Instant Connection or Rebound?

            In the Chapter 8 of The Namesake, Lahiri introduces us to the characters Bridget and Moushumi. So far, Gogol has been in two previous relationships with Ruth and Maxine. Maxine and Gogol ended things because she did not understand why he excluded her from important family events and plans. “She felt jealous of his mother and sister, an accusation that struck Gogol as so absurd that he had no energy to argue anymore” (Lahiri 188). After they break up, he soon finds out, from her parents, that she is getting married to another man.

            Bridget is an attractive woman from New Orleans, who works for a small firm with her husband. The two of them have an affair. This affair lasts until “suddenly he imagines the house where Bridget’s husband lives alone, longing for her, with his unfaithful wife’s name on the mailbox, her lipstick beside his shaving things. Only then does he feel guilty” (Lahiri 191). This does not seem like something Gogol would do because it is disrespectful and immorally incorrect.

He keeps his “relationship” with Bridget a secret. His mother becomes progressively worried about him and even asks him if he is going to try to work things out with Maxine. His mother was to find his a suitable match, so she sees if he is willing to call Moushumi Mazoomdar, daughter of one of her friends from Massachusetts. Initially, Gogol has no intention of calling her, but after a while, he agrees to meet up with her at a bar for drinks.

They end up having a great time, and he evens asks her to join him for dinner. They seem to be getting along great, and “her frankness surprises him” (Lahiri 196). She admits that she moved back to New York from Paris because of a guy named Graham. They were engaged, but they broke off the marriage after he made rude remarks to her parents, ultimately leading up to a fight that caused them their future.

It is great that she is honest with him about her past and reason why she came back, but I don know how I feel about their relationship. They are both getting over a tough breakup, and I don’t know whether they actually like each other and are getting along, or if they are on the rebound. They seem to get along great and really enjoy each other’s company, but I am not convinced that they are both in a good place to start a healthy relationship. They are both dealing with the complications of their breakups, and there is a high possibility that one or the both of them are not completely over their previous relationship.

Gogol… Where Did You Go?

            Throughout the novel The Namesake, Gogol Ganguli changes many aspects of his life and experiences many dramatic transformations. “Plenty of people changed their names: actors, writers, revolutionaries, transvestites… One day in the summer of 1968, in the frantic weeks before moving away from his family, before his freshman year at Yale is about to begin, Gogol Ganguli does the same” (Lahiri 97). This is one important example of the changes that Gogol is making because in the beginning of the novel, Gogol did not want a new name and was extremely against people calling him anything but his actual name. In the beginning of the novel, “Gogol [didn’t] want a new name. He [didn’t] understand why he [had] to answer to anything else. He [was] afraid to be Nikhil, someone he [didn’t] know. Who [didn’t] know him” (Lahiri 57). As time goes on, we continue to see more and more changes, as he turns into a completely different person than originally expected.

            There are numerous crucial changes, and I wonder if it would have been better if he had grown up living a cultured and fully Bengali lifestyle with different and maybe more acceptable morals than the morals that he is developing. He is entirely changing the person that he used to be and turning into someone that I think his parents would be extremely ashamed of, not that he cares anymore. Because he basically has a new identity, it is easier for him to ignore any of his parents’ thoughts, and he continues to progressively leave his old identity in the past. “Now that he’s Nikhil it’s easier to ignore his parents, to tune out their concerns and pleas” (Lahiri 105). He is progressively losing the relationship he has with his parents.

            In addition, he begins to take part in many reckless and questionable activities. He gets a fake ID, so he can go drinking and partying. Eventually his irresponsible and careless drinking causes him to lose his virginity to a random girl that he meets in a bar. When he wakes up in the morning, he is completely hung-over and unable to even remember her name.

            It is extremely difficult for me to read these passages because in the start of the novel, I intended and had hope that Gogol… I mean Nikhil… would become a respectable man, who has taken advantage of the opportunities that his family has worked hard and sacrificed a lot for. I hope that he will see the path that he is going down and try to change it before it is too late.

Outside

            So far, I have really enjoyed reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel focuses on an Indian couple, Ashima and Ashoke, who live in an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts in August 1968.

            The thing that has interested me most so far while reading this book is how Ashima acts and almost feels like she is an outsider. I am curious as to what her intentions were when she got married and decided to have a baby with Ashoke because she does not seem very excited and content with the life that she is going to have. Before she got married to Ashoke, she was working toward a college degree and tutoring the kids in her neighborhood. Now, her future is going to consist of being a mother, which makes me wonder if she gave up her education and independent future for her marriage? In the end, she admits that she “[doesn’t] want to raise Gogol alone in this county. It’s not right. [She wants] to go back.” (Lahiri 33). She is not happy with life in Cambridge, and she wants to return to India, so she can raise Gogol in the place were she is comfortable and happy.

            “Nothing feels normal to Ashima. For the past eighteen months, ever since she’s arrived in Cambridge, nothing has felt normal at all. It’s not so much the pain, which she knows, somehow, she will survive” (Lahiri 6). She is clearly disappointed and unhappy with her new life in Cambridge, but it has been eighteen months. Why has she not said something to try to change and improve the way she feels, and why did she move in the first place if she was already happy in India?

            Another thing that could make her uncomfortable is the many differences between America and India that occur throughout the beginning of the novel. Based on her actions, I think that there is a part of her that is still dramatically attached to India. We see the part of her that will not let her stray from her culture and that causes her to constantly think about India. “She calculates the Indian time on her hands. The tip of her thumb strikes each run of the brown ladders etched onto the backs of her fingers, then stops at the middle of the things: it is nine and a half hours ahead in Calcutta, already evening, half past eight” (Lahiri 4). This quotation is an example of how she is constantly thinking about India, and how she may be having an extremely difficult time letting go of her old life and traditions. Counting and keeping track of the time in India may be one of the ways that she keeps India close to her heart, regardless of where she is.