in his own small way, to save. If ever she referred to his position, she used the phrase doctors assistant, as if the process of interpretation were equal to taking someones temperature, or changing a bedpan. She never asked him about the patients who came to the doctors office, or said that his job was a big responsibility.
For this reason it flattered Mr. Kapasi that Mrs. Das was so intrigued by his job. Unlike his wife, she had reminded him of its intellectual challenges. She had also used the word romantic. She did not behave in a romantic way toward her husband, and yet she had used the word to describe him. He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a bad match, just as he and his wife were. Perhaps they, too, had little in common apart from three children and a decade of their lives. The signs he recognized from his own marriage were therethe bickering, the indifference, the protracted silences. Her sudden interest in him, an interest she did not express in either her husband or her children, was mildly intoxicating. When Mr. Kapasi thought once again about how she had said romantic, the feeling of intoxication grew.
He began to check his reflection in the rearview mirror as he drove, feeling grateful that he had chosen the gray suit that morning and not the brown one, which tended to sag a little in the knees. From time to time he glanced through the mirror at Mrs. Das. In addition to glancing at her face he glanced at the strawberry between her breasts, and the golden brown hollow in her throat. He decided to tell Mrs. Das about another patient, and another: the young woman who had complained of a sensation of raindrops in her spine, the gentleman whose birthmark had begun to sprout hairs. Mrs. Das listened attentively, stroking her hair with a small plastic brush that resembled an oval bed of nails, asking more questions, for yet another example. The children were quiet, intent on spotting more monkeys in the trees, and Mr. Das was absorbed by his tour book, so it seemed like a private conversation between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das. In this manner the next half hour passed, and when they stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant that sold fritters and omelette sandwiches, usually something Mr. Kapasi looked forward to on his tours so that he could sit in peace and enjoy some hot tea, he was disappointed. As the Das family settled together under a magenta umbrella fringed with white and orange tassels, and placed their orders with one of the waiters who marched about in tricornered caps, Mr. Kapasi reluctantly headed toward a neighboring table.
Mr. Kapasi, wait. Theres room here, Mrs. Das called out. She gathered Tina onto her lap, insisting that he accompany them. And so, together, they had bottled mango juice and sandwiches and plates of onions and potatoes deep-fried in graham-flour batter. After finishing two omelette sandwiches Mr. Das took more pictures of the group as they ate.
How much longer? he asked Mr. Kapasi as he paused to load a new roll of film in the camera.
About half an hour more.
By now the children had gotten up from the table to look at more monkeys perched in a nearby tree, so there was a considerable space between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Das placed the camera to his face and squeezed one eye shut, his tongue exposed at one corner of his mouth. This looks funny. Mina, you need to lean in closer to Mr. Kapasi.
She did. He could smell a scent on her skin, like a mixture of whiskey and rosewater. He worried suddenly that she could smell his
suddenly that she could smell his perspiration, which he knew had collected beneath the synthetic material of his shirt. He polished off his mango juice in one gulp and smoothed his silver hair with his hands. A bit of the juice dripped onto his chin. He wondered if Mrs. Das had noticed.
She had not. Whats your address, Mr. Kapasi? she inquired, fishing for something inside her straw bag.
You would like my address?
So we can send you copies, she said. Of the pictures. She handed him a scrap of paper which she had hastily ripped from a page of her film magazine. The blank portion was limited, for the narrow strip was crowded by lines of text and a tiny picture of a hero and heroine embracing under a eucalyptus tree.
The paper curled as Mr. Kapasi wrote his address in clear, careful letters. She would write to him, asking about his days interpreting at the doctors office, and he would respond eloquently, choosing only the most entertaining anecdotes, ones that would make her laugh out loud as she read them in her house in New Jersey. In time she would reveal the disappointment of her marriage, and he his. In this way their friendship would grow, and flourish. He would possess a picture of the two of them, eating fried onions under a magenta umbrella, which he would keep, he decided, safely tucked between the pages of his Russian grammar. As his mind raced, Mr. Kapasi experienced a mild and pleasant shock. It was similar to a feeling he used to experience long ago when, after months of translating with the aid of a dictionary, he would finally read a passage from a French novel, or an Italian sonnet, and understand the words, one after another, unencumbered by his own efforts. In those moments Mr. Kapasi used to believe that all was right with the world, that all struggles were rewarded, that all of lifes mistakes made sense in the end. The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das now filled him with the same belief.
When he finished writing his address Mr. Kapasi handed her the paper, but as soon as he did so he worried that he had either misspelled his name, or accidentally reversed the numbers of his postal code. He dreaded the possibility of a lost letter, the photograph never reaching him, hovering somewhere in Orissa, close but ultimately unattainable. He thought of asking for the slip of paper again, just to make sure he had written his address accurately, but Mrs. Das had already dropped it into the jumble of her bag.
_________
They reached Konarak at two-thirty. The temple, made of sandstone, was a massive pyramid-like structure in the shape of a chariot. It was dedicated to the great master of life, the sun, which struck three sides of the edifice as it made its journey each day across the sky. Twenty-four giant wheels were carved on the north and south sides of the plinth. The whole thing was drawn by a team of seven horses, speeding as if through the heavens. As they approached, Mr. Kapasi explained that the temple had been built between A.D. 1243 and 1255, with the efforts of twelve hundred artisans, by the great ruler of the Ganga dynasty, King Narasimhadeva the First, to
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