Thanksgiving

A few weeks ago my mother approached me and asked if I wanted to spend Thanksgiving at home or  travel to Pennsylvania to spend it with my grandfather and my various great-uncles and aunts. My initial preference was to stay at home, but the numerous English discussions of Gogol's ungrateful attitude towards his family caused me to change my mind and to Pennsylvania we went. It was awful. That sounds really bad, but my extended family on my mother's side has to be one of the most dysfunctional groups of people ever to eat together. They spent ten minutes discussing the various types of salt and their respective purposes in cooking. Is that normal? To further illustrate my point, I will give a brief description of some of the family members I had the pleasure of dining with:

1) Great-Aunt Nancy: She used to breed show dogs. Her kitchen strawberry-themed, apparently. She was in charge of the Thanksgiving feast. All day I could hear her barking orders at various relatives. She is also partially deaf, so she normally prefaces every conversation she enters with "I can't hear you!"

2) Great-Uncle George: I will admit, I know very little about this uncle. I have visited his house before and I remember his collection of fake cats in various unnatural poses. He did not say much during dinner and quickly fell asleep afterward, only to awaken for pie. Whenever he did speak, it was usually to reminisce on a time in his childhood when he bested his brothers.

3) Great-Uncle Richard: Oh, Uncle Richard. He makes his own birthday cards, all of which contain a small tidbit about the family's genealogy. He loves tell puns, often the same ones multiple times an evening. He speaks fluent German and often demonstrates this talent by serenading us with various German folk songs. He recited the opening lines of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night when asked to say grace before dinner.

My uncle and I play this game sometimes where we pretend that we are watching a really bad sitcom. But the truth is, all that craziness makes my family interesting, and as corny as it sounds, I am thankful for it.

Actors

Decent Gogol

In celebration of the first installment of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie, these past two weeks I have been rereading the last book. It is somewhat a tradition of mine to read a novel right before the release of its movie so I can fully criticize how much it strays from the book. I can get quite unreasonable about this sometimes, analyzing the movie down to the most finite detail that differs from the author's representation. So naturally, watching the movie adaption of The Namesake caused me great distress on Friday. For the most part, the director's arrangement of the scenes did not bother me too much; in fact, I liked the way the movie began with Ashoke's accident and followed the story chronologically. My main criticism comes from the director's interpretation of the characters, Gogol in particular. Kal Penn does not match up with my mental representation of Gogol at all, so that immediately messed up my initial perceptions of the movie. And that was only aggravated by the fact the director thought a thirty-ish Kal Penn with long hair could accurately portray a high schooler. I feel that the casting director should have taken into consideration some of Penn's past roles, such as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle or Malibu's Most Wanted, before casting him in such a serious, realistic role since naturally it influences the viewer's perceptions of the actor. However, when I tried to think of another Indian actor to play the part of Gogol, I came up depressingly short. Indian characters are simply not very prevalent in American media, but after some serious contemplation I thought of a perfect actor for Gogol: Sendhil Ramamurthy, the actor who played Mohinder Suresh on the show Heroes. For your viewing pleasure, I have also included a photo of Mr. Ramamurthy:

Better Gogol

Literacy

Right now, there are about 1 billion illiterate adults living in the world. A vast majority of them live in undeveloped countries; about two-thirds are women.

I had to do a project in 6th grade about what I thought was the most important invention in history. Naturally my mind jumped to things like the light bulb, computers, the telephone. I asked my mom what she thought, and she surprised me. She said the most important invention was the printing press. The printing press! That's so uncool! Mom stood firm by her answer. She explained the printing press gave people the ability to distribute information, knowledge, books in vast quantities. It completely revolutionized everything! Whatever, I did my project on the internet.

But now I see my mom's point. What if Johannes Gutenberg decided one day in the early 1400s that he wanted to be a cobbler instead of an inventor? What if the printing press never was? Books would be extremely rare, only copied by hand. A painstaking process, so only the rich could afford the luxury of knowledge. The ability to read would be reserved for only the children of such book-owners (and let's face it, based on the statistics above, girls would probably be excluded from that anyway). Okay, so being a girl, being in a not ridiculously wealthy family, in this alternative universe where there is no printing press, I would most likely be illiterate, unable to read a word. Unable to express my thoughts without saying them aloud. Unable to write poetry, stories, even data sheets (though I doubt I would miss the last one too terribly).

