Cultural Convergence in The Namesake

While reading the first two chapters of The Namesake, I became fascinated with the different facets and intricacies of Indian culture and how the fictional Ganguli family tries to assimilate with American culture after emigrating from Calcutta. As Ashoke works toward his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ashima explicitly feels uncomfortable in America yet she also appreciates some of its cultural elements and the Indian and American cultures occasionally converge. 

In the very beginning of the novel, Ashima concocts an eclectic mixture of Rice Krispies, Planters peanuts, red onion, and spices to satisfy a craving for a snack sold all over Calcutta, and when she tastes her concoction, “she frowns; as usual, there’s something missing” (1). Her disappointment in the snack she makes to emulate Indian food reveals her longing to return to India, and feeling like her life in America lacks validity and wholeness becomes a major theme throughout the first few chapters. After giving birth to Gogol, Ashima thinks that, “without a single grandparent or parent or uncle or aunt at her side, the baby’s birth, like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true” (25). From this belief Ashima clearly feels uncomfortable and unfulfilled in her existence in the United States. 

Next, when Ashima writes letters to her family in India, “she writes… of the powerful cooking gas that flares up at any time of day or night from four burners on the stove, and the hot tap water fierce enough to scald her skin, and the cold water safe enough to drink” (30). From her letters, she clearly appreciates some elements of American culture such as all the accessible resources in American homes. When the Ganguli family celebrates Gogol’s rice ceremony, Gogol eats payesh, “a warm rice pudding Ashima will prepare for him to eat on each of his birthdays as a child, as an adult even, alongside a slice of bakery cake” (39). In this description of how Gogol will grow up, the combination of the Indian custom of rice pudding and the American custom of birthday cake represents the coming together of the Indian and American cultures.

I’m interested to read about how Gogol will mix and exude both his Indian and American backgrounds. From what I can tell so far, The Namesake accurately describes the classic story of immigration and cultural assimilation over time.