By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

Jhumpa Lahiri is deliriously good! I'm in love with her short stories. The whiff of irony that hovers in her stories is exactly what I'd look for in a short story per se.

I've devoured Interpreter of Maladies, and a couple of other stories (1)(2).
Personal favorites:
#1: Hell-Heaven
#2: A Temporary Matter
#3: Interpreter of Maladies

The brilliant comparison between life in India and that in Uncle Sam's country is what marks most of her stories. I remember a paragraph from one of her stories which I think best illustrates what I've seen and heard here in Bangalore:

I began keeping other secrets from her(my mother), evading her with the aid of my friends. I told her I was sleeping over at a friend’s when really I went to parties, drinking beer and allowing boys to kiss me and fondle my breasts and press their erections against my hip as we lay groping on a sofa or the back seat of a car. I began to pity my mother; the older I got, the more I saw what a desolate life she led. She had never worked, and during the day she watched soap operas to pass the time. Her only job, every day, was to clean and cook for my father and me.