"(Mira Nair) The Namesake was, for me, first and foremost inspired by grief." "It was the first experience I had had of burying a parent in New York City." "Ummi, my beloved mother-in-law, died suddenly of malpractice in a New York hospital in December of 2003, and as we buried her in a snowstorm in New Jersey," "I thought of how final that loss was, and it plunged us all into a fog of grief, and it was in this melancholy that I happened to open Jhumpa Lahiri's exquisite novel - on a plane, in fact, to India " "without intending to look for a movie, just to distract myself." "Her story of Ashoke and Ashima and the way she distilled what it felt like to bury a parent in a country that is not home was what propelled me to drop everything and make this film." "I had grown up in Orissa near Calcutta." "I had spent 12 summers in Calcutta." "I love the city and, as it happened, in my life," "I also came to New York City, where I have lived more than 25 years." "So this was a chance for me, in this film, to make a portrait of these two great cities " "Calcutta and New York." "I have travelled from Bhubaneswar, where I lived, to Simla, where I went to school, on such trains, two to three days at a time, so I know what it feels like, and I very much wanted to film this scene" "in the way I remembered my own young train journeys across India." "Nothing is private - everyone's involved with everyone's business." "And here is Mr Ghosh." "It took me a very long time to find the actor to play him " "Jagannath Guha." "He's actually a film critic and a part-time actor, but he's just a wonderful person and presence." "I must have looked at 50 people before we settled on Jagannath." "He was wonderful." "Gosh's words, "Pack up a pillow and blanket and see the world", is the cornerstone, is the foundation of this film." "Irrfan Khan, who plays Ashoke, was someone I discovered when he was 18, and I was, what, 29, in a basement in the National School of Drama where he was a student." "And he came out and worked with me in my first film Salaam Bombay!" "Since then, I have longed to give him a part that deserves his extraordinary talent." "The beginning credits were inspired by, for me, Mark Rothko paintings," "Francis Bacon paintings, the whole idea of the handmade." "And I went to Divya Thakur, a young..." "a wonderful graphic designer in Bombay, to use... with the brief that it should look like handmade Rothko, and should have the great Bengali calligraphy of Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray." "In all the Bengali films, I love the calligraphy." "And it was Divya's masterstroke to take the... to use both Bengali and English in the same name, which is so much the core of what this film is about." "This is a film of still photographs." "I'm hugely inspired by photography, and in this film, I brought a lot of photographs to the table." "The goddess Sarasvati and the goddess Durga are two great famous and beloved goddesses in Bengal, and there is no street complete without an homage to her, and, hence, I had to have her in this film." "The one difference I made from the book to the film was to make Ashima a classical singer." "I love Indian classical music, and I wanted to give her character a shorthand about how she expresses herself." "Even though she may be an amateur singer, that was important for me - to use her voice again and again in this 30-year saga that was to come, and to use, of course, the sound of this music in our soundtrack." "Calcutta is still run by the communist government." "It is the most politically engaged place." "There are protests every day." "And in the '70s, when this film begins, the Naxalites, the antifascism protests and so on were so vivid in my memory that I wanted very much to have this as a backdrop to show what Calcutta was like," "and also to show that Ashima was not engaged in politics, and sort of walked through the procession to go home, like an obedient girl, as opposed to being a firebrand." "It was so important to get the fabric of the city right in these images." "I was lucky in this film to work with the great cinematographer Fred Elmes, whose work I've loved for many years." "These images were made by Jay J Odedra, our second-unit director of photography, who really scoured Calcutta to give us the essence of it in those few images." "We were so lucky to find the Deb house, the Deb Bari, in North Calcutta." "We had lost our major location of Ashima's house the moment we landed in Calcutta, 11 days into the film." "A nephew of this house happened to be an intern in our office and brought me directly from the airport to this amazing hand-painted, decayed house, which was such a boon to us." "When I like a face, like this young sister Rini, I invent a role for her." "She was never in the script, she didn't exist, but I loved this girl, and we kept putting her in every scene." "Similarly, I had the greatest Bengali actor, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, as Ashima's father and Tanushree Shankar as her mother." "This is, of course, a key moment in the film, when Ashima puts on her husband-to-be's shoes." "And the beauty of it was Tabu, the actress, had almost the same size feet as Irrfan Khan." "So she possesses these shoes so beautifully." "And I made her sort of do this playful, mischievous sashay across to show the audience a different face of the obedient, demure girl - that she was playful, mischievous, full of life." "Tabu is such an extraordinary actor that she expresses it with such subtlety and delight." "It was the '70s so the collars were back in vogue." "This was, of course, very, very hot summer in May in Calcutta when we were shooting, and all the actors were so extraordinarily comfortable in their homes." "For me, it's really important to be funny and rueful and, you know, keep it light, but also notjust have the scene drip with seriousness and custom because life is much more mischievous than that." "Jhumpa was so happy when we used this poem in words." "She said, "ln writing the book, I had forgotten to use it, I didn't use it."" "For me, it was always important, and for Sooni Taraporevala, the screenwriter." "We always intended to use this poem through both the present and later when Ashima comes to America." "It was so important to make Ashoke and Ashima's relationship have great economy and sweetness, but to actually..." "The idea of two strangers marrying each other and then falling in love in a distant country was an enchanting idea for me." "And I wanted very much, in a few scenes, for the audience to understand who they were." "This is Supriya Devi, from Meghe Dhaka Tara, from Ritwik Ghatak's film The Cloud-Capped Star." "I adore this film, and I went to beg her to please appear, even if for a scene or two, in The Namesake, as a blessing from Ritwik Ghatak, the great Bengali director, whom I didn't have the occasion to know, but I love his work." "It was Arjun Bhasin, our costume designer's brilliant idea to make this wedding red and gold only, like butterflies." "That is the colour of Bengali weddings, but it was such a lovely thing to have everyone dressed in cotton of red and gold." "The story had to propel across 30 years, so every frame had to do more than one thing." "That is my credo." "The intention, but more and more..." "I mean, this whole idea of this amazing number - 26 members of the family - always coming to receive you and to say farewell to you is something we've all grown up with, and it is so different from the impersonality and the coolness of one's arrival in the West," "where everyone goes about their business and no one has time." "The idea of the extreme close-up is something I always wanted in this film - to go from, you know, unmoving camera, like still photographs, but to interweave that with extreme details, like her eye opening to see America for the first time." "We found this flat in Yonkers." "It was an abandoned building." "But I fell in love with it because of its various angles, and the fact that in any room you can see through to another room." "And I wanted this plainness and simplicity." "That is Jhumpa's grandfather's photograph on the wall." "I really responded to his face, and he is placed in many rooms and on many walls in this film." "A lot of times, Fred and I wanted to just keep it to one shot, or do entire scenes in the one take, in the one shot, without cutting overtly." "And this was the whole beauty of this railroad apartment - we could always see through." "The perspective was very important for me." "It was very important for me that both Irrfan and Tabu sound beautifully Bengali, and speak English in the Bengali accent." "We modelled Ashoke's whole look and feeling and being really on Jhumpa Lahiri's father." "I had Irrfan spend a day with him on his arrival in America." "It was also Irrfan's first time in America, and I think that also informed his performance." "But he understood from Jhumpa's father how self-effacing Ashoke could be, how unobtrusive, and the way he spoke, the gentle quality." "For Irrfan, he said to appropriate that calm of Ashoke within him was the great challenge of this role." "Tabu's face is so transparent and so expressive and so full of, of course, beauty, but layers of thought, and she would be so attuned to a small direction." "I would say to her here, "I don't want it to be down, like they don't know each other."" ""lt has to be also full of charm." "He's trying