'The Treatment of Bibi Haldar' by Jhumpa Lahiri

 

About the author :

Jhumpa Lahiri was born 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received an M.A. in English, M.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Her debut collection, ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was translated into twenty-nine languages and became a bestseller both in the United States and abroad. In addition to the Pulitzer, it received the Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Lahiri was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002.

‘The Namesake’, published in September 2003, is Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel. Her second collection, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ was published in 2008 and became an immediate New York Times bestseller.

'The Treatment of Bibi Haldar' :

Bibi Haldar, an Indian woman who is 29 years old, has suffered for the greater part of her life from a mysterious, epilepsy-like ailment that no doctor or priest has been able to alleviate or cure. She is given petty employment by her cousin Haldar, who runs a cosmetics shop. In return for her services, she receives food, provisions, a sleeping space, and fabric for clothing.

Finally, according to the diagnosis of some palmists, it is decided that Bibi Haldar needs a man. This diagnosis unleashes a slew of energetic cosmetic and sartorial preparations on Bibi's part: "To get her to quiet down, Haldar placed a one-line advertisement in the town newspaper." The ad, however, produces no results.

That November, Haldar's wife was pregnant. She delivers a baby girl the following June. The Haldars carefully insulate their child from any contact with Bibi, who they are convinced has been possessed by the devil. When the Haldar baby falls ill with a fever, Haldar's wife denounces Bibi as a witch who has infected the baby.

Then a curious turn of events occurs. The neighbours, upset at the Haldars' treatment of Bibi, drive the family out of business. They donate objects for Bibi's welfare. After some months, during which Bibi remains isolated, the neighbours discover that she is four months pregnant. She delivers a son. The father is never identified. As for Bibi, she is now considered cured.

Thank You…