The Namesake

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."