The Namesake

This post is slightly on the serious side. Last nite I watched ‘The Namesake’ (yeah finally!) and must say I loved the movie, not because of the stellar performances by all the actors, but because how close that movie is to my own life. Don’t worry unlike posts seen in many other blogs, I am not gonna write a review of the movie.


Watching the movie I felt that the lead characters Ashoke and Ashima were a reflection my dad and mum. Dad like Ashoke wanted us to stay outside Kerala cause a metro city was the ‘land of opportunities’(for further reference please refer to the post ‘Leema I got transferred’) and mum like Ashima still has the distinct accented English. What is strikingly similar is the relationship they both share, the downplayed romance, the concern over their ‘slightly’ indifferent children. I was reminded of my folks in the scene where Ashoke explains to Ashima that just because other husbands don’t build the Taj for their wives they don’t love them any less, where Ashoke calls Ashima to be with him in Cleaveland and when Ashima asks her husband ‘u want me to say I love u like the americans’ and the way she does not say it.


Similarities don’t end there. There are shades of Gogol in me coz I too have issues with my name. I always complain to my folks that in an effort to match my name with my sister’s, they have given me a lousy name. Why did they have to give me 3 names, y give me a name does not mean anything, y put my ‘good’ name, pet name and dad’s name in the school register, the names are three small names which they sounds ridiculous when taken together, y cant I make my dad’s name an initial and take my granddad’s name and…on and on and on. But in the scenes where his father says that Gogol can change his name and when it hurts him when Gogol’s wife says that she intends to retain her maiden name, I realized how much I hurt my folks wid my ‘name changing’ tantrums.


Sorry dad and mum coz I hurt you with alternatives for my name..after all whats in a name.. a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and there is no more room for granddad’s name in my name- Dad this is for your 'namesake'....