to make her laugh." "Give him half a laugh."" ""Keep it up, because the poor guy is trying to make friends with you."" "This frame was so key in my choosing this location - the fact that from Ashima's window she could see her husband become smaller and smaller." "It was one frame that would give the audience and me a sense of her complete loneliness and her not knowing what she was supposed to do that day, and wanting to protect and be with him, yet she was so apart." "So these were images very specifically chosen, and beautifully, of course, filmed by Fred to heighten her loneliness without dwelling too much in it." "Of course, the idea of Rice Krispies and mixing it with chilli powder and peanuts is an approximation of what we calljhal muri, which is a snack sold on the streets which is a combination of tang and sweetness." "And this is, of course, a wonderful symbol that Jhumpa came up with of Ashima trying to find a piece of her familiar world in a totally unfamiliar world." "This image was the first day of shooting - of her hauling the laundry." "It's an image I've seen for 30 years, living in America, and I'd never had the occasion to shoot before." "This was brought to me, this idea, of how in one frame you could speak of the shock of America, and it was to do with Stephanie Carroll, my production designer, telling me that she'd once seen a homeless man" "take all his clothes off and put them in the dryer while he waited, naked, for them to come out." "For me, that would be the..." "So we used that image against her face in the Laundromat to show what ajourney she's made." "The whole "getting to know each other" was a section of the film" "I really wanted to distil beautifully and make as funny and charming, and as funny and moving as possible." "This part of the fight is directly from my own married life." "My husband, when he wants to make up with me, turns my name into 50 different names." "And I know that that's his way of saying sorry, which I brought into this film." "And Irrfan and Tabu" " Ashoke and Ashima - just beautiful how they made it happen." "These scenes of how they fell in love were very much inspired by Apur Sansar, the second of the... the third of the Apu trilogy, and Aparajito as well," "Satyajit Ray's great films, which I had loved and made me want to become a filmmaker." "I knew I only had three scenes to have them fall in love, and they better be good." "This scene was inspired by "Mrs Sen's" in Jhumpa's short story Interpreter of Maladies." "I read this wonderful short story she'd written about the Bengalis' love for fish." "We all know that, growing up in India, and it's so nice..." "I thought it would a charming idea to make him tell her how to get to the Fulton fish market." "I think making Kama Sutra many years ago taught me so many rules and principles about sensuality and how one must engage all one's senses in living and life, and certainly in cinema." "And I thought, for me, also it was very enchanting to have two strangers, probably fully clothed, discover each other for the first time, and yet... and then have their passion take the better of them." "But the Indian adornment of a bride is so beautiful, the alta on her feet and on her hands, the henna, is so beautiful and so given to sensuality, I think, that it was not difficult to make these frames." "When I begin a film, sometimes a song or a melody stays with me and becomes the core of the film." "With The Namesake, it was Nitin Sawhney and Jayanta Bose's "Boatman's Song", which is the song that Ashima now sings to her husband to comfort him, and became sort a theme, part of a theme of this film." "Early in the making of this film, I knew the transitions would be a key part in how to propel the story across 30 years." "New York, my home for so long, and the bridges that linked New York and Calcutta was a very immediate motif for me because the bridges of... the Queensboro, the Long Island, the George Washington," "they have so many echoes of the great Howrah Bridge across the Ganges in Calcutta." "So we purposefully chose this location of the hospital from where Ashima could see the bridge that would, in her memory, take her to her family." "Tabu had never given birth, and I have, and I told her all it was was like a really bad period, and she said that it really made sense to her to finally do a delivery scene without the histrionics that most people do them with." "This image was inspired by Satyajit Ray, the portrait of Ray at his desk " "I used to know him - with his knees up and painting, and I wanted to recreate that in homage to him." "Here is our goddess again, just across the street." "We didn't even stage it." "It was just an image that was happening." "I wanted very much to keep the mix of Bengali and English in the dialogue, because that is how we live - we live between worlds and definitely with many languages." "Especially these intimate moments when you're with your husband or your wife and your child is born," "I can't imagine speaking in English." "Of course, this baby just broke our hearts." "She was so adorable, actually." "She was a girl, not a boy, but we used her as Gogol." "This room was chosen because of the bridge outside the window." "In every scene, I could locate them." "I wanted to use that, that idea of bridges being the things that connect us and the things that also take us away." "This was what it used to be like in the old days when we wrote letters and when we sent photographs." "They were public property back home, everyone took a part in them, as opposed to the aloneness and the chilliness of living by yourself in another country." "This scene was so critical in this film." "I thought it was the heart of the film." "And it was really originally designed for the end of the film, but at this point in the editing of the story, we needed some more clarity about the point where Ashima had adjusted to the fact that she was indeed going to stay," "and now, of course, they had a second child." "And so I reused the scene, notjust for the end of the film, but also put it here, but cut it from Ashima's point of view, so that you see that she has this child and that she has come to adjustment," "she's come to peace about being in the family here, in America." "And this scene was inspired in its look by Chris Marker's La Jetée - this great film that made me also become a filmmaker - a series of black-and-white still images." "So we used bleach bypass on that scene in the jetty, stripping it, desaturating of colour, and... where certain colours pop." "Similarly, with the bridges being the metaphor - bridges and trams and traffic - also, the trees" " I used nature very much to show us the changing of season, and to connect us from the Indian reality to the American one." "Jhumpa Lahiri, the author of the novel, is in this scene." "You see her at the left, there." "You'll see her in a moment." "This was..." "And that's Jhumpa's parents, her mother and her friend at the back." "I cast Jhumpa's parents and their whole extended Bengali family community in all these scenes, both in the New York part of it and in the Calcutta part of it." "And, indeed, it is her own daughter Noor who plays baby Sonia in the naming ceremony that is the next scene." "This is..." "There's Jhumpa, feeding the baby, and here's Noor, baby Sonia." "And that's Jhumpa's mum with Ashima, very much, for me, an homage that..." "I felt that Jhumpa had really channelled her mother in writing Ashima." "And that's her father, Jhumpa's dad." "And Jhumpa." "And that's Partha Chatterjee, our neighbour and great friend, who's a wonderful professor, who is also an actor, holding the baby." "I cast him as the uncle." "Soham Chatterjee played young Gogol." "He came from the New York area." "I thought he looked uncannily like Kal Penn, his older version." "With a president named Jimmy, there's nothing we can do." "As long as our kid is happy." "This is a brilliant line from the book that we restored quite late in the writing and it gets the biggest laugh." "This is the moment that every immigrant and every person who's left one home for another dreads - the phone call to tell you that someone you love has gone." "I love to use art in the movies." "This moving piece was Nalini Malani's - a great painter and stall artist in Bombay - and we asked to borrow that to have this whole idea of forewarning of such news to be used in a kind of inventive way." "Once again, we used bleach bypass here to make it darker and more foreboding." "We treated the stock like this, Fred and I, just to... on the basis of mood and atmosphere, not really on the basis of anything else." "So when there was a scene that required a kind of harshness, or a depth to it, we would use that process." "These are amazing panels, three-dimensional images of suitcases, made by my dear friends Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio, which hang in JFK." "And they are so much in the theme of the movie - this is a movie about movement and crossings, about suitcases and airports and bridges and the things that we as travellers, as immigrants, make into very important places in our lives." "This scene was originally in a van going to the airport, and I found this foyer, this long corridor of these amazing panels, and decided to move the scene here, because I really felt it echoed the mood of what we were trying to do here " "Ashima's melancholy, her being in mourning, her family's