The Namesake
"The man who gave you his name,
from the man who gave you your name."
-The Namesake
- Jhumpa Lahiri
"The
Namesake" film is adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri's famous novel. "The
Namesake" is directed by Mira Nair, Indian-born director and with a
screenplay written by Sooni Taraporevala. Mira Nair has tried to show exact
scene which are described by Jhumpa Lahiri and at some higher level she has
achieved succeed.
Film and
novel both follow double generations of Bengal's Ganguli family immigrant to New-York from Culcutta in 1967.
It is the setting of 30 years.
Noticeable
points of film:-
Ø The film was nominated for Best Film
at the 2007 Gotham Awards and for best Feature Film Casting by Casting society
of America.
Ø Irrfan Khan was nominated for the
Best Supporting Male award at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Ø Mira Nair won the Golden Aphrodite
award at the 2006 Folly International Film festival in Bulgaria.
Chief
characters of the novel
|
Actors who
have played role in film
|
Kal Penn
|
Gogol
|
Ashima
|
Tabu
|
Ashoke Ganguli
|
Irrfan Khan
|
Sonia
|
Sahira Nair
|
Maushumi Mazumdaar
|
Zuleikha Robinson
|
The
narration's perspective changes throughout the novel. It is bound with the
third-person narrator, but the story is presented from the view of different
protagonist. while reading deeply the and watching carefully the film, we find
different kinds of similarity and variations. Let's have look it.
*
Similarities
1. Both
conveys sense of how people living. Shows difficulties of setting down in
different cultural background.
For Gogol,
Jhumpa Lahiri uses the sentence,
(ABCD-American Born Confused Desi)
Vast
difference between American culture and Indian culture,..."He prefers New
York, a place which his parents do not know well, whose beauty they are blind
to, which they fear."
2. It has
quest of Identity and home-sickness.
Ashima
received news from her husband that her brother Rana calls with the bad news
that her father has suffered a heart attack and died. Ashima is extremely upset
and they decided to go to culcutta six weeks earlier than they had planned for
the funeral.
eg, when Gogol is born, Ashima mourns the fact
that her close family does not surround him. It means that his birth,...
"like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half
true."
3.portration
of foreignness:-
"a
perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of
sorts...something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same
combination of pity and respect."
4.Quest
of Identity and Namesake:-
The
importance of name and identity is clearly shown when Gogol changes his name
largely to Nikhil. His father finally gives in, saying,...."In America
anything is possible. Do as your wish."
5.Relationship
between parents and children:-
Gogol
considers what it took for his parents to live in the United States, so far
from their own parents, how he has always remained close to home; they bore it
"with a stamina he fears he does not possess himself". He does not think he can bear being so far away
from his mother for so long.
After the
death of Ashoke, Gogol remembers that...." Try to remember it
always..remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a
place where there was nowhere left to go."
6.Dissatisfaction:-
One or
another way, every character suffers from dissatisfaction and homesickness. The
characters' discontent is caused by the difference between their dreams and the
reality they live in. For Ashima, the primary source of unhappiness is
homesickness, as they constantly compare life in the United States to life back
in India. For Gogol, unhappiness stems from not fitting in, about the cultural
differences that set them apart from everybody else.
*Difference
1.Relationship between Ashoke and Ashima:
In movie, Gogol's parents Ahoke and Ashima's relation make
greater impact and have much bonding is shown by Mira Nair rather than the
Lahiri has described in the novel.
2.Loneliness and alienation
Novel starts with loneliness and alienation of Ashima's difficulties
in adjusting and the love with her husband. while this narration is just like
very moving in the film.
3.Gogol's physical relation with different kinds of girls:-
Ø Lahiri has narrated Gogol's relations
with other girls followed,... First with Kim, next to Ruth, Maxine, Bridget,
Maushumi Mazoondar. While in the film, we directly introduced with Maxine as
his first girlfriend.
Ø In novel, Kim is the first girl whom
he kissed first. while in the film, we can not find even character of Kim as
his first girl friend.
4.Relationship with her girlfriend's parents:-
Ø In film, we can not find close
bonding between his girl friend's parents and him, while in the novel, writer
has described greater closeness with his girl friend's parents and him, as he
regards his girl friend's parents as his own parents.
Ø At which point Gogol feels much
comfortable with his own parents and in his own house, is rather very less than
in novel as it has been shown in the film.
5.Character of Maushumi:-
Maushumi's character is more powerful in film rather than
novel.
6.Language Barrier:-
Language Barrier is the biggest reason of suffering for not
only Ashoke and Ashima, but also much terrific and unbearable for Gogol and
Sonia. In the film, Ashima's character shows deep language barrier than Ashoke
7.chance of entering in:-
With deep reading, reader gets chance to enter in and to thought about character and character's
condition. While at some level, the film has lack of it.
8.Diasporic concern
Indian-American author, Jhumpa Lahiri has described diasporic
Writing in very clear way and has given worth example of diasporic literature
or diasporic writing. Mira Nair has also shown diasporic concern.
To sum up, we can put here that...
"Novel has greater impact rather than movie."
