(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
From the little he knew about Russian writers, it dismayed him that his parents chose the weirdest namesake. Leo or Anton, he could have lived with. Alexander, shortened to Alex, he would have greatly preferred. But Gogol sounded ludicrous to his ears, lacking dignity or gravity. What dismayed him most was the irrelevance of it all. Gogol, he was tempted to tell his father on more than one occasion, was his father's favorite author, not his. Then again, it was his own fault. He could have been known, at school at least, as Nikhil. That one day, that first day of kindergarten, which he no longer remembered, could have changed every thing. He could have been Gogol only fifty percent of the time. Like his parents when they went to Calcutta, he could have an alternative identity, a B-side to the self. "We tried," his parents explained to friends and relatives who asked why their son lacked a good name, "but he would only respond to Gogol. The school insisted." His parents would add, "we live in a country where a president is called Jimmy. Really, there was nothing we could do."
"Thanks again," Gogol told his father now. He shut the cover and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, to put the book away on his shelves. But his father took the opportunity to sit beside him on the bed. For a moment he rested a hand on Gogol's shoulder. The boy's body , in recent months, had grown tall, nearly as tall as Ashoke's. The childhood pudginess had vanished from his face. The voice had begun to deepen, was slightly husky now. It occurred to Ashoke that he and son probably wore the same size shoe. Ashoke noticed a scattered down emerging on his son's upper lip. An Adam's apple was permanent on his neck. The pale hands, like Ashima's, are long and thin. Ashoke wondered how closely Gogol resembled himself at this age. But there were no photographs to document Ashoke's childhood ; not until his passport, not until his life in America, did visual documentation exist.
The following year Ashoke was up for a sabbatical, and Gogol and Sonia were informed that they would be going to Calcutta for eight months. When his parents told him, one evening after dinner, Gogol thought they're joking. But then they told them that the tickets had already been booked, the plans already made. "Think of it as a long vacation," Ashoke and Ashima said to their crestfallen children. But Gogol knew that eight months was no vacation. He dreaded the thought of eight months without a room of his own, without his records and his stereo, without friends. In Gogol's opinion, eight months in Calcutta was practically like moving there, a possibility that, until now, had never even remotely crossed his mind. Besides, he was a sophomore now. "What about school ?" he pointed out. His parents reminded him that in the past his teachers had never minded Gogol missing his school now and again. They had given him math and language workbooks that he'd ignored, and when he returned, a month or two later, they praised him for keeping up with things. But Gogol' guidance counselor expressed concern when Gogol informed him that he would be missing the entire second half of his tenth grade. A meeting was called with Ashima and Ashoke to discuss the options. The guidance counselor asked if it was possible to enroll Gogol in an international school.But the nearest one was in Delhi, over eight hundred miles from Calcutta. The guidance counselor suggested that perhaps Gogol could join his parents later, after the school year ended, stayed with a relative until June. "We have no relatives in this country," Ashima informed the guidance counselor. "That is why we are going to India in the first place."
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