support of her." "And also Gogol, of course, being obsessed, like any kid is, with his name and seeing letters of his name everywhere." "I cast Kal Penn largely thanks to my 15-year-old son Zohran and his best friend, Sam Walker, also 16, for whom Kal is a bit of a god." "I had not heard of him in his film Harold  Kumar Go to White Castle, but it was often seen in our home." "And when I was introduced to his work, I thought twice, but then Kal wrote to me to say, "Please see me as Gogol."" ""I became an actor because of you, because when I was 13," "I saw Mississippi Masala in a New Jersey mall, and I just knew that people on screen could look like me."" "That was charming to receive and I asked him to come down." "And when he auditioned for Gogol, he had just such charm and appeal that he was authentically and deeply Gogol." "This is Sahira Nair, my own niece, my brother's daughter, who is so funny and so natural, and such a reluctant actor - she doesn't think of herself as one - and they had such a wonderful brother-sister vibe." "And, of course, these lines I've heard so often, both in my house and at me." "..I feel I have given birth to strangers." "Just because you're graduating does not mean you can behave like this, Gogol." "Again, we thought, Sooni and I, what could be the one scene in which we could show how American, how much of a gang... you know, how Gogol burns to be American, not really Indian-American at all." "And I thought, in homage to Harold  Kumar Go to White Castle, there should be some pot somewhere." "And, of course, mix it with the conversation about how funny his name is to him and to his mates." "And the beauty of Kal's physicality is that he could play the adolescent as well as the dashing young man with aplomb, which was a huge boon, because as a director when you're casting across 30 years," "how many people must you cast for the same character?" "It can get really confusing for an audience." "Kal saved me by being both the 15 year old and the 26 year old." "This is Geeta Dutt playing in the background." "'60s pop melodies from that time." "I love her voice, and no Indian gathering would be ever complete without music from our country." "This was an improvisation that Kal made - pretending to be stoned, saying that moving from London to New York is far." "And here is Zuleikha Robinson, who convinced me that she could also play the adolescent Moushumi." "We gave her a moustache and those horrible ruffles that my mother used to put me into when we would go out for parties when I was 15, and she was reading Bonjour Tristesse, which is just a little wink to a book I used to love when I was her age." "But I never thought I could get away with casting the same person in both 15 year old and 25 year old, but Zuleikha did it, again." "And Gargi Mukherjee was a fantastic amateur actress in a Bengali theatre group in New Jersey." "Sooni had originally written this part, Mira Mashi, for me, and I said, "No." "I have better things to do." "Gotta direct the movie."" "So Gargi got the part and she was just a fantastic auntie." "Living with a 15 year old," "I really know what they get up to, so this was inspired also by being a mum." "The air guitar." "Then we found this great Pearl Jam song from the '90s that is right for this period." "Again, all of it is constructed in one plane of action." "The camera is in the same place, and the whole drama plays out within that frame." "This has to be one of my favourite scenes in the film, because the performances of these two - father and son - just speak so many volumes, and everything came right." "That desire of your 15 year old to have you just get out of the room as soon as possible is something that every parent knows." "The patience and kindness of a father like Ashoke, who realises it's not the right time to tell his son this significant fact about his name, is a very beautiful thing, and this is what I wanted to pay homage to in this scene." "This is a song made in the '90s by the State of Bengal, a British-Asian group, that I loved, and it uses recordings from airlines announcements." "You don't hear them any more in India, and we used the song as the background to cut a montage of what it was like for Gogol and Sonia to be shipped to Calcutta every summer in the heat," "being totally American children." "For me, it was very important to use India, especially Calcutta, as a major character in The Namesake." "I love this city, and very much balanced..." "The story is such that I could keep interweaving Calcutta with America." "It was a chance to bring back the songs I love of the Baul singers." "The Baul singers are wandering minstrels in Bengal who sing usually Sufi songs, and they wander the streets, and in this scene you'll see later one of the great Baul singers, Lakhan Das, just wandering through as he would normally." "And this is, of course, how we all grew up - taking our sizes on sheets of paper to various other shoe shops to get shoes." "Jhumpa's writing that was very reminiscent." "This is Kanti, my own cook, who I cast in this." "And that's Sumitra, who is the young, wonderful woman who raised me." "These are just personal." "And here's our Baul singer, Lakhan Das." "For me, it was bringing, again, in one frame for Gogol to see something so different from his Calcutta window than he would ever see in New York." "People cutting coconuts, a cotton... a singerjust wandering through." "This was one line in the book, Gogol's grandmother sending the servant after him, but it was the chance to make a wonderful comic sequence that could last a few minutes." "And, of course, we had the good fortune to cast Kharaj Mukherjee, a great comic star in Bengal, as Chotu the servant to chase after Kal." "So it made for a very, very interesting and funny episode." "You'll see the hammer and sickle, the communist symbols, everywhere in Calcutta." "And, of course, I wanted to use trams so much - both..." "This was something that we really enjoyed doing - getting onto the trams, just a few of us, and shooting across Calcutta." "Images like this came from Satyajit Ray, looking at his films, Mahanagar, and the portraits of Calcutta at that time, which I very much wanted to convey in The Namesake." "This I saw as a complete love scene." "A love scene amongst two people who come from a place where it is not necessary to say "I love you."" "You don't have roses and diamonds and public proclaiming of love." "But, of course, the desire to hear it, to feel it, is so acute that Ashoke asks for it." "And the chemistry between these two fine actors is so beautiful that you just... it's just so beautiful to film them in such a scene." "The importance for me to show Ashima in Calcutta was that she was like a butterfly - she was so beautiful, she always joked and played, and she was completely in her own skin and comfortable, as opposed to her life in New York, where she sort of behaved," "and she was much calmer and much more sedate." "That was important for me, to show that contrast of this person who really bloomed in the city in which she grew up." "And Calcutta loves cinema and loves film directors as well, and the morning we were going to shoot in Howrah Station, they publicised that we were going to shoot, and so we had not only the mob of the actual station, what was going on, the passengers," "but also a mob to look at the mob." "But it was a very courteous mob and they let us do our work, but it was a mob scene, truly." "Every train ride, we wanted to emphasise the fear and the pressure and the tension that Ashoke would feel to memorise... because the memory of his fatal accident would always be on his mind." "This is one of Jay J's wonderful shots." "I always wanted to look at the Taj Mahal from notjust inside it, like this, but from outside to see this wonderful, amazing, breathtaking monument come out of an urban Indian city." "Kal had not seen the Taj in a long time, since he was a baby, so that sense of wonder in his eyes did not need to be directed." "This was the most amazing place to film, as you can imagine." "We had one day to film there, and one day to cull the wonder of this place." "Every time we came up with certain shots, it felt like they had been preordained, it had all been sorted out." "I mean, there is no more exquisite place than the Taj Mahal." "And Nitin Sawhney's lovely music really made it soar, and made the clarity of it come alive, the wonder on Gogol's face, the exquisite layering of these designs." "I saw this man use this beautiful broom while we were shooting and constructed this shotjust for that." "The detail of a husband holding his wife's hand and then separating again once the son comes in was key for me." "This shot, for instance, once we designed it, was about putting the family together in the Taj." "Here's Sonia." "Gogol will join her and then they will join their parents." "And it's about these depths, you know, the arches within arches within arches." "When I saw this, I thought, "This has been preordained."" "This is something that the wonderful artists who made the Taj Mahal knew exactly - that this is how it should look." "This was the last day of shooting, and I remember going with Kal and Sahira, my niece, back to Delhi just being filled with the wonder of it." "In this scene, I very much wanted to convey the anticlimactic feeling when you return from India and you come back to New York." "It's..." "Everything seems pale