How to Uphold Tradition: The Namesake

Ooookkkayyy time for another boring school mandated book. Psych! The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is actually not that bad. However, I have only read the first two chapters. But so far so good.

Here's a summary:
1. An Indian woman, called Ashima, is pregnant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2. She really misses India, more specifically, Calcutta and her Family.
3. She gives birth to a baby boy.
4. The grandmother is supposed to send names for the boy, as per tradition.
5. Ashoke, the arranged husband of Ashima, is really enamored with reading. His favorite story is "The Overcoat" By Nikolai Gogol. *Sidenote: He almost died on a train while reading that story.
6. The hospital that the boy was born at requests a name for the birth certificate, however the letter from the grandmother has not arrived yet. So, the boy gets named "Gogol", after his Dad's favorite story. The couple is planning on changing the boy' name once grandmom's letter arrives because Gogol is not a fit traditional Indian name.
7. Asima really longs to go back to India. She send letters to her family in India. They send some back.
8. Ashima raises the baby with little help of Ashoke who is studying 24/7 at a university in Cambridge.
9. The couple has planned a trip back to India to visit in December.
10. Meanwhile, Gogol's (it's a placeholder name - the letter from grandmom has not arrived yet...) rice ceremony, a traditional celebration that marks the first time the baby will eat solid food, has taken place.
11. Gogol grows up (He is around the age of 1).
12. Ashima get's letters from India saying that Grandmother is really sick.
13. Unexpectedly, the couple receives a telephone call from relatives in India. They learn that Grandmom has a stroke.
14. They change their plans and go to India earlier than expected.

The happy family!

From these two chapters, I have learned about the struggle of upholding tradition in a foreign place.

Ashima really really really really (etc.) wants to be back in India. When in the hospital, she constantly thinks about India. She thinks about her "mother, very soon to be grandmother,"(5) and the rest of her family longing to be with them. In Cambridge, where she is now, "nothing feels normal."(5).
Ashima struggles get a connection to India from America. All she wants is for her son to grow up around his family in India. In an effort to console herself, she writes a multitude of letters back to her family in India.

One of the biggest problems that Ashima struggles with is the authenticity of Indian tradition in America. Even though she does have a Rice ceremony for her son, it is not preformed with the same genuineness as if it would have been held in India. Ashima remarks that the bowls that contain the ceremonial rice is held is not "silver or brass or at the very least stainless-steel" (39) which they would have been if the ceremony was held in India.

It is on everyone's mind, the baby's name. Who in their right mind would name a son after a Russian author?? Well I guess, someone who is really obsessed, someone like the baby's father. Upon picking the name, Ashima said nothing, but only to respect her husband. However, she longs for her grandmother's letter so she can replace "Gogol". I am pretty sure that the name chosen will haunt Ashima for the rest of her life. It is so out of tradition that she cannot bare it. When her grandmother has a stroke and cannot chose a name for Gogol, the name becomes his, and tradition is lost. A pity, really! The name that her grandmother would have picked would be something that would connect her son to their culture and something that she would use to remember her family in India while she lived in America.

I read on to know what happens with Gogol and his namesake.