'Namesake' Explores Indian, U.S. Culture
Like Mira Nair's previous film "Monsoon Wedding," her latest release, "The Namesake," deals with identities and relationships, particularly those of Indians and Americans.
"This film is a piece of my heart. Right after I read the book, I knew I had to make it into a film," Nair says.
Based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, the movie depicts a young Bengali man named Ashoke Ganguli, played by Irrfan Khan, who leaves his close-knit family in Calcutta to get a Ph.D. in the United States.
He goes back home to marry Ashima Ganguly, played by Tabu, and they move to New York. She leaves behind a bustling home full of people in Kolkata, India, and it takes time to get accustomed to the loneliness she feels in the Big Apple.
Soon enough she has two lovely children, Sonia, a daughter, and Gogol, a son who is played by Kal Penn of "Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle" fame.
The kids grow up with Indian values at home and Westernized ones at school. This disparity is most vividly seen in Gogol's relationship with his American girlfriend, Maxine, who comes from a very liberal family — the opposite of what Gogol has seen all his life.
The film juxtaposes New York and Kolkata, using the Brooklyn and Howdah bridges to reinforce the way the two cities helped define Ashoke and Ashima's lives.
Kolkata is where Nair spent 12 years of her childhood. She says she has a love for Bengali culture and tried to capture it in her film.
Khan plays a silent but austere father and husband in the film. In an informal chat session after a special screening of the film Wednesday at the Asia Society in New York, he said, "I was very worried that Mira expected me to speak in an Americanized accent, so when I went to meet Jhumpa's family, I secretly recorded her father so that I could ape how he spoke."
Khan has starred in several mainstream Bollywood films, including "Maqbool" and "Charas," most often as a bad guy. Co-star Tabu has more than 60 Hindi and Telugu films to her credit and has twice won the coveted National Award for her performances in "Maachis" and "Chandini Bar."
When asked how the aging process was dealt with in the film, Tabu said, "The make-up artists took care of that." She also had to work on modulating her voice from a young chirpy twenty-something to a 49-year-old, her age at the end of the movie.
Nair is now working on "Shantaram," starring Johnny Depp. The film is based on a book that has been wildly popular in Australia and India. It's about a convict who goes to Mumbai to escape a 19-year prison sentence in Australia.
By Sakshi Didwania