in comparison." "And, of course, to have your mailbox vandalised and to have your Ganguli name be called "Gangrene" is not much fun." "The whole discussion of Gogol's name was, of course, of great concern and matter to us in the story, and the idea of not also overdoing his obsession with his name." "So these few scenes about him wanting to change his name and the family dynamic as a result, were very key." "And somehow, because people smoked so commonly..." "Certainly in Calcutta, loads of people smoke, even now, but in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, smokers were so common, unlike today, and I wanted to make..." "Ashoke would definitely have smoked, and this probably is the last image of him smoking, because in the latter years he would have quit." "That is something we see less and less in the movies, and I wanted to definitely bring it back." "And now this is Gogol wanting to belong, wanting..." "He really believes he's home in Maxine's world in the Upper East Side life." "Glenne Headly, a great actress and a friend of mine, just agreed to do me a favour and play his girlfriend's mother Lydia." "And I was so blessed in finding Jacinda Barrett to play Maxine, because she has such intelligence and such empathy in her face, and can imbue the whole life of a fairly cosseted Upper East Sider with great aplomb," "even though she's so different." "We wanted to show her disappointment that it was not a ring." "She expected a ring." "And these are encounters that people who look like us face almost every day." "People don't believe they are being condescending, but it is so often that we get treated like specimens from another planet." "And then, of course, it became a play on his name" " Nick, Nikhil." "Reading Chekhov is a great book I love by Janet Malcolm, so I had to put it on top of the books here." "This is an homage to librarians, the wonderful people who live amongst books, for whom to get something before someone else checks it out is beautiful." "Maxine wearing Gogol's kurta, going to work as an architect." "This is him" " Gogol - working in the Diller and Scofidio offices." "There's my friend Ric Scofidio at the back." "These are old friends of mine, architects, who happily gave us their offices and to have Gogol work there." "This whole idea of dropping the parents off to airports, or dropping each other off, or receiving each other is very important to the Ganguli family - to many of our families." "Of course, as we grow away from the families, we just don't see the point of coming home to drop off our parents." "This is my friend Brooke Smith, who is a wonderful actor." "(steam locomotive puffs)" "(train whistle)" " (man) Hm." "What are you reading?" " Hm?" "The Overcoat, by Gogol." " Gogol?" " Uh-huh." "Never heard of him." "Syllabus?" "No." "(in Bengali) Just reading." "My grandfather has given me the book." " Seen much of this world?" " I went to Delhi once." "Every year I visit my grandfather in Jamshedpur." "No, no, no, no, no." "Not this world." "I mean England, America." "I was in England for two years." "It was like a dream." "Sparkling clean streets." "Nobody spitting on the road." " Have you ever thought of going abroad?" " No." "You should." "You are young." "You are free." "(in Bengali) I'll tell you one thing, you must go out and conquer the world." "You will never regret it." "My grandfather always says that is what books are for - to travel without moving an inch." "To each his own." "(shouting and screaming)" "(woman singing)" "(crowd chant in Bengali)" "(door opens)" " (in Bengali) Didi, why are you so late?" " Hey, Rini." "(in Bengali) Go, get ready quickly." "Someone is waiting for you." "Go." "(in Bengali) Learn, Rini." "(in Bengali) She loves to cook." "She knits very well." "(in Bengali) She knitted a cardigan in just a week." "(in Bengali) And kids are crazy about her." "(in Bengali) She's been learning classical music since childhood." "(in Bengali) Here she is." " (in Bengali) It's OK." " It's OK." "Uh..." "My son has been living abroad for the last two years." "He's in New York." "He's doing his PhD in the field of fibre optics." " Hm?" " Hm!" "Our daughter's best subject is English." "(in Bengali) Ashima, recite something for us." ""I wandered lonely as a cloud" "That floats on high o'er vales and hills," "When all at once I saw a crowd..."" ""A host, of golden daffodils"" "This was my father's favourite poem." "He used to read a lot, my father." "Oh!" "(in Bengali) You sit." "Sit, please." "My child, have you ever flown in a plane?" "Will you be able to go halfway across the world, live in a cold city with freezing winters?" "(in Bengali) Leave your house, far from your parents?" "(in Bengali) You won't get tired, will you?" " (in Bengali) He'll be with me, won't he?" " (man) Huh?" "(in Bengali) You're starting a new life." "(in Bengali) Take it to your heart." "(in Bengali) But don't forget us." "(in Bengali) It's a new life full ofjoy and happiness." " (in Bengali) Let me see." "Let me see." " No, no, no." "(wedding ceremony in Sanskrit)" "(dripping)" "(in Bengali) Where are you?" "It is a freezing winter day outside." "Bread." "Milk." "Apple." "Teem." "The rest we'll buy from the Indian shop after I come home." " (in Bengali) You're going out?" " (in Bengali) Yes." "Three weeks are up." "(in Bengali) Now, I have to go." "How are you feeling?" "It will take you several days to recover." "After all, you've just flown... halfway around the world." "(in Bengali) You go and rest." "I'll bring you some tea." "(in Bengali) Go." "It is the American way." "(in Bengali) Go." "Go, go." "Take a rest." " (in Bengali) I don't want to." " OK." "(in Bengali) Then sit down." "Sit." "(in Bengali) Here, we have 24-hour gas." "See." "(in Bengali) You just turn this and... gas." "Hot and cold water, too." "(in Bengali) There are two taps." "Red one and blue one." "Don't confuse between the two, you would get burned." "And you can drink water straight from the tap, no need to boil it." "The washing machine is just down the street." "I will show you when I come home." "Now..." "Once you are settled, I will take you to my department and introduce you to my professor here." "You won't believe it." "(in Bengali) In comparison to the professors here, even our street vendors dress well." "Just a minute." "No, no, no, no, no!" "(Ashima) I am very happy, and everything here is wonderful." "The plane journey was long but enjoyable, and I am feeling fine." "How is Rini?" "The house is very nice - big, with lots of windows." "Do you know, over here we get gas all day and all night?" "These have all shrunk." "I mean, who asked you to wash my clothes?" "(in Bengali) Couldn't you have waited?" "Here, one dollar means eight rupees." "We don't have so much money to buy..." "Where are you going?" "Ashima?" "Ashima?" "Open the door, Ashima." "I'm sorry, Ashima." "(in Bengali) It was my mistake." "Your intention was good but it was my mistake not to tell you." "Please, open the door." "(in Bengali) My Ashima." "My Ashima, dear Ashima." "Open the door, Ashima." "(in Bengali) Open the door." "Please?" "Hey, baba." "(in Bengali) Crazy girl." "(in Bengali) You won't smile?" "Huh?" "(in Bengali) No smile?" "No smile." "(in Bengali) One, two..." "No smile." "No smile." "I'm sorry." "Take one or three train, from here all the way to..." "Fulton Street." "You get out of the station, ask anybody:" "(in Bengali) "Where's the Fulton fish market?"" "(in Bengali) Uh, and if I get lost?" "(in Bengali) Why are you scared?" "Will I let you get lost?" "(cries out)" "Uh... (in Bengali) What's happening?" "Hm?" "(in Bengali) Come." "(in Bengali) Come close to me." "(Ashima sings quietly)" "(singing continues)" " Do you have a longer frock?" " What's that?" "I mean to here." "And hide those gorgeous legs?" "Here we go, let's get you under the covers so you needn't worry." "Time those contractions." "(boy) Rana?" "Hey, Rana!" "(whistles)" "(in Bengali) Everything's OK." "I checked." "(in Bengali) Eyes are black like jamuns." "(in Bengali) Black like hair." "(in Bengali) How are you?" "Everything was OK?" "Being rescued was the first miracle of my life." "You are the second." "Mrs Ganguli?" "I'm Mr Wilcox." "You have a name for the baby?" "One minute." "My husband is coming." " (in Bengali) He wants the baby's name." " Yes, the name." "We are waiting for my wife's grandmother to choose." "Will she be here soon?" "She is in India." "She is more than 85 years old." "But there is no hurry." "Some of my cousins were not named until they were six years old." "Until then they were called by their dak names." " Dak names?" " (Ashoke) Pet names." "We all have two names - one pet name, dak name, one good name, bhalo name." "In this country, a baby can't be released from the hospital without a birth certificate and a birth certificate requires a name." "How about..." "Baby Boy Ganguli?" "Baby Boy?" "Till the letter arrives." "Afterward, we can change it?" "Is that what we should do?" "I wouldn't - endless red tape." "Expensive, too." "Sleep on it." "Baby Boy Ganguli?" " (baby gurgles)" " Gogol..." "Gogolu?" "What do you say?" "We could call him Gogol." "Till the letter arrives." "Later we could change it on the birth certificate." "We would not be here but for Gogol's blessings." "Hold still, hold still." "Don't move." "One, two, three." "Say "cheese"." "(in Bengali) Look, look." "Gogol." "Uncle!" "(in Bengali) Uncle, uncle, uncle." " (in