Gunjan Jain Book Club discussion

The Namesake

With Jhumpa Lahiri being a Pulitzer Prize winner, one would fear that her books might be painfully tough and complex. However, that is not the case, especially not for The Namesake. It is an emotional ride, one that doesn’t let you off for at least a couple of days after the book is over.

The Namesake is the story of a Bengali couple, Ashima and Ashok Ganguly who move to the states. Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, who is named Gogol after Ashok’s favourite Russian writer. Along with the journeys of the other family members, the book also traces the life and growth of Gogol through his high school and college years. The circumstances of their lives are sharply recognizable to any Indian, even if they stay in India. The nosiness of the Bengali relatives and the strong cultural identity stimulate heady memories of rituals, traditions, and festivals.

We see Gogol’s constant discomfort of fitting in an American society with Indian parents, and we see this discomfort turn into rebellion. But the same stubborn rebellion is also witnessed in his parents, especially Ashima Ganguly, who refuses to let go of their Bengali heritage. This is one quality about the book that stands out for me. Gogol is not the only hero. Ashima, and Ashok Ganguly’s stories respectively, make the reader root for them just as much as they do for the “protagonist.”

For me, it is a story about the limitless nature of home and family. It needs no house, it needs no country, it needs nothing but the family itself, determined to stay together. And it also raises pertinent questions about the same. Can we really ever separate ourselves from our identities, and should we? Which is our true country, the one we are born in or the one we grow up in? Perhaps the book does not give definite answers, but as someone who has lived in both India and abroad, and is still constantly travelling back and forth from cities, it does make me think more deeply about belonging. The instances in Lahiri’s books are always gentle, moving, subtle, written seamlessly into the prose making them almost insignificant until you pay attention to them. You know a book is brilliant when it makes you laugh and cry without making you feel like cheated, like you’ve been put into a tried-and-tested plot. This book certainly does that. It made me feel, and the feeling was genuine. A wonderfully touching and haunting book, this one will certainly stay with me.