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The Namesake

The first few minutes of the movie reminded me of my own initial days of apprehension in a strange new country. When Tabu (Aashima) was trying to fit into Irfan Khan's (Ashok Ganguly) shoes I was trying to fit into hers. Only, I wasn't born a Bengali let alone draped in those beautiful Kolkatta saris that Tabu wore.The highlight of the movie is Mira Nair's subtlety in portraying the emotions, the acting experience of Tabu and Irfan that overshadows that of the protogonist Kal Penn (Gogol / Nikhil Ganguly).The only other actor worth mentioning her performance was by Zuleikha Robinson (the one who played Gogol's wife, the very western and of Indian origin Moushmi). Sahira Nair as Sonia Ganguly (Gogol's sister) is ok.

I haven't understood anything of Jhumpa Lahiri's literary style till date but am reasonably exposed to her credentials. However, since I haven't read the book in this case I cannot judge the movie vis a vis its book What I do like about the story is that it revolves around the Russian author, Nikolai Gogol's book "The Overcoat". For me it translates as a delightful introduction to a literary piece!

To give Mira her credit this movie has a very nice build up, somewhat pales with the exit of Irfan and fades away into a mainstream cinema in the end. It's sad to draw parallels to 'American Desi' (a cute but average flick) but all in all this is movie too is about ABCDs (American Born Confused Desis). The Columbia University professor slipped somewhere while making this one!

The outcome of this movie? Well I 'googled' a lot about Nikolai Gogol and his 'The Overcoat", Mira Nair, Jhumpa and Kal Penn. So much for updating my movie aptitude. And....thus chugs my little train of thought like the way Gogol Ganguly travels to India.

Other takeaways: The paintings shown (Aashima's father is a painter), portrayal of Irfan's gentleness as a patriarch, Tabu's bengali/Indian accented English, Gogol (Kal Penn)'s remorse shown during his father's death, Taj Mahal.


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