Bengali) It's just come?" " (in Bengali) Yes." " (in Bengali) Here he is." " (in Bengali) Oh, my, he's so sweet." "(in Bengali) Look, look." "Ashima's baby, Gogol." "(Ashima, in Bengali) I want to go home." "(in Bengali) I don't want to bring up Gogol alone over here." "Think of Gogol's future." "This is the land of opportunity, Ashima." "He can become whatever he wants, study whatever he desires." "You know, options are limitless." "Don't you want to give him that?" "Huh?" " Here you go." " Thanks." "You're welcome." "Come on." "Leave it, leave it." "Leave it." "Come, come." "(Ashima hums lullaby)" "Don't go so far that I cannot see you." "He's too little." "(Ashima hums lullaby)" "(man) Welcome to suburbia, Ashokda." "You have a beautiful house." "Congratulations." "(Ashoke) Everything is from a yard sale." "Ashima does not like it but I say, "What is wrong with it?"" "Even my chairman, who lives in a huge mansion, wears a trouser bought for fifty cents." "That is America, Ashoke." "Hey, kids, catch it." "(Ashima) Gogol?" "Where are you?" "Hey, Googly." "(in Bengali) Poor child." "He's probably feeling very left out because of his sister Sonia's naming ceremony." " Is he going to be called Gogol in school?" " No." "We have decided on a good name." "(woman) Finally." "What is it?" "Nikhil." "The all encompassing one." "Of course, they will it turn it into Nick." "Gogol?" "Hey, Gogol." "(in Bengali) He's here." "Missing your sister's ceremony, huh?" "I found him." "(Gogol) I don't like the baby." " Sonia, eat this." " Now will be the grand finale." "Ashima, what will your baby girl's future be?" "(in Bengali) We will see her future now." " (woman) She wants everything." " Ask her to pick up the pen." "Hey, Sonia, pick up the pen." " A female Tagore." " Put the dollar in her hand." "Pick up something, Sonu." "(man) American girl must be rich." "She's not picking anything." "So, how did you like your first day in big school?" " Great." " Oh." "And what is this?" ""Due to your son's preference, he will be known as Gogol in school."" ""Mrs Lapidas, Principal."" "Hm." "And what about your parents' preference?" "Hm?" "(Ashima) In this country, the children decide." "He wants to keep Gogol and not Nikhil as his good name." "Fine." "No big deal." "With a president named Jimmy, there's nothing we can do." "As long as our kid is happy." "(phone rings)" "So late?" "(phone rings)" "Hello." "Hello?" "(man) Hello, Ashokda?" "(in Bengali) Ashokda, can you hear me?" "(in Bengali) There's bad news, Ashokda." "(in Bengali) What?" "(in Bengali) I cannot give this news to Didi." "Don't worry, I will." "(Ashima) He told you something you're not telling me." "Yesterday evening your father was playing patience on his bed." "He died of a heart attack." "Ah!" "(in Bengali) What?" "What?" "Baba!" "(Ashima weeping)" "(in Bengali) Calm, Ashima." "(in Bengali) He didn't suffer much." " Come on." " Look, baba." "Gogol." " (in Bengali) Where?" " G-o-g-o-I." "(Ashoke) Very good." "Very good." "Come on, we'll miss the plane." "Come on, come on." " (in Bengali) Come." " (in Bengali) I don't want to go." "(in Bengali) I don't want to see them like that." "(in Bengali) That won't do." "(in Bengali) Think of your mother, think of your brother." "(in Bengali) You have to be strong for all of them." "(in Bengali) Let's go." "Not your ordinary guy, Nikolai Gogol." " Hey, Gogol, it's your namesake." " (laughter)" "Today he is respected as one of Russia's most brilliant writers, but in his own lifetime he was understood by no one, least of all himself." "One might say that he was an eccentric genius." " Yo, Gargle, way to go." " Shut up." "Mr Hanson, Mr Epstein, I will see you both after class." "Thank you." "Out." "Come on." "Out." "Thank you, gentlemen." "Now, Gogol was reputed to be a hypochondriac." "He was deeply paranoid, frustrated, friendless." "He never married and he fathered no children." "Towards the end of his life, he proceeded to commit slow suicide by starvation." " (class groans) - (girl) Eww!" "Did you guys know about him when you named me?" "That he was paranoid, suicidal, friendless, depressed?" "You forgot to mention that he was also a genius." "How could you guys name me after someone so strange?" "(in Bengali) Don't talk to your father like that." "And don't call us "guys"." "Sometimes when I listen to you both, I feel I have given birth to strangers." "Just because you're graduating does not mean you can behave like this, Gogol." "(Gogol) So I'm two inches away from her." "Her luscious lips part." "Just as I'm about to kiss her, she looks at me and she says:" ""What's your name?"" ""Gogol Ganguli."" " End of Seduction 101." " Plain Jane loves your name." " "Gogol, Gogol, I love you." - "Gogol!"" "Don't Bogart thatjoint." "You know, of all the freaking Russian writers in the universe... why did they have to choose the weirdest?" "What the hell's wrong with Leo or Anton?" "Shit!" "I just want to sit 'em down and be like:" ""Man, Gogol is your favourite author, not mine."" " Shit!" " What?" "I got that thing." "Oh, shit." " Hey, where you going?" " (Gogol) See ya!" "Goodbye, Air India." "(Gogol) Whoo-hoo!" "(door closes)" " I'm sorry." " They have been here for two hours already." "Come." " This is our son, Gogol." " Sorry, I'm late." "Hey, Gogol." "Mr and Mrs Mazumdar, they've have just moved in to New York from London." "Wow." "That's far." " Hey, Gogol." " Hey, Mira Masi." "I'll show you something." "And this is our daughter, Moushumi." " Both the same age also." " Oh." " They'll have a lot in common." " I'm sure." "Hi." "Hello." " What are you reading?" " Bonjour Tristesse." "In French." "Wanna go watch some TV?" "Tch!" "I detest American television." "Gogol, baba." "Come and sit next to your Mira Masi." "Come." "Come." "Why are your eyes so red?" "(tuts)" " Someone's envy has definitely got to you." " I'm fine." "(in Bengali) Ashima, get me some chillies." "(in Bengali) Nikhi, let me see." "Give, quickly." "Oh, Mira Masi." "I promise you there are no evil eyes in the United States of America." "That is what you think." "You be careful where you're going." "What is the name?" "Yale." "There will be plenty of girls in this Yale place who will want to trap you." "Have as much fun as you want but... (both) ..marry a Bengali." "(# "Once" by Pearl Jam)" "# I admit it" "# What's to say?" "# Yeah" "# I'll relive it" "# Without pain" "Gogol!" "Hey, baba." " How are you feeling now?" " I'm feeling a lot better." "Thank you." "Good." "Listen." "I have never given you any presents apart from what your mother buys, but for your graduation, I have something special." "# Oh, try and mimic" "# What's insane" "Thanks, baba." "I ordered this just for you from the bookstore." "Took four months to arrive." "# I got a back-street lover on the passenger street" "# I got my hand in my pocket, so determined, discreet" "# I pray" "# Once upon a time" "# I can control myself" "# Ooh, once upon a time..." "I hope you like it." "Very nice." "Thanks, baba." "Thanks again." "(turns music off)" "You know, I feel a special kinship with Gogol." "More than with any other writer." " Do you know why?" " Yes." "Gogol's your favourite author." "I know, baba." "No, apart from that." "He spent most of his adult life outside his homeland." " Like me." " Right." "But... there... there is another reason." "Hello?" "Hm?" "What's the other reason?" "(chuckles)" "No other reason." "(groans)" "OK, good night." "Good night, baba." "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." "One day you will understand." "(man on PA) Your attention, please." "Indian Airlines announces the departure of their flight IC408 to Calcutta." "(woman) On behalf of Indian Airlines and Captain Dasgupta, we hope you enjoy your flight." "(woman) Flight IC408." "(man in Bengali) Ah!" "They've come." "(chatting in Bengali)" "Take out the luggage." " Gogol." " Hi, Dadima." "(in Bengali) That's all." "And for our Rini..." "Here." "Earphones." "(in Bengali) Quickly, bring two pairs of chappals from Bata." "(in Bengali) Get them only from Bata." "(in Bengali) Tea for you." "(man sings)" "It's an umbrella." "(Ashoke) Open it, see." "Ah!" "Whole New York in Calcutta." " What's wrong with you?" " I want to go home." "Oh-ho!" "I have something that'll cheer you up." "Here." "The planner says that there are only 89 days left to go." "(moans)" "What is wrong with you?" "Are you hot?" "Have some ancient air conditioning." "Go away!" "(in Bengali) Give me one kilo of tomatoes." "Give me the good ones." "(in Bengali) See, that one there is not good." "You are going out?" " Jogging." " Jogging?" " Running, on the street." "I'm in training." " Training?" "Yep." "Don't worry, Dadima." "I'm not gonna go far." "(in Bengali) Oh, my God." "Chotu." "Chotu." "(in Bengali) Coming." "(in Bengali) Go with him." "He's on the road." "Stay close to him." "(in Bengali) I know, I know." "I'm going." "Oh, good morning." "Gogol!" "(in Bengali) Gogol, babu!" "Move, move." "Gogol!" "(in Bengali) Gogol, babu!" "I'm a fat man." "Stop." "Stop." "Stop." "(in Bengali) Your grandmother told me to go with you." "Babu follow Chotu." "No..." "Chotu follow Babu." " They sent you to follow me?" " (in Bengali) Yes." "(in Bengali) My heart's beating fast." "Heart?" " Chotu die." " Don't die." "Want to go back?" "(Chotu mumbles agreement in Bengali)" "(Chotu sings in Bengali)" "There is something I always wanted to ask you but never had