The Namesake: Irrfan Khan, Tabu are exquisite in Mira Nair’s contemplative immigrant drama

A literary maven, Lahiri has captured the immigrant experience in a ruminative, poetic way through her works. Her protagonists more often than not feel exiled from both the worlds they inhabit, and with her elegant, descriptive prose she depicts the essence of human condition like few of her peers. Her heroes and heroines are dreamers, even when they are wicked or disagreeable.

It was fortunate then, that the The Namesake, the film that is, had artistes of Tabu and Irrfan Khan’s calibre, acting as a lead-in to this world.

The story follows the Gangulis. Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan), a PhD scholar in New York, belongs to a close-knit Bengali family. Since he is well-settled, he is summoned to Kolkata (then Calcutta) by his parents, who have found a suitable girl for him called Ashima. Played by Tabu, Ashima is a classical singer who takes an instantly liking to Ashoke after spotting his America-made shoes that he has left outside the room. The future bride and groom sit before each other and exchange shy smiles, while their respective parents talk about the qualities and qualifications of the two. The setup would be instantly familiar to you if you have an even remote understanding of the concept of arranged marriage.

Knowing what we know, the scene feels sweet rather than regressive, and that is mainly due to the actors. Yes, it is strange that Ashima is ready to leave her family and country for a man she is meeting for the first time, but somehow, thanks to Nair’s direction and the humanity that Tabu bring in that single scene, her decision does not appear rushed. They marry, and begin their life in suburban New York.

While Ashoke is used to living in the countr; for Ashima, life gets deeply alienating and lonely due to cultural barriers necessitated by life in foreign country. But in her missives to her family back home, she maintains that things could not be more idyllic. Nair has a knack for artful storytelling and here, she uses minimal dialogue with negligible use of dialogue to faithfully convey emotions. Ashima never voices her concerns, but we know exactly what is going on in her mind.

Ashima delivers their first child, a son, and she and Ashoke come to know they cannot take the baby home until authorities are told his legal name for the birth certificate. As per traditions, however, the baby can be named only by the elder of the family. Eventually, the baby is named Gogol after Russian author Nikolai Gogol, who gets referenced several times in this story.

As a young child, Gogol chooses to keep it as his official name, as opposed to Nikhil (a play on Nikolai), a choice he would later come to regret. Kal Penn plays the adult version of Nikhil, who emerges as the film’s protagonist, and it is Penn you have never seen before — I mean that in a good way. He and the younger sister who comes later have only disdain for the Indian part of their identity, which creates hostilities between the two generations that would be all too familiar to most of us.

Film adaptations of full-length novels are often accused of omitting information, characters, and even subplots from the source material that the readers think are necessary. The very nature of the cinematic medium ensures that inevitably not everything can fit into the 2-3 hours runtime.

The Namesake’s script, written by Sooni Taraporevala, is also not a “perfect” adaptation by any stretch of imagination. But it does capture the spirit of Lahiri’s story, which is all that matters in the end. The Namesake is a tender exploration of the Indian-American immigrant experience that is somehow both personal and has themes that are universal.

The Namesake is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.