The Namesake by Jhuma Lahiri
The Namesake focuses on first-generation Indian immigrants and
the issues they and their children face in the United States. The Namesake follows
the Ganguli family over the course of thirty years.
The Indian couple, Ashoke and Ashima, name their
son Gogol, after the Russian author whose work Ashoke was reading just before
he survived a terrible train accident years before. But Gogol rejects his
strange-sounding name as a teenager and when he goes to college, he begins to
permanently use his "public" name, Nikhil.
Beginning
of the novel is striking ........ Ashima living in Kolkata, doing job of
teacher. Then their engagement with Ashok etc. is beautiful description to
read.
Ashok
and Ashima, after living so many years in America, loves, remembers and
occasionally also visit India. Whereas their children don’t think and feel so.
Because their upbringing was in totally different environment. The way parents
looks towards India and Motherland is totally different than their children's
way of looking.
Because
of failure of arriving letter of granny suggesting the name of the child, Ashok
registers his name Gogol. when child grew up he dislikes his name. This angst
and alienation is beautifully presented in the novel. The clash between Indian
culture, morality and American freedom is also visible in the novel.
The year is
1968, and Ashima Ganguli, a Bengali
woman who has recently moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her new husband,
is about to give birth. Her husband, Ashoke, accompanies her to the hospital in
a taxi. In the waiting room of the hospital, Ashoke remembers how in 1961, as
he was taking the train from Calcutta to Jamshedpur to visit his grandfather
and collect the books he was to inherit from him, there was an accident and he
had nearly died. On the train, he had been reading a collection of short
stories by Nikolai Gogol, a Russian author, when the locomotive engine and
seven bogies derailed, causing Ashoke's car to be flung into a nearby field.
Rescue workers found Ashoke because of the book page he clutched in his hand.
Their baby boy
is born in the morning. Ashima and Ashoke want to wait to name him until a
letter arrives from Ashima's grandmother with two name options: one for a boy and one for a
girl. It is the Bengali tradition to have a respected elder choose the name of
a child. However, it is time to leave the hospital and the letter has not
arrived, so they decide to make up a pet name that will be used until they can
officially name their baby based on his grandmother's wishes. Ashoke chooses
Gogol, the name of the author whose stories he was reading when the train
crashed years before. Ashima and Ashoke hold a rice ceremony for Gogol when he
is six months old. Six months later, the Gangulis are planning a visit to India.
Ashima's brother Rana calls with the bad news that her father has
suffered a heart attack and died. Ashima is extremely upset and they decide to
go to Calcutta six weeks earlier than they had planned for the funeral.
By 1971, the
Gangulis have moved from Harvard Square to a university town outside Boston.
After two years in university-subsidized housing, Ashima and Ashoke decide to
buy a home. The new house is on Pemberton Road, and there are no Bengali
neighbors. On the first day of Gogol's kindergarten, his parents tell the
principal, Mrs. Lapidus, that she
should call Gogol by his formal name, "Nikhil." But she overhears
them referring to him as "Gogol" and asks him what he would like to
be called. When he answers "Gogol," it sticks. Ashima gives birth to
Gogol's little sister, Sonia, in May. In the next years, Ashoke finds out about
the deaths of both his parents and Ashima finds out about the death of her
mother. They learn about these deaths by phone call.
On Gogol's
fourteenth birthday, his father comes into his room and gives him his birthday
present: The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. Gogol is more interested in
listening to the Beatles than looking at the book, and he is unable to
appreciate it. Ashoke begins to tell Gogol about the train accident that made
him appreciate the author Gogol so much, but stops because he realizes Gogol
cannot yet understand. Gogol stashes the book away when his father leaves. The
next year, the Gangulis decide to go to Calcutta for eight months while Ashoke
is up for sabbatical at the university. Gogol begins his junior year of high
school in the fall, taking English with Mr. Lawson. Mr. Lawson
knows about the Russian author Gogol and assigns the class to read one of his
short stories, "The Overcoat."
