Character Analysis Of 'The Namesake' By Jhumpa Lahiri

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s, The Namesake, the consumption of traditional, ethnic foods prepared by the woman of the house, Ashima, is a way in which the Ganguli family was able to adhere to their ethnic Hindu heritage. Besides cooking for daily consumption and consumption during traditional holidays, Ashima also cooks in an effort to connect with a country that she had left behind when she married Ashoke and moved to the United States to start a family. Even though she no longer resides in India, she uses food to identify herself and her family as practicing Hindus who were devoted to their beliefs just as she and Ashoke were when they were living at home in Calcutta, India with their respective parents.

In the first scene of The Namesake, a homesick

Despite their confusion, the family knew that they have to observe the mourner’s diet to honor the man that they all loved and admired. The regulations for such a diet is described as follows:

For ten days following his father’s death, he and his mother and Sonia eat a mourner’s diet, forgoing meat and fish. They eat only rice and dal and vegetables, plainly prepared. Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died, his mother yelling at him when he forgot one day and had a hamburger at school (180).

Ashima prepares the meals and ensures that her children remember to abstain from eating meat and fish as she had done when the children’s grandparents passed away years ago because, in their culture, this is what families must do to mourn their loss and show respect for a loved one who had done so much to support them when they needed them the most. Again, even though the family was living in the United States, they continued to follow all of the Hindu customs and traditions because that was their heritage and the way that their parents were brought