(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
That night at the dinner table, Gogol brought it up with his parents. It was one thing for Gogol to be the name penned in calligraphy on his high school diploma, and printed below his picture in the year book, he'd begun. It was one thing, even for it to be typed on his applications to five Ivy League colleges, as well as to Stanford and Berkeley. But engraved, four years from now, on a bachelor of arts degree ? Written at the top of resume ? Centered on a business card ? It would be the name his parents picked out for him, he assured them, the good name they'd chosen for him when he was five.
"What's done is done," his father had said. "It will be a hassle. Gogol has, in effect, become your good name."
"It's too complicated now," his mother said, agreeing. "you're too old."
"I'm not," he persisted. "I don't get it. Why did you have to give me a pet name in the first place ? What's the point ?"
"It's our way, Gogol," his mother maintained. "It's what Bengalis do."
"But it's not even a Bengali name."
He told his parents what he'd learned in Mr. Lawson's class, about Gogol's lifelong unhappiness, his mental instability, about how he had starved himself to death. "Did you know all this stuff about him ?" he asked.
"You forgot to mention that he was also a genius," his father added.
"I don't get it. How could you guys name me after someone so strange ? No one takes me seriously," Gogol said.
"Who ? Who does not take you seriously ?" his father wanted to know, lifting his finger from his plate, looking up at him.
"People," he said, lying to his parents. For his father had a point, the only person who didn't take Gogol seriously, the only person who tormented him, the only person chronically aware of and afflicted by the embarrassment of his name, the only person who constantly questioned it and wished it were otherwise, was Gogol. And yet he'd continued, saying that they should be glad, that his official name would be Bengali, not Russian.
"I don't know, Gogol," his mother had said, shaking her head. "I really don't know." She got up to clear the dishes. Sonia slinked away, up to her room. Gogol remained at the table with his father. They sat there together while his mother was washing the plates.
"Then change it," his father said simply, quietly, after a while.
"Really ?"
"In America anything is possible. Do as you wish."
And so he had obtained a Commonwealth of Massachusetts change-of-name form, to submit along with a certified copy of his birth certificate and a check to the Middlesex Probate and Family court. He'd brought form to his father, who had glanced at it only briefly before signing his consent, with the same resignation with which he signed a check or a credit card receipt, his eyebrows slightly raised over his glasses, inwardly calculating the loss. He'd filled out the rest of the form in his own room, late at night when his family was asleep. He wrote in the new name he wished to adopt, then signed the form with his old signature. Only one part of the form had given him pause : in approximately three lines, he was asked to provide a reason for seeking the change. For nearly an hour he had sat there, wondering what to write. He'd left it blank in the end.
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