Dreaming of America: Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” and Indians Who Dare To Leave

It’s fed to you from your very first days. Unwittingly, you pledge allegiance to the New York City skylines, the Hollywood glamour and gossip, the star spangled-ness of it all. Oh, land of the free, home of the brave; is there a place for me here? 

This is America. Of course there is. 

Home videos often recorded my awful, adopted accent and obsession over American Girl dolls. My entire childhood, it seems, rested on American culture. A heavy statement to make, one that has led to years of valid criticism. How could I, an Indian, not know the basic tenets of my own country’s history? The simple answer is this: there was never anything for someone like me here. India, in the eyes of a six year old newly consumed by Taylor Swift’s music, did not have blonde singers who wore stylish matching crop tops and skirts. It’s not as though America has ever been perfect, either. But there’s a certain childlike wonder, an untainted innocence, that frames an outsider’s view. 

When I was eleven, I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, and for the first time, I found myself grasping what it was like to be on the other side. I had family living in the States, and I’d been to the promised land a few times by then. Each time, as I touched down, I had only felt awe and reverence. Like any touristing disciple of America, I engaged whole-heartedly with the bits of the country fabled and mythologized in YouTube videos. The drive-thrus, the dollar stores, the sidewalk chalk drawings—these were all traditions I’d gladly partake in. But here was a book, the wisest source of knowledge, telling me that immigrants dreamed of home, too. Lahiri’s words printed in front of me shot glances like accusations. It seemed irrational. This was a country with free-refills, for God’s sake. Did that mean anything to people anymore? 

I read on. Ashima Ganguli, on a 1968 sticky August evening, prepared jhalmuri in her kitchen. The kind you could acquire on every street corner in Kolkata. The kind that, if you played your cards right and bargained ruthlessly, you could pay twenty rupees for. I thought of my lovely aunt, especially fond of Fatafat, a sweet and sour candy particularly hard to come by in the dimly lit Indian grocery stores of America. On trips back home, she’d scour corner shops and procure strips upon strips of the candy, her suitcase a haze of orange and silver packaging. The desire for a better life, free from the constraints and connotations of a middle class existence in India mandates certain renunciations. There’s a lot to be left behind. Goodbye to masala sodas, goodbye to stray dogs idling potholed streets. There’s a lot to bring. Forging a new identity in a country that is Not Your Own contributes to the marring of traditions, and the formation of new ones. The Gangulis learn to trade in their Durga Pujo festivities for Great Big Christmases, their dak naams for all-purpose good names. 

As of 2022, the United States is home to about 4.8 million Indian Americans, of which 66% are immigrants. Indians who dare to leave often leave more than they account for. They forgo social practices and religious traditions. The secret to cultural assimilation is found in indulgence. There’s an instinctual need to escape. Run away while you still can and get a shot at striking gold. After all, an opportunity to wrest independence and make it your own is too good to pass up. When Ashima flies to Cambridge after her wedding, the only other person she knows in the country is her husband. “Won’t he be there?,” she answers, when asked if she’d be able to live in such a cold city. To be self-sufficient is not to be by yourself. When they move to the suburbs, packing up their first apartment together, Ashima is even more distressed than she was when she first arrived in the country. “For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realise, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy.” Homesickness is an ache that’s never fully relieved, a wound that never actually closes. Her sorrow is a terrible sight to watch. Even though the Gangulis grow a new life, there’s always something missing. A constant stasis lulls the reader along, all while despair is silently present. 

I remember thinking this was not what I signed up for when I said I’d like to live there someday. I did not have it in me to deal with this country of extremes, of hours spent in Costcos, of fireworks on the fourth of July if it meant bearing pain with an American smile. 

There’s a long stretch of time between dreaming of America and waking up from it. To chase one thing is to leave behind another.