Flak Magazine: Review of The Namesake and Surburban Sahibs, 1.09.04

For immigrants living in the United States, reading a story by Jhumpa Lahiri is like coming home. Her tales about walking the cultural tightrope between America and another land an ocean away are nearly universal.

In "The Namesake," Lahiri gives readers what they have been waiting for: a strong follow-up to her short story collection "Interpreter of Maladies." The novel is the story of Bengali immigrants Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli and their children through the decades, from an arranged marriage in India to gradual assimilation in suburban Boston. Lahiri's knack for telling details makes the early portion of the novel vivid and delightful. Ashoke and Ashima getting to know each other after the wedding, their forays into the local supermarket, their attempts to understand their American children, the friendships they build with other Bengalis — the nuanced episodes reveal an immigrant experience at once universal and personal.

But the story mostly belongs to the Gangulis' son. Gogol is a typical American boy: he listens to the White Album, he reads "The Hobbit." And he detests his name, which was given by his parents as a pet name but inadvertently turned into his "good" name on the first day of kindergarten. At 14, Gogol wants only to escape his name:

He's come to hate questions pertaining to his name, hates having constantly to explain. He hates having to tell people that it doesn't mean anything "in Indian." He hates having to wear a nametag on his sweater at Model United Nations Day at school. He even hates signing his name at the bottom of his drawings in art class. He hates that his name is both absurd and obscure, that it has nothing to do with who he is, that it is neither Indian nor American but of all thing Russian.

When Gogol turns 18 he changes his name to Nikhil. He enters Yale with a new name and with time becomes a new person. He ventures far from Ashoke and Ashima's world and takes up the New York life, living with his girlfriend Maxine and her WASPy, old money New York parents and enjoying a lifestyle foreign to him.

As Gogol aimlessly searches for an identity, Lahiri falters, at points veering too close to stereotypes of rich and yuppie New York; despite her graceful sentences, the second half of the novel is weak. Gogol's eventual marriage is somewhat puzzling, and the last chapter is a flurry of loose strings tied together at the final minute. When we leave Gogol at last, he is 32 but we feel like we're just beginning to know him, and he himself.

There are thousands of families like Jhumpa Lahiri's Gangulis in America, and many live somewhere in Middlesex County, New Jersey. This area is home to one of the biggest Indian populations outside South Asia — 20,000 Indians according to the 1990 US census. In her new book, "Suburban Sahibs," Washington Post reporter Mitra Kalita traces the evolution of Middlesex County through the lives of three Indian families in pursuit of a good life in the suburbs — in other words, the American dream.

Like Lahiri, Kalita is a South Asian who grew up in the United States. The two authors are more or less both ABCDs, or American Born Confused Desis (desi is slang for a South Asian who lives away from India), much like the children in their stories. The three families in Kalita's book represent the different waves of immigration that shape Middlesex county: The Kotharis were among the first large groups to emigrate from India in the 1970s as new laws opened up America's borders, while the Patels have been struggling to pay rent ever since they got to the United States in the '80s, and the Sarmas are the H1-B visa holders that were highly demanded during the technology boom of the 1990s but suffered in the recession that's followed.

It's clear that Kalita became good friends with the families she interviewed. Her empathy comes across on every page, whether she's rejoicing for the Kotharis' rise to prominence in the community or worrying over Harish Patel losing his job. Her book is concerned with the lives of these immigrants — how they made the decision to come to America, what troubles faced them here and what struggles and joys they experience each day. Of course, some families have a harder time than others, but all the immigrants yearn for more than they have. Kalita's chronicle ends in 2001 just after Sept. 11, yet the author has surprisingly little to say about the global event or the anti-immigrant government policies that ensued.

If "Suburban Sahibs" leaves you hungry for more at the last page, it's because the book doesn't attempt to address immigration's history, laws or politics. The slim volume sticks to its modest goal of telling the personal stories of the families, providing background information only when necessary. Kalita's book is an interesting addition to the growing library of books about South Asians in America, but it's perhaps best as an introduction for Americans who know little about the immigrant communities in their back yard — a brief suburban version of Jacob Riis' "How the Other Half Lives." Readers desiring a deeper understanding of the South Asian experience in America should refer to the bibliography listed in the book's chapter notes, including Vijay Prashad's "The Karma of Brown Folk" and Little India, the largest circulating US magazine about South Asians.

Without a country to call one's own, how does one make a life? Both "The Namesake" and "Suburban Sahibs" prompt this question. The answer lies somewhere in between the gritty reality of Kalita's New Jersey and the poetic migration that Lahiri concocts: One must live the former but dream the latter.

— Michelle Tsai (phmtsai@yahoo.com)