The Namesake

This is my first ever written book review and am quite excited. Actually, all the excitement died away due to back to back assignments and oh!exams :/ How do you get away with that now? I finished reading this more than 2 weeks back and since then I've been procrastinating to write this piece. Inspiration comes when you least expect it and mine was LinkedIn Devi, a girl in my college who writes one post every day directly writing what the teacher taught in Consumer Behaviour class anyway...here we go folksss!

Choosing this cover image because I find it numbly soothing. So this story starts some 40-50 years back (read the book for deets) with Ashok and Ashima getting married then having an irritatingly indifferent kid called Gogol and on and on. Ashok is a character I did not like from the moment he came to see Ashima, took her to the US, made her pregnant and she was alone with all this going on! The affinity of Indians for making a career in the States is overwhelmingly unbearable to me like dude! that is what you can do here as well. As the story progressed, it was Ashok with whom I empathised the most though. Ashima is a nice girl, no dreams, good cooking skills, too sanskari and a mother of two. She is the one I sided most with during the course of my reading this book. 

Gogol, this boy, he is good for nothing. These are exactly the kind of kids parents should not raise. Always embarassed of his roots, trying to run away from the reality and to find happiness in superficial things is all his character is. He is uncertain of his choices which is fine but always blaming that on his Indian parents? No, it is not right at all. I speak not out of emotions but basic courtesy. Our parents spend their entrie lives to gives us the best of everything and that's how we make them feel? Guilty? These people cannot love anyone truly. I do not know what kind of a person I want to be but know for sure what I do not want to be. 

The story is one of numbness, of artificial feelings, of a sense of being full when you are actually nowhere close to it, of broken hearts which made no sound while breaking, of everyday things and the love lost in those precious moments. This story can get you one step closer to yourself only if you are willing to listen to the small sighs it makes now and then. We ignore the tremendous love which is filled in the smaller moments and run after the gold pot behind the rainbow ignoring the beautiful, vivd colors it has to offer only to realise that gold is nice and all but colors make the world bright. A very important message which this book gives is that humans have the tendency to complicate simple situations ultimately causing them damage which is beyond repair at times. 

Lastly I want to end this review by making a confession. I have a copy wherein I note down the names of the book I have read so far and on what date I finish them. It was a race I was running with myself over the years without really enjoying reading. I no longer dwell on the records, I do keep them in order to keep a check on my buying list but that's that. 

Happy Reading! :)