Based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake by Mira Nair is a movie about a Bengali immigrant family in New York; about the kids eagerness to mingle with the American people despite the strict traditional ways of the Indian parents.
Mira Nair takes the audience to the heat, dust and dirt of the Calcutta streets to the posh, clean and developed New York city. Ashok Ganguli (Irfan Khan), a cerebral engineer by profession got married to Ashima (Tabu) through arranged marriage (very typical of our Indian culture). He took her to New York, where Ashima had to encounter the life of a solitaire, a lonely life in the concrete city. Later, they somehow moved in to a place where there are more Indians.
Ashok and Ashima Ganguli has a son and a daughter but twist and turns happens when their son Gogol (Kal Penn) grows up to a teenager who grows-up midway between being an Indian and an American. He is not happy that his father has named him after a weird 19th century Russian author Nikolai Gogol who died a virgin.
Gogol graduated and goes on to work as an architect, he names himself Nick. He even dates a white - Maxine Ratliff (Jacinda Barrett) trying to cover up his background. But the death of his father causes Gogol to re-think over his name, himself and he eventually got engaged to an Indian fellow Bengali girl Moshumi (Zuleikha Robinson).
The movie reflects the dilemma faced by many Indians, American-Indians and Indians-acting-American-Call-Centre workers. It is indeed a complicated situation, we cannot adapt to the American Lifestyle and keep up with our own Indian one. We Indians seem to be somewhere in between - neither here nor there.
Ok, looking forward to the future; what will happen if India emerges as a superpower - a seat on the Security Council, clean drinking water, electricity all over India? Would we still be talking proud of our “NRI” uncle, aunties, cousins? Will we get used to drinking bottled water which is too sanitized for taste? Will our kids be talking and rambling just about Nintendo, XBOX and PSP Games or that of the 6 feet long bubble gum?
Well, looks like we’re all migrants at some level. As for the movie, The Namesake is a must-see movie.
Post a Comment