The Namesake: On Identity and Predetermination

Inji sent me Gogol’s ‘the Overcoat’ with the line ‘we all came out of Gogol’s overcoat’.
So I did two things: I read the novel and watched ‘The Namesake’ (which someone was kind enough to split and upload on YouTube; I downloaded it with the new Real Player which can record streaming video. Shhh...).
I wanted to write a post on The Namesake since I saw it in June (on board of a plane)... but never got the chance, so here it goes.

The story in a nutshell: the life of the Ganguli family that left Calcutta to Cambridge, Massachusetts (NYC in the film, I believe), and particularly Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli, US-born Bengali with multiple identities, homes, allegiances... those who know me well know how important - and complex - this question is to me.

Grrrrrrreat film, btw, though I hear it’s not as good as Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel. (note to self: buy the book!) (an excellent interview with Lahiri is here)

The multiplicity of Gogol’s identity - reflected in his name which really doesn’t fit in either of his cultures - is really the centre of the story. At first Gogol is content with one identity - the without the other, then takes his Indian identity in rather violently, with the death of his father and the ensuing ceremonies. Gogol shaves his head in mourning, as his father did when his own father died. He shuts away his nice but clueless WASP girlfriend who wants to go with him to scatter the ashes in the Ganges, declaring that 'it’s a family thing'.


This line I took in full strength I think. As TCKs (‘third culture kids’) as we believe or pretend to be, is it predetermined? Does our genetic material decide which side we’re on and, more importantly, who can be our side, whether we like it or not? Who is family, who is not, against our own wishes?

Will I not have a choice?
Is it predetermined?
Am I not able to leave behind someone else’s past - if I wanted to?

Will I shave my head when my father dies? Will I, too, ‘marry a Bengali’ (as Gogol was so often advised) because it’s somewhat inevitable? (well, an Egyptian in my case :)

Is my name, my colour, my father’s homeland stronger than my birth, my own identity, my free will?

As his mother leaves - and after his separates from his cheating wife - Gogol tells his mother that ‘Everybody’s leaving, I should be devastated (…) but for the first time in my life, I actually feel free’... Why? Is he free from his origins’ obligation?

Is he free to choose ‘home’, at last?

The film ends as Gogol goes on, as his father advised him to, to ‘see the world - you will never regret it’, reading Nikolai Gogol on a train to somewhere.

To find himself a new home, perhaps.

(is this like an immigrant required photo? To pose with the newborn in a very silly & very urban setting? I have a photo just like this...)