the courage." "All those years ago, why did you say yes to me?" "You were the best of the lot." "Huh?" "Better than the widower with four children, and the cartoonist with one arm." "I also liked your shoes." "Oh, OK, OK." "You want me to say, "I love you"?" "Like the Americans?" "(in Bengali) Yes." "(in Bengali) Yes." "Stop sulking." "You look really great in that outfit." "It suits you." "Shut up." "Why don't you get in, my American sahib?" "Sonia can sit on my lap." "No." "Because being pulled by another human being is feudal, and I don't want to be part of something like that because..." "Ma, stop." "It's embarrassing me." "Who can guess where we're going tomorrow?" " Another relative's house?" " No." " The Botanical Gardens for the 100th time." " To Agra." "To see the Taj Mahal." " Are you serious?" "You're not kidding?" " Really?" " That's awesome, Ma." " Oh, my God!" "(Ashima) It's a wonder of the world." " We should have taken a plane." " (in Bengali) Everything will be fine." "(in Bengali) What will be fine?" "(in Bengali) Baba, how far?" "It's right here." "(in Bengali) Let's go, let's go." "I've always wanted to come here with you." "Just imagine how much Shah Jahan must have loved Mumtaz to make this for her." "Other husbands also love their wives, Ashima." "Only we cannot afford to build Taj Mahal." "Guess what." " I think I'm gonna major in architecture." " What about engineering?" "Come on, baba." "Architecture has everything." "It's got engineering, drawing, aesthetics." "Our family Shah Jahan." "Look. "Gangrene."" "What the...?" " Can you believe this?" " I'll catch the racist punk who did that." " Don't be upset." " Frigging welcome home." "Just some kids having fun." "So, I've been thinking a lot about my name." ""Gogol" is fine on my high school diploma but can you imagine "Gogol" on a résumé or a credit card after that?" "What are you trying to say?" "I'd like to change my name back to my good name." "What is done is done." "Now "Gogol" has become your good name." "It's too complicated now." "You're too old." "And, anyway, you have only yourself to blame." "It's my fault because I was four years old?" "That's right, Gogol." "Anything is possible in America." "Do as you wish." "An excellent choice, sir." "I'm home." " Hi, Nick." " Hello." "Hi, Lydia." "How're you doing?" " Good." "Have you got it?" " Yep." "(Lydia gasps)" "Where's my girl?" "Where's my Master of Fine Arts?" " Congratulations." " Thank you, Daddy." "Thank you all so much for coming." "This means so much to me." "Drink." "Celebrate." "Beep beep." "Excuse me." "I'm sorry." "Cake." " I still can't believe it's over." " Hey." "Hi." " Nick..." " Open it." " Do you like it?" " Yeah, it's beautiful." "(Lydia) Hello." "I want you to meet the young Indian architect who has so captured Maxine's heart." "This is Pam Burton, a dear college friend, and this is Nikhil Ganguli." " How do you do?" " Maxine, look who's here." " It's very nice to meet you." " You as well." "Now, how old were you when you moved to America?" "I was actually born in New York." "I once had a girlfriend who went to India." "Came back thin as a rail." " I'm sure." " I was horribly envious of her." "I think your parents want you to marry a nice Indian girl." "I don't care what they want." "This is what I want." "Sally gave them to me before anybody else could check them out, huh?" "Ah!" "Reading Chekhov." "What perks I get from my wife, the librarian." "(car horn)" " (man) What are you, blind?" " (man #2) Today, huh?" "(car horn)" "(Ashoke in Bengali) Drive fast." "You have to learn to drive faster." " Don't talk to me." "I will have an accident." " (car horn)" "(Ashoke) If you keep on driving like this, you will have an accident." "(Gogol) Everything's fine, Mom." " Why are you calling me?" " Hey, hon." "(Ashima) Because you're not at your apartment." "You are never at your apartment, Gogol." "In the middle of the night I have called and you are not there." "I am, Ma." "I need my sleep." "I turn off the phone." " Gogol, are you there?" " Yeah, yeah." "I'm here." "I'm here." "I want you to come home next Saturday." "Then you can come with us to the airport the next day." "Baba is going to teach in Ohio for six months." "You remember?" "I remember." "But what's the big deal?" "He's only going to Cleveland." " Sonia's not coming home." " Sonia lives in California, Gogol." "I can't come home that weekend." "I'm going on a vacation with my girlfriend." "Her parents have a place in Oyster Bay." "Mom?" "(Ashima hangs up)" "Mind if we go see my parents on the way to Oyster Bay?" " You mean I'd finally get to meet them?" " Mm-hm." "I'd love to, baby." "Oh, that's too much." "Just reading." "My grandfather has given me the book." "I'll tell you one thing, you must go out and conquer the world." " Didi, why are you so late?" " Hey, Rini." "Go, get ready quickly." "Someone is waiting for you." "Go." "Learn, Rini." "She loves to cook." "She knits very well." "She knitted a cardigan in just a week." "And kids are crazy about her." "She's been learning classical music since childhood." "Here she is." " It's OK." " It's OK." "Ashima, recite something for us." "You sit." "Sit, please." "Leave your house, far from your parents?" "You won't get tired, will you?" "He'll be with me, won't he?" "You're starting a new life." "Take it to your heart." "But don't forget us." "It's a new life full ofjoy and happiness." " Let me see." "Let me see." " No, no, no." "Where are you?" " You're going out?" " Yes, I must go." "Three weeks are up." "Now, I have to go." "You go and rest." "I'll bring you some tea." "Go." "Go." " Take a rest." " I don't want to." "OK." "Then sit down." "Sit." "Here, we have 24-hour gas." "See." "You just turn this and... gas." "There are two taps." "In comparison to the professors here, even our street vendors dress well." "Couldn't you have waited till I got back?" "Here, one dollar means eight rupees." "It was my mistake." "My Ashima." "My Ashima, dear Ashima." "Open the door, Ashima." "Open the door." "Crazy girl." "You won't smile?" "No smile?" "No smile." "One, two..." "No smile." "No smile." ""Where's the Fulton fish market?"" "And if I get lost?" "Why are you scared?" "Will I let you get lost?" "What's happening?" "Come." "Come close to me." "Everything's OK." "I checked." "Eyes are black like jamuns." "Black like hair." "How are you?" "Everything was OK?" "He wants to know the baby's name." "Look, look." "Gogol." "Uncle." "Uncle, uncle, uncle." " It's just come?" " Yes." " Here he is." " Oh, my, he's so sweet." "Look, look." "Ashima's baby, Gogol." "I want to go home." "I don't want to bring up Gogol alone over here." "Poor child." "He's here." "We will see her future now." "Ashokda, can you hear me?" "There's bad news, Ashokda." "What?" "I cannot give this news to Didi." "What?" "What?" "Calm, Ashima." "He didn't suffer much." "Where?" "Come." "I don't want to go." "I don't want to see them like that." "That won't do." "Think of your mother, think of your brother." "You have to be strong for all of them." "Let's go." "Don't talk to your father like that." "Ashima, get me some chillies." "Nikhi, let me see." "Give, quickly." "They've come." "That's all." "And for our Rini..." "Quickly, bring two pairs of chappals from Bata." "Get them only from Bata." "Tea for you." "Give me one kilo of tomatoes." "Give me the good ones." "See, that one there is not good." "Oh, my God." "Chotu." "Chotu." "Coming." "Go with him." "He's on the road." "Stay close to him." "I know, I know." "I'm going." "Gogol, babu!" "Move, move." "Gogol!" "Gogol, babu!" "I'm a fat man." "Your grandmother told me to go with you." "Yes." "My heart's beating fast." "Yes." "Yes." "Don't worry." "Everything will be fine." "What will be fine?" "Baba, how far?" "Let's go, let's go." "Drive fast." "Again, she did me a favour by playing these scenes of Sally, Ashima's friend in the library." "She adds such a great honesty and depth to the film." "Of course, the whole idea of using your parents' first name, in Indian terms, would be considered very impolite and very familiar." "And that was the reason Ashima did a double take." "But Maxine, for all her wit and intelligence, you know, really looks at the world like the world that she knows." "She won't necessarily adjust to another world that Gogol has spelled out to her - a world where you don't touch, a world where you aren't physical with each other." "But Maxine is oblivious and doesn't think of it as impoliteness." "When I spent a day with Jhumpa Lahiri's parents, her mother showed me her father's paintings - these beautiful watercolours - and these are those paintings." "I asked their special permission if I could use these paintings as Ashima's father's paintings in The Namesake." "And so the film also includes these paintings." "The family's very happy about that because the grandfather loved movies and now his paintings will be seen by millions who watch this movie." "And here we go again, Maxine calling him Ashoke and kissing him." "Of course, the wonderful way Irrfan and Kal and all of them play it makes it so hilarious." "And, for me, that was lovely because just to have cross-cultural clash is not enough." "One has to have it full of whimsy and fun and, you know, miscommunications." "Even these khadi shirts - homespun shirts - that Ashoke wore were inspired from the photo albums that I saw in Jhumpa's family's home." "Her father would dress like this, and