The Namesake — Nishta Mehra

This Movie Changed Me

On Being Studios

Tv & Film, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.6 • 589 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2019

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Namesake, an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, is a moving exploration of the immigrant experience told through the story of the Ganguli family. The parents, Ashoke and Ashima, marry in India and emigrate to New York state, where they raise their two children, Gogol and Sonia. In tracing the lives of two generations of a family, the movie examines not just the opportunity and promise gained from immigrating to a new country, but also all that is lost from one generation to the next. The wholeness of this depiction offered solace to writer Nishta Mehra after her father’s death. For her, the movie mirrored back the parts of her parents’ lives she did not understand as a young person.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, fellow movie fans. I'm Lily Percy and I'll be your guide this week as I talk with Nishtamara about the movie that changed her life, The Namesake.
0:08.7	It's a tearjerker, but don't worry, we're going to be here for you every step of the way.
0:29.4	Thank you. There are some movies that teach us something new every time we watch them,
0:31.9	and the namesake is that movie for me.
0:36.6	The first time I saw it, I was blown away by the raw tenderness of the movie,
0:38.8	the way that this story of an immigrant family from India is told with such beauty and grace.
0:44.7	And at the time when I saw it, I was in my early 20s, and so I was particularly drawn to
0:49.7	the character of the teenager, of Gogol, played by Cal Penn, because it most closely mirrored my own
0:55.4	experience as a young person judging every part of my parents' experience in this new country.
1:02.1	But now when I watch it, I look with such compassion at the parents at the center of this story
1:08.0	and see that this story is actually about them.
1:18.6	You know, he's willing to go on vacation with someone else's parents, but not to see his own. Forget it, this is America. As soon as the kids turned 16, they're gone.
1:24.6	I lost the company of my parents when I first came to this country.
1:33.0	Now I feel I'm losing my family all over again.
1:39.5	The namesake tells the story of Ashok and Ashik, this couple from India who were married in an arranged marriage,
1:46.0	and they moved to New York to start a new life together.
1:49.0	They raised two children in the U.S., and they give their firstborn the nickname Gogo, after the Russian writer that Ashok loves.
1:56.0	And Ashok and Ashoka have to make sense of how to relate to their children in this new world. Gougul, are you there? Yeah, yeah, I'm here. I'm here. I want you to come home next Saturday. Then you can come with us to the airport the next day. Papa is going to teach in Ohio for six months. You remember or not? Yeah, I remember him, Mom, but what's the big deal? He's only going to Cleveland. Sonia's not coming home?
2:18.3	Sonia lives in California, Gubord.
2:22.3	Mom, I can't come home that weekend.
2:25.3	I'm going on a vacation with my girlfriend. Her parents have a place in Oyster Bay.
2:29.3	Mom. Mom.
	...

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