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Whats in a NameJhumpa Lahiris novel, The Namesake deals with the intense story of a Bengali family drawn and quartered by a diaporic crisis of indentity.Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, migrant Indians in America gave birth to two American children Nikhil Gogol Ganguli and Sonia Ganguli.Shakespeare might have said Whats in Name but its valid only for the rose because in contemporary life names are the first markers of identity.The Namesake discusses the issues of identity of motherland and fatherland, culture, values associated with the culture, the globalisation of names and so on.Ashoke names their first child Gogol after Nikolai Gogol a Russian author and philosopher.Nikolai Gogol suffered from isolation and introversion.

GOGOLAs a child Nikhil prefers the name Gogol, perhaps because of the phonetics but as he grows up he becomes acutely aware the strange associations with the name.

Mr Lawson, the teacher, introduces Nikolai Gogol as, not an ordinary guy celebrated today as on of Russias most brilliant writers but during his life was understood by no one.an eccentric genius an intelligent, queer and sickly creature

An Gogol feels betrayed as if he had been exposed and the detailed description of the writers successful attempt at suicide through starvation and the doctors unsuccessful attempt to save him produces a placebo effect in hi namesake, Nikhil Gogol, someone whose only link with the author was the name.

He changes his name to Nikhil, the short of which, Nick, carries American essence.

The name Nikhil Gogol Ganguli, therefore, becomes the assimilation of three identities and three values and the person becomes the bone of contention for these identities.

The protagonist adopts the name Nick when he has reached of age, according to the American culture, and its time for him to be independent.He shrugs off his Indian identity, the Indian values and way of life, conferred to him by his Indian parents, and adopts the elite, uptown, American values, culture and lifestyle introduced by Max and her parents and represented by his nickname, Nick.He wonders at the way the name Nikhil suddenly transformed him from a shy, introvert Gogol. He confesses that the Nikhil who kissed the girl, Kim was not Gogol, but Nikhil.His return to his paternal traditions is paralleled by his acceptance of the name his father gave him.He leaves Max and abandons the American way of life that he had associated himself with. It is interesting to note that the next girl he finds interesting is bengali, shares her roots with him, but definitely not the way of life.While Maxine was poles apart from the Indian culture, Gogol finds Maushomi an interesting mix of west and east, he shares the same diasporic schizophrenia and that is what attracts him.Sonia GanguliGogols younger sibling reflects the perfect amalgamation of Indian and American culture.She is also the product of Ashoke and Ashimas experiences with American parenting.She gets a conventional name, American in its spirit because there are no association drawn to it this being the only association.Ms Lahiri doesnt point out a single glitch in her life, except when she is in India.While Ashima and Ashoke are migrants and Gogol is truly diasporic, Sonia is more Americanized and has also synthesized the two culture. She drops everything to be with her mother. She finds a stable marital relationship.Her name sets her free. While the identity crisis is internal to the rest of her family it is external to her and she deals with it more objectively.

MoushumiBorn and brought up in Britain, Moushumi, suffers from the same kind but a different shade of identity crisis as Gogol.She has assumed the conservative attitude of British, the taste in hats and in French a third language a third culture(214). Her despise of Bengali and her despise of American Television shows.Though shed deliberately deserved to not be the Bengali girl her parents wanted her to be and resolved to not marry or even get romantically involved with a bengali. She couldnt bear her fiance, Graham to be verbally critical of the bengali culture, her parents and her family.The occidental Moushumi could revolt against her oriental origins but couldnt tolerate a revulsion of the same by an outsider. Though she loved Graham, the identity of an estranged culture exerted more influence on her than the relationship.

Both Gogol and Moushumi have a love-hate relationship with their culture, that they are, probably tired of trying to escape, "They had both sought comfort in each other, and in their shared world, perhaps for the sake of novelty, or out of the fear that the world is slowly dying."

but their experience are different.

Moushami has had a conflict-ful life but she had a consistent life unlike Nikhil.And Moushumi is not sensitive to Gogols issues (with his name).She refuses to change her name and insists on being called Ms. Majumdar.The fear of changing her name is like the fear of getting further lost. Losing everything she has acquired and all that that the name now associates.While she gladly accepts the nickname Mouse that Dimitri Desjardins gaves her.Lost as a migrant, lost in the family, lost as a girlfriend and now lost as a wife, identified by her husbands surname.While Ashimas merging her name with Ashoke can be seen as the Indian cultural concept that a couple becomes entity after marriage (of course the patriarchal hierarchy in such a merger is questionable), Moushomi refusal of the same can be seen as the American opposite of it even in a marriage the Individual retains his/her self and remains important.

Amy Tans The Kitchen Gods WifePearl Louis BrandtAmerican daughter of chinese mother introduced at 40Winnie LouisWeiliJimmy LouisSino-AmericanHelen WonghulanAmy Tans The Kitchen Gods Wife is another explication of the problems of diaspora.Migrant population is not mistreated, misrepresented or outcasted by the local population as much as they are by themselves.The need to leave the land but carry forward its traditions. The desire to escape the social conditions that created problems and the desire to recreate the same social conditions in the land of exile produce a schism in their identity.While some critics refer to a state like this as the richness of linguistic diversity others just point out their inefficacy in both.

The trend that we see in Jhumpa Lahiris The Namesake is not unique to bengali migrants, it was actually common for all migrants to the US.The name became the center of this conflict between motherland and america.It became important to adopt American names when moving to America not just because the indigenous name were hard to pronounce.The name marked the juncture to cultures one at its decline and the other on its rise.The migration can be voluntary (a progressive desire to find better living) or involuntary(a desperate attempt to escape, as Winnies).Weili moves to US and changes her name to Winnie, short, easier to pronounce and American. Almost reborn and baptised. The beginning of a better life for her.Unlike Weili, Halum and the others who migrated with them and adapted a new american name while retaining their old chinese ones, the next generation is given only one name.Weilis daughter is named Pearl, a name which isnt even homophonic to a Chinese name. (Weili Winnie and Halum - Helen)Its not just the nomenclature that changes. Pearl has no contact with china or its culture. The closest apprehension of china that she has is the few people in her mothers circle whom she knows

She cannot relate to the customs that they follow and they look at it with the same awe as the colonials did some 200 years ago.Winnies existence is truly hyphenated in he memories of her mother, her traditions and her life in America. Its hyphenated on first hand experience.Pearl on the other hand inherits her mothers memories but the memories that hyphenate Winnie are never shared, until Pearl is already 40.When Winnie talks about her/their History, Pearl interrupts her by stressing that its Chinese History while hers is american historyShe has a mystic idea of China, based the mythic stories, the mah jong games, the New Year celebration etc.

Names are important because that is an Individuals first impression on a person.Jhumpa Lahiri speaking about her personal experience with her name spoke

But when I was enrolled in school the teachers decided that Jhumpa was the easiest of my names to pronounce and that was that. To this day many of my relatives think that it's both odd and inappropriate that I'm known as Jhumpa in an official, public context.

We see in Gogol a careful wakefulness whenever his name was mentioned and a brief pause whenever someone asked his name. He couldnt decide what name to tell and he couldnt decide what his culture is.The pause is the temporal conflict between not his names but his two identities.In Amy Tan, Pearls denial of Chinese history as their history too is embedded in her name. Except for a surname and a mother she has nothing that makes her a chinese.