The summer before he leaves for college at Yale,
Gogol goes to probate court and legally changes his name to Nikhil. Gogol goes
to Yale and introduces himself as Nikhil; however, it takes a while before he
really feels like Nikhil. He begins to date a girl named Ruth, but they grow
apart while she is studying abroad at Oxford. The next Thanksgiving, Ashoke
tells Gogol about the origin of his name; about the train accident in which he was
almost killed. Gogol asks him if he reminds him of that night that he almost
died, and his father says no; he reminds him of "everything that
followed."
By 1994, Gogol
is living in a tiny apartment in New York working as an architect. He begins to
date a woman named Maxine Ratliff. Her parents,
Lydia and Gerald, are incredibly wealthy, and they interact in a casual but
intelligent way that is totally opposite the behavior of Gogol's own parents.
He begins spending most of his time at their home rather than at his own
apartment, and he feels effortlessly incorporated into their lives. Eventually,
he basically moves into their home with them. Ashima calls to ask him to visit
them to see his father off before he leaves to spend nine months at a
university outside Cleveland, but the most Gogol will do is stop in for lunch
with Maxine on their way to her parents' lake house in New Hampshire.
While Ashima is addressing Christmas cards one
quiet day, Ashoke calls at 3 pm and tells her he is at the hospital. His
stomach has been bothering him all day, so he has driven himself to the
hospital to get it checked out. After two hours, she has not heard from Ashoke
and so she calls the hospital. An intern tells her that Ashoke has
"expired." He has died from a massive heart attack. Gogol flies to
Ohio to identify his father's body and clean out his apartment. The next
morning, he flies home to Boston to be with his mother and Sonia. At the house
on Pemberton Road, many people come by to sit with them in mourning. Sonia
decides to live there with her mother for a while.
A year after Ashoke's death, Gogol has broken up
with Maxine. Ashima encourages him to call Moushumi Mazoomdar, the daughter of
family friends whom Gogol has grown up around at family parties. She tells him
that she moved to Paris to study French literature, and then moved to New York
to follow her ex-fiancé, an American named Graham. After the fight that ended
their engagement, Moushumi had taken the rest of the semester off from NYU and
mourned, finally returning to school in the fall. It was then that she had met
Gogol. Gogol and she begin to date seriously.
Within a year of dating, Gogol and Moushumi get married
in New Jersey in a ceremony that is almost entirely planned and managed by
their parents. They move into an apartment together and get used to married
life. They go to Paris in March together; Moushumi is presenting a paper at a
conference, so Gogol accompanies her as a vacation. While there, he feels
lonely because Moushumi is so obviously at home in the city. Two days after
their first wedding anniversary, Moushumi comes across a resume at the
university from a man named Dimitri Desjardins whom she knows from her teenage
and college years. Moushumi begins having an affair with Dimitri on Mondays and
Wednesdays, after she teaches her class. Gogol knows nothing of his wife's
affair with Dimitri. He has the vague feeling that something is not right in his
marriage with Moushumi, but he can't put his finger on what.
A year later,
before Christmas of the year 2000, Ashima is preparing food for the party she
will throw that evening. She has decided to move out of the house on Pemberton
Road to spend six months at a time in Calcutta with her family and six months
in the United States with her children and friends. The reader learns from
Ashima's point of view that Sonia and Ben are going to be married in Calcutta in a little
over a year, and that Gogol and Moushumi decided to get a divorce. Gogol
arrives at the train station before Sonia and Ben are there to meet him. He
remembers the year before, how on the train ride from New York to the house at
Pemberton Road he had discovered Moushumi's affair with Dimitri. They had spent
the holiday at the house on Pemberton Road as planned, but she had left the day
after Christmas to go back to New York, and when Gogol returned to the
apartment days later, she had packed up and left for good. Now, arriving at the
train station a year later, he sees Sonia and Ben pulling up in his mother's
car to take him to the house one last time.
Party guests arrive and Gogol goes back to his old
bedroom and discovers the book his father had given him so many years ago on
his birthday: the collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol. At the time, he
had had no appreciation for it and hadn't even read a single story. Now, he
sees the inscription his father has written inside: "The man who gave you
his name, from the man who gave you your name." He takes his time, not
going downstairs with the camera just yet; he sits down and begins to read “The
Overcoat.”
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