namesake by jhumpa lahiri

1st march 2007

finally finished the namesake by jhumpa lahiri.

i had read the interpreter of maladies a couple of years ago and even though i never had a problem grasping and reading for hours, her 9 short stories made me smile, each story being as good as the other.

she is translucent and conveys her stories with an amazing ease despite the substance of those stories hovering only around relationships and a sense of belonging. the roots of the characters are mainly indian whether they are based in america or india. she ends all those stories in a very strange way making us unsure of what will happen to the characters finally.

in the namesake, she sticks to the indian roots...maybe bringing her life in more than she did with her earlier books. this being her first novel, she had combined the indian and american lives superbly. she deals with complexities with ease just as she did with her earlier books. here she explores the subject of identity crisis, cultural clashes, and relationships.

she is also avidly descriptive which makes one wonder how well observed she must have been.

the namesake is about an american boy born of indian parents who emigrated to the US after their arranged marriage.

bengalis have pet names, and this boy's parents name him gogol after a famous russian writer of ukrainian origin called nikolai vasilievich gogol. bothered by a weird name like gogol he changes it as an adult.

this book must be very close to jhumpa's heart, since she too was born nilanjan sudeshna but later used her pet name jhumpa. being based in nyc and born in london while being brought up in america, i can understand why she chose to write this novel. she is also married to alberto vourvoulias-bush, exec director of impremedia, the largest latino newspaper for the hispanic market in america. born in mexico and raised in guatemala, with a father of greek descent, goodness! how much more of a great mix could one be linked with? they presently live in brooklyn with two children.

the book is basically about gogol who rebels against anything indian and is faced to deal with his dual heritage and eventually is drawn back to his roots.

in the film gogol is kal penn (kalpen modi) who is kumar patel in the show harold n kumar. i was eager to know who would play moushumi, gogol's wife who cheats on him. she will be zuleikha robinson ( jessica in the merchant of venice), an english actress who was raised in thailand and malaysia and is of burmese, indian, iranian, scottish and english heritage. wow.

being a first generation bengali abroad (though not the US), i can relate to her book easily. the book is based on real stories of real characters living their lives exactly the same way as jhumpa describes them.

to me it was a lesson in some way. everything has a reason and things are as they are. however much you direct your course in life, it will go the way it is supposed to go. if that's fate then it is. if you dont believe in it and think you have a hand in fate, then yes perhaps you do but the `is'ness of things has never stopped amazing me...the way things are meant to be.

good literature. everyday realities. love and regret. families and relationships. finding oneself and appreciating life. great book and a must read, especially for bengalis.. :-) sorry i had to add that.