it's a very Bengali way of dressing as well." "And we brought all that and used it in the film." "This was, of course, a key scene in the film, where Ashoke tells his son the significance of the accident and naming him Gogol." "We originally filmed the accident to be shown completely in the beginning of the film, but then chose to reveal what happened with Ashoke and Gogol in this part of the film, the middle of the film, because I thought it would be important to have the audience and Gogol" "discover at the same time why he was given the name Gogol." "(Ashoke) I carried one book with me to read on the journey." " Gogol?" " Yes." ""The Overcoat"." "So on the train, late at night, a Mr Ghosh befriended me." "He kept trying to persuade me to leave India." "And I just wanted to get back to my book." "My grandfather always says that is what books are for- to travel without moving an inch." "And that's when it happened." "This was..." "The inside of the accident we created in a studio in Calcutta, and the outside was created in paddy fields an hour outside Calcutta, where we had amazing sculptors take..." "We rented three metal yards of scrap metal and constructed like this Frank Stella kind of sculpture of two trains colliding." "It took three weeks to make this." "When I went and saw a train accident in that area," "I noticed that there were white herons flying in amidst all the death that I saw." "We couldn't find herons, but we brought in white doves." "The idea of always juxtaposing life with death was a very important one for me in this film." "I remember asking Irrfan that when he says, "Every day since then has been a gift", there should be tears in his eyes, and he modulated his performance, of course, perfectly to have the tears spring to his eyes exactly at that moment." "The look of Irrfan as Ashoke was informed by Niranjan Ray, by the great matinée idols of Bengal, both in Ritwik Ghatak's Meghe Dhaka Tara, and also Soumitra Chatterjee in all the Apu trilogy, in the latter part of the Apu trilogy." "So I wanted very much that look." "Every day since then has been a gift, Gogol." "Of course, whenever you visit anyone in our family, we are never left to leave empty-handed." "Always half the meal will go with the guest." "And the whole etiquette of hospitality, of greeting a person at the door and departing with them right until the last vision of them, is something that is deeply Indian and we've always practised." "For me, that was a big part of that scene - to show the juxtaposition of the young, who leave without thinking, and the parents, who remain, forever looking." "This scene is the heart of the film for me." "The parents who look at each other over a cup of tea in the kitchen and just in their eyes, you see the history, the emotion, the care they have for each other." "I called it a love scene." "I remember my eyes being at the camera filming this shot of Irrfan, and when I took my eye off the eyepiece I just felt like I was singed by love." "He had such emotion in his eyes." "As did Tabu." "The understanding she has, the timing, the depth." "For me, this scene - and the film, actually - had to have this pace, this quieter pace." "The whole film for me had to be about quietude, and had to make us love Ashoke so much that when he leaves us so suddenly, that we feel the ache just as the way Ashima and Gogol do." "And this music cue that Nitin nailed was so absolutely exquisitely right for this." "This image was inspired by a photograph I saw that Garry Winogrand had made about arrivals and departures in airports." "Again, it's shot in one shot, and, again, I didn't want it to drip into sentimentality, but to actually have a sense of humour and whimsy, so that while he's lost in her, the other guy is just asking him to move on." "And so there is still no sentimentalism, but you feel the fact that he's lost in her." "And the contrast to come to this sterile, professorial, business apartment - a foreign place within a foreign place - was key." "I remember taking out most of the furniture in this apartment so that it would have that kind of melancholy and that spareness, the whiteness." "The physicality with which Tabu approaches everything is so beautiful." "Her body language speaks so much of the pain of not being able to reach your son on his birthday." "This is a quintessential image, I think, of immigrant life, and because the film is so much about shoes," "I wanted to keep continuing the image of the shoes, as you'll see later." "And these are amazing handmade cards." "Many Bengali women I still know will make their own cards." "I just love the handmade, and these are sort of Jamini Roy imitations, in a way, that Ashima makes." "For me, it was very important to show these things, these old habits, these old customs, really, that people keep doing." "It's such a beautiful way of expressing oneself." "I love hands." "I think of hands as a map of our lives, and for me it was important for Ashoke to put his hand on that glass, for us to almost see the lifeline in his hand." "It's just something I get off on." "I feel like hands are a portrait of the life that we have lived." "This was an unusual shot I just wanted to do to speak of how unusual... or what was going to come - a kind of harbinger of things to come, to sort of rattle the perfection of their universe." "This idea of keeping the phone in focus and Ashoke out of focus as he recedes from us was, of course, a metaphor for his death." "For me, Christmas and such holidays fill me with discomfort and alienation." "Even after many years here, I don't know what to do about Christmas." "The Ganguli family, as you see, celebrates Christmas to some extent." "Ashima learnt very early on that if she had a Christmas tree, her children would love it and her family would get together." "But for me, growing up in India, coming here when I was 19, 20," "Christmas lights - I don't know what to do with them." "So I had put in Christmas lights to heighten my own alienation, but to heighten Ashima's alienation when she emerges in the latter part of this scene." "Spelling our names has become such a habit." "It's something we do three times a day, if not five times a day, any immigrant in America, and, of course, I had to do that for Ashima." "Directly, of course, from Jhumpa's book." "Ashima Ganguli." "Ashoke Ganguli's wife." "Who I'm speaking to?" "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm the intern who first examined your husband." "I have been holding on for half an hour." "Is my husband still there or has he gone?" "He said he will phone me." "I'm very sorry, ma'am." "We've been trying to reach you." "The patient, your husband, Ashoke Ganguli, passed away at 5:35pm." "Hello?" "It is a mistake." "He was not there for an emergency." "Only for stomachache." "Your husband had a massive heart attack." "All attempts to revive him failed." "Is there anyone in the Cleveland area who can identify..." "What do you do when you get news like this?" "There is no energy for histrionics." "Irrationalism, really, or something, takes over." "Of course, I wanted to use the portrait of their wedding photograph." "Jhumpa had given us this wonderful detail of Ashima putting all the lights on in the house." "Her hair, for me, was reminiscent of Devi" "Sharmila Tagore in the Ray film Devi- where it's..." "I wanted that and I wanted to use this slow-mo, this ramping speeds of the camera, to heighten her emotion." "And then, of course, the idea of this garage." "It's such an American idea - the garage in which you have your whole life." "And, for me, to see a sari, to see Ashima in her sari in front of her life in the garage, to see even the pram that Gogol was carried into, the blankets, the cycles we've seen throughout this film," "this was something the designer did." "It was so beautiful." "And then this was the shot I always knew it would end with, with these absurd Christmas lights and this vast house in suburbia, and she screams and there's no one there." "This was to epitomise the isolation of a woman like Ashima in New York suburbia." "This frame, too, came out of my own personal life." "Sometimes I would look at an American family and feel so apart from them, and yet be a part of them." "This was why I framed this, of Kal, of Gogol's character being in the foreground, with the family in the background, and he gets this news that, you know, will pretty much change him forever." "This was also shot in bleach bypass." "This scene was really emotional for me to shoot." "This is an Indian tradition." "When you lose your husband, you remove your ornaments." "You remove the red in your hair." "You remove the jewellery." "And when I was directing her, Tabu, to do this scene," "I was weeping so much I couldn't say cut, because Tabu understands so beautifully the significance of what she is doing and it was so emotional." "And, of course, this scene is chilling and very difficult." "Irrfan had claustrophobia and for him to be actually in that morgue and then be rolled out was very difficult so we kept it as fast as possible." "When I lost my mother-in-law," "I remember going back to her hospital room, which looked like a typhoon had hit it - there were tubes and bandages everywhere." "Then I opened her cupboard and I saw the perfection of her hanging clothes and there her tiny Ferragamo shoes that I knew would not be worn again by her." "And that was the image that inspired these