The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri- A Book Review.

The Namesake by Pulitzer Price winner Jhumpa Lahiri is one of a kind story. The story revolves around a bengali immigrant couple - Ashok Ganguly and Ashima Ganguly living in the US.

Ashok and Ashima got married in Kolkata, their native place in an arranged marriage setup and get settled in US as Ashoke was working there as a trained engineer.

Life was pretty tough for Ashima as she was finding it difficult to adjust in a place full of strangers, which shows the struggle face by those immigrant families who have to leave their native land and relatives behind due to work or some other purposes. But they eventually manage to blend in. In a couple of years , the couple was blessed with a baby boy whom Ashok named Gogol in the memory of an author whose book he was reading when he got severely injured in a train accident. But he believed that the book saved him.

Gigolo was the main character of the book. And the story revolves around his struggles, his aversion towards his name and the identity crisis with which he had to deal with.

Good was later blessed with a younger sister whose name was Sonya. And they got along pretty well with each other.

Both the sibling got accustomed to the American lifestyle and found it pretty difficult to blend in whenever they visited India with their parents and their partners felt vice versa.

Jhumpa Lahiri has beautifully articulated the life of immigrants with the help of this family. The helplessness and loneliness which they suffer has been exquisitely portrayed with the help of the Ganguly family. The amount of sheer will which sustain the immigrants in those foreign lands is immensely commendable. And all these elements make this book a must read.

Happy reading.