Whats in a Name

Jhumpa Lahiris novel, The Namesake deals with the intense story
of a Bengali family drawn and quartered by a diaporic crisis of
indentity.
Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, migrant Indians in America gave birth
to two American children Nikhil Gogol Ganguli and Sonia
Ganguli.
Shakespeare might have said Whats in Name but its valid only
for the rose because in contemporary life names are the first
markers of identity.
The Namesake discusses the issues of identity of motherland and
fatherland, culture, values associated with the culture, the
globalisation of names and so on.
Ashoke names their first child Gogol after Nikolai Gogol a Russian

GOGOL
As a child Nikhil prefers the name Gogol, perhaps because of the
phonetics but as he grows up he becomes acutely aware the
strange associations with the name.
Mr Lawson, the teacher, introduces Nikolai Gogol as, not an
ordinary guy
celebrated today as on of Russias most brilliant writers but
during his life was understood by no one.
an eccentric genius an intelligent, queer and sickly creature

An Gogol feels betrayed as if he had been exposed and the

detailed description of the writers successful attempt at suicide
through starvation and the doctors unsuccessful attempt to save
him produces a placebo effect in hi namesake, Nikhil Gogol,
someone whose only link with the author was the name.
He changes his name to Nikhil, the short of which, Nick, carries
American essence.
The name Nikhil Gogol Ganguli, therefore, becomes the
assimilation of three identities and three values and the person
becomes the bone of contention for these identities.

 The protagonist adopts the name Nick when he has reached of

age, according to the American culture, and its time for him to be
independent.
He shrugs off his Indian identity, the Indian values and way of life,
conferred to him by his Indian parents, and adopts the elite,
uptown, American values, culture and lifestyle introduced by Max
and her parents and represented by his nickname, Nick.
He wonders at the way the name Nikhil suddenly transformed
him from a shy, introvert Gogol. He confesses that the Nikhil
who kissed the girl, Kim was not Gogol, but Nikhil.
His return to his paternal traditions is paralleled by his
acceptance of the name his father gave him.
He leaves Max and abandons the American way of life that he
had associated himself with. It is interesting to note that the next
girl he finds interesting is bengali, shares her roots with him, but
definitely not the way of life.
While Maxine was poles apart from the Indian culture, Gogol finds

Sonia Ganguli

Gogols younger sibling reflects the perfect amalgamation of Indian

and American culture.
She is also the product of Ashoke and Ashimas experiences with
American parenting.
She gets a conventional name, American in its spirit because there
are no association drawn to it this being the only association.
Ms Lahiri doesnt point out a single glitch in her life, except when she
is in India.
While Ashima and Ashoke are migrants and Gogol is truly diasporic,
Sonia is more Americanized and has also synthesized the two
culture. She drops everything to be with her mother. She finds a
stable marital relationship.
Her name sets her free. While the identity crisis is internal to the rest
of her family it is external to her and she deals with it more

Moushumi
Born and brought up in Britain, Moushumi, suffers from the same kind
but a different shade of identity crisis as Gogol.
She has assumed the conservative attitude of British, the taste in
hats and in French a third language a third culture(214). Her
despise of Bengali and her despise of American Television shows.
Though shed deliberately deserved to not be the Bengali girl her
parents wanted her to be and resolved to not marry or even get
romantically involved with a bengali. She couldnt bear her fiance,
Graham to be verbally critical of the bengali culture, her parents and
her family.
The occidental Moushumi could revolt against her oriental origins but
couldnt tolerate a revulsion of the same by an outsider. Though she
loved Graham, the identity of an estranged culture exerted more
influence on her than the relationship.

 Both Gogol and Moushumi have a love-hate relationship with their

culture, that they are, probably tired of trying to escape,
"They had both sought comfort in each other, and in their shared
world, perhaps for the sake of novelty, or out of the fear that the
world is slowly dying."
but their experience are different.
Moushami has had a conflict-ful life but she had a consistent life
unlike Nikhil.
And Moushumi is not sensitive to Gogols issues (with his name).
She refuses to change her name and insists on being called Ms.
Majumdar.
The fear of changing her name is like the fear of getting further lost.
Losing everything she has acquired and all that that the name now
associates.

 While Ashimas merging her name with Ashoke can be seen as the
Indian cultural concept that a couple becomes entity after marriage
(of course the patriarchal hierarchy in such a merger is
questionable), Moushomi refusal of the same can be seen as the
American opposite of it even in a marriage the Individual retains
his/her self and remains important.

Amy Tans The Kitchen Gods Wife

Amy Tans The Kitchen Gods Wife is another explication of the
problems
of diaspora.
American
daughter
of
chinese
mother
Migrant
population is not mistreated, misrepresented or
introduced at 40
outcasted by the local population as much as they are by
Weili
themselves.
Sino-American

hulan The need to leave the land but carry forward its traditions. The
desire to escape the social conditions that created problems and
the desire to recreate the same social conditions in the land of
exile produce a schism in their identity.
While some critics refer to a state like this as the richness of
linguistic diversity others just point out their inefficacy in both.
The trend that we see in Jhumpa Lahiris The Namesake is not
unique to bengali migrants, it was actually common for all
migrants to the US.

 It became important to adopt American names when moving to

America not just because the indigenous name were hard to
pronounce.
The name marked the juncture to cultures one at its decline and the
other on its rise.
The migration can be voluntary (a progressive desire to find better
living) or involuntary(a desperate attempt to escape, as Winnies).
Weili moves to US and changes her name to Winnie, short, easier to
pronounce and American. Almost reborn and baptised. The beginning
of a better life for her.
Unlike Weili, Halum and the others who migrated with them and
adapted a new american name while retaining their old chinese ones,
the next generation is given only one name.
Weilis daughter is named Pearl, a name which isnt even homophonic
to a Chinese name. (Weili Winnie and Halum - Helen)
Its not just the nomenclature that changes. Pearl has no contact with

 She cannot relate to the customs that they follow and they look at it
with the same awe as the colonials did some 200 years ago.
Winnies existence is truly hyphenated in he memories of her mother,
her traditions and her life in America. Its hyphenated on first hand
experience.
Pearl on the other hand inherits her mothers memories but the
memories that hyphenate Winnie are never shared, until Pearl is
already 40.
When Winnie talks about her/their History, Pearl interrupts her by
stressing that its Chinese History while hers is american history
She has a mystic idea of China, based the mythic stories, the mah
jong games, the New Year celebration etc.

 Names are important because that is an Individuals first impression

on a person.
Jhumpa Lahiri speaking about her personal experience with her name
spoke
But when I was enrolled in school the teachers decided that
Jhumpa was the easiest of my names to pronounce and that was that.
To this day many of my relatives think that it's both odd and
inappropriate that I'm known as Jhumpa in an official, public context.
We see in Gogol a careful wakefulness whenever his name was
mentioned and a brief pause whenever someone asked his name.
He couldnt decide what name to tell and he couldnt decide what his
culture is.
The pause is the temporal conflict between not his names but his two
identities.