Yeah, sometimes I do not like reading one bit. When it's nearing midnight and oh shoot I still have to read Chapter 12 for English tomorrow, how I would love to whip out the illiterate excuse. "Sorry I didn't do the reading Ms. Serensky, the weirdest thing happened last night..." But really, being literate rocks. There are no words to describe it--literacy is singularly the most important skill I possess. Without it, what would I be doing? Watching soaps all day? Plowing a field somewhere? Who knows. What I do know is that when Thanksgiving rolls around in a week or so and it comes to my turn to say what I am most thankful for, the parents will just have to accept that Being Literate tops my list.

Family

One of the major conflicts throughout The Namesake arises from Gogol's desire to alienate himself from him parents and his Indian culture. Many people, myself included, felt anger and frustration at Gogol's unwillingness to make time for his family. A perfect example of this occured when Ashima called Gogol to ask him to come visit his father before he left for the "flat, charmless town" of Cleveland and Gogol replied, "Why do I have to see him off?" (174, 144). Initially, I felt only stunned at Gogol's rudeness and disrespect for his father. But after some contemplation, I thought about my own life, all the times I have blown off my parents for plans with friends or have spoken to them with less than the respect they deserve and I have realized that in the same situation as Gogol, I might very well have said the same thing. Parents are something I think many people, myself definitely included, take for granted. At least for me, my parents have never left for an extended period of time, fallen life-treateningly ill, or done anything to cause me to question their contunied presense in my life. But after reading The Namesake, especially Chapter 7 when Ashoke dies, I have begun to see my family in a new light. I now realize that family, as much as we hate to admit it, is impermanent, and I plan to spend as much time as I can with them before I leave for college. Thankfully, it seems like Gogol came to the same realization following the death of his father. When Maxine attempted to pursuade Gogol to get away from his mourning mother and sister, Gogol steadily replied, "I don't want to get away" (182). Gogol's simple, declarative statement clearly shows his newfound devotion to his mother and sister. Thankfully, I do not have to experience the death of a parent to learn the preciousness and value of family, I only have to take heed to Gogol's experience.

What's in a Name?

The other day in class we extensively discussed Moushumi's decision to keep her maiden name instead of adopting Gogol's last name, Ganguli. Many of people in the class felt Moushumi's choice was a sign of her disconnect from her husband or her trepidation about settling into a marriage. I would also speculate that a majority of the population agrees; a woman who refuses to change her last name to her husband's shows too much independence and obviously does not fully appreciate the "bond" that marriage implies. I could not disagree more. If marriage symbolizes a bonding or forever joining of two individuals, shouldn't the last name of the couple represent both the husband and wife? A woman adopting the last name of her husband remains an archaic relic of a time when men viewed their wives as basically property. The name adoption represents possession and control, not equality and love. Of course, marriage today differs significantly from marriage in Biblical times. Nowadays, women can actually choose who they marry! Or file for divorce if their husband abuses them! Or, if they so choose, decide not to take the last name of their husband, without facing criticism or scorn! Oh, wait...
I do not have a high opinion of Moushumi. Her adultery, her attitude towards Gogol and her marriage, and her weird obsession with her hipster friends all bother me. But I do respect Moushumi's independence and self-sufficiency, both of which she possesses in ample amounts. Coming from a sheltered Indian household, I would expect Moushumi to exhibit the characteristics of a good, obedient Indian housewife, like Ashima or her own mother. The fact that she broke free from the stereotype her parents prepared for her and "vowed [to] never grow fully dependent on her husband" shows that she strives for a more furfilling life than her mother had (247). Her refusal to change her name reflects her pride in herself as an individual and shows that she sees herself as more than simply Mrs. Nikhil Ganguli, and I admire Moushumi for her independence.