Coming home to The Namesake

In the last few days I realized that I cannot escape myself from “something” related to the movie “The Namesake”. It has been a common topic of conversations among my friends. Even last week, when I crisscrossed the nation on a Jetblue flight from DC to SF and back, there were trailers shown in one of their “36 channels of Direct TV programming”. Quite repeatedly, in fact. So, what’s so? Nothing much. Actually, I was browsing Barnes and Nobles today and even picked up the CD. The checkout girl thought the movie has been released – to which I quite solemnly replied, “not is DC, only in SF, LA, and NYC.”

It was a little more than a year ago when I read the novel. I don’t know why I picked it up. Probably, I heard a note somewhere that Jhumpa Lahiri was a good story teller. In some of her interviews, she seemed honest and genuine. Before that I was not so keen on reading about novels or stories on identity conflicts and the whole subject seemed quite trite and boring. In a way, it was too close to reality to even think about it. But, things were a bit different this time. The novel was compelling and riveting. It hooked me on right away. Thank God, I picked it up on Friday evening, which meant I did not have to qualm about dropping the book aside – and worry about going to work the next day. And so page after page, I read on – under my bedside lamp in one corner of the world – my then home in town in North Carolina.

It was as if in some sense my fears, agonies, crises were being depicted and being underscored. I felt – if it were possible for the story to go on and on without an ending. It finally did end, and I did not like the ending. It was well - what's the answer - too ????? for me. I wish it never happened that way. Will he find happiness? It was all the more bothersome because I was living into the character most part and in the end I did not want to end up like that. I did not want to be another addition to long list of forlorn looking-for-peace human beings housed in the richest country. And then I looked my own self and could easily detach myself. I had company then.

What a twist of fate? Within a month – a storm blew away my marriage and I was in face of the earth left thinking that I was “destiny’s child” again. As I resurrected and reconstituted myself in the last year through multitude of travels, relationships, and explorations, I still seek my home. I see myself running towards the horizon grasping for something that may be nothing but “hope” itself.

While the movie will open in my city in the next month or so, I believe I am going to love the ending too. In the last year, I have sensed that it is possible to have a happy life without a happy ending. I appreciated real freedom to sense, perceive, and feel one with myself.

Many people believe - What we don’t want to see in life we love to see it in movies and novels. This novel does not meet that expectation. And may be that’s what so great about it. To understand that hope as an object can be as strong a reason to live as what is actually hoped for. One year later, I find myself not to be so different from Gogol. Searching and set-out to discover the world. Living into a life where journey and destination have collapsed into a nebulous cloud. “The End” never happens here. There is no silver lining. Remember Tagore’s masterpiece short story “The Homecoming”? - about a confused, vulnerable teenager at the crossroads of childhood and adulthood who finally gets to come home - the eternal abode called death

I don't want to die so soon. I care to enjoy this journey - coping with my changing identity, changing contexts, and a changing home. Yes, I am driving towards the horizon - an endless cycle of life.