images." "A long time ago, I was thinking of a story of a husband and wife who live on different shifts - he works in the morning, she at night - and how each other crawl into the space that each other has left in their bed." "That was what inspired this." "I remember calling Jhumpa from the set and asking her:" ""What would Gogol say in Bengali, if he were to say anything at all?"" "And she said that perhaps he could say, "Kena?" - "Why?" "Why did you die?"" "This was an amazing and beautiful departure that Sooni Taraporevala did from the book." "In the book, Gogol does not shave his head." "He simply remembers his father shaving his head when his grandfather had died - this image." "But Sooni wrote this wonderful scene of Gogol shaving his own head and I wanted to add it in a barbershop with this hip-hop sound, because so often when you live between cultures, what you are doing for one reason is interpreted for something else by the other." "So it was an opportunity for us to speak of that and to really give a dramatic view of what Gogol had done, you know, to keep the tradition when his father had left." "The kind of wake-up call that he receives." "I remember when we were shooting this," "Tabu said, "I've got to sit down for this." "I can't be standing up." "I would have no energy."" "It was such a beautiful intuition she had, so she sat down." "(in Bengali) You didn't have to do this." "(in Bengali) I wanted to." "It was so important, this moment of Kal - of Gogol - speaking in Bengali for pretty much the only time." "In India, of course, the custom is to remove your shoes when you walk in, but even the carelessness with which Maxine tosses her shoes off is an indication of the way she lives, which is not necessarily to be totally mindful of where she is." "Of course, in our custom, for funerals we wear white, and Maxine does not know that." "Arjun Bhasin, our costume designer, had given Jacinda a wonderful, appropriate Western funeral dress, but it is so inappropriate in this context, especially when she removes her coat." "All of these were, of course, symbols of meaning in such a context." "Again, we go into bleach bypass - this kind of silvery quality - and have, again, the miscommunication - everyone thinking she's crying for Ashoke when actually she's crying for her own love affair which is over." "And then the Baul singing." "The Baul song comes through as if India washes over all of this." "The family is now in India, with the Howrah bridge behind, and there's ribbons of people crossing the bridge." "What I wanted to show here in India was that while rituals of death were carrying on, there were still children somersaulting in the water, there were still people crossing, there was still a boatman going on, speaking of the river of life in his song." "Life will carry on amidst death everywhere." "And again, this black-and-white quality was something very important." "I'm tired of people telling me how colourful my films are." "And this was an idea of really keeping it silvery, almost, but using the colour of the marigold to link us to the colour of the fall in New England when we cut back very soon." "That was the key - to use nature and to use bridges as the connecting glue between these two cities, between these two states of being." "That is Jhumpa's uncle Tushar there, at the back." "All of these men in this scene were Jhumpa's family." "We thought it was important that Gogol wear Ashoke's sweater, as we do when we lose people and we have pieces of them with us." "It is a real caress of them." "This is Ashoke's sweater on Gogol for the same reasons." "He's unable to let go." "He wants to be with his father." "He wants to be with his family." "It was important for all of us - Jhumpa, for Sooni, for me - that Ashima asks him to make up with Maxine." "It's not something that Ashima is against - that he's simply with an American and therefore it's not right." "Ashima knows that what works for her son's life is really of most importance." "But once Gogol is not into that idea of pursuing Maxine, of course, Moushumi Mazumdar comes along, which is the quintessential Indian parental discussion." "You know, meet such and such, meet so-and-so." "Poor thing." "Terrible, terrible tragedy." "She was supposed to have been married, but it was cancelled at the last minute." "The invitation cards were sent out, the hall was booked, even." "She's also in New York." "Alone, doing her PhD." "I told her parents, "Don't worry." "Gogol will call her."" " Hey, hey, Ma." " (Sonia laughs)" "Tabu is just so funny in this scene." "Of course, she knows exactly what's going on." "Watch, she plays it to the hilt." "What was lovely about this cast was they really felt like a family." "It was really imbued with a family dynamic and tenderness and fun." "And Tabu is that rare being, you know, who can play the dewdrop of a bride at 19, 20, and who can play the gravitas of a mother at a later age." "This is also one of my favourite scenes, when Gogol sees Moushumi for the first time and sees the transformation of the mustachioed adolescent to this feline, gorgeous creature played by, of course, Zuleikha Robinson." "And I conceived of this scene in a series of close-ups." "She fancies herself as a kind of Godard heroine - a French girl in some kind of New Wave movie - and I completely shot it in that way, seeing different details of her that would entrance and bewilder Gogol," "whether it be her neck or her fishnet stockings or her gorgeous lips." "For me, the film is very much the rhythm between laughter and sorrow." "And it was important to constantly counterpoint Gogol's growing up with Ashima's grief also because death has its own rhythm." "You never know when you will be afflicted by the memory of that who has left you." "And having known that, these scenes became that much more important." "There were scenes that we didn't have time and couldn't afford to do in New York, and this was a scene that actually we filmed in Calcutta." "We created a New York apartment in Chowringhee in the true manner of this movie - of being between worlds." "You can..." "You have much more..." "Money goes a longer way in India, and so we filmed a couple of interiors of New York in Calcutta, and this was one of them." "I remember we carried all the props from New York - all the salt, the pepper, the paintings and everything." "And had a Rothkoesque painting made for that bedspread in Calcutta." "I thought the idea of them coming out in a rotating glass elevator would be deliciously absurd, hence this elevator." "For me, it was really important for Ashima to remember her own marriage when her son gets married here in New York." "These scenes were created very much for that idea of her memory." "I used to call these girls "the chickadees"." "I gave them this name while we were filming." "These chickadees had to constantly laugh and smile through this wedding." "Here's her memory." "Again, shot in bleach bypass - a different look from the actual scene you saw in the present." "But also a way of seeing how amazingly Ashima has aged, from when she was this bride to now." "And the shoes that brought her all the way to America, that changed her whole life." "Here are the chickadees doing their thing, and Gogol completely entranced by the beauty of his extraordinary bride." "Zuleikha for me was a mix of Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi, two great Indian heroines from the '70s." "I was thrilled when Cindy Tolan, our casting director, found her." "Here's Supriya Devi coming to bless us again." "This is a goofy scene that I invented." "I didn't know it would work, but it worked quite charmingly so I've left it in the film." "It was really inspired by this popular song called "The Macarena"." "Ten years ago, I remember my four year old dancing "The Macarena" in Delhi and I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a kind of ditzy dance like in 'The Macarena' so people could do a Namesake dance?"" "And I had my friend in New York, a wonderful choreographer called Neta Pulvermacher, make this goofy dance sort of based lightly on "The Macarena", but also on four Bollywood numbers." "And then this song, "Ye Mera Divanapan Hai", was introduced to me by my other friend Amita Nangia, who showed me the song." "It's a Susheela Raman song of a remix of a Mukesh love song from the '70s." "And I figured Gogol and Moushumi..." "I mean, both Americans, really, who happen to be Indian, would have a knowledge of all these... what one's supposed to do - sing and dance in a regular Bollywood movie - and they would make fun of it." "Anyway, I filmed this scene actually in Calcutta." "We brought that amazing wallpaper of roses to Calcutta with us and it's filmed in my hotel room." "It turned out to be full of whimsy and fun and sex appeal and charm, and so it stayed in the film." "These are the streets on which I have spent many a year" " SoHo in New York - so these are very familiar haunts." "And, of course, I had to send a little love song to the great water towers of New York." "This is a scene, you know, of a fancy loft full of bad art and pretentious people who make Gogol feel like he's from another planet." "And this scene, for us, we really wanted to use an Indian..." "Mostly, taxi drivers in New York are Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi and that kind of Indian languages on the CB radio is very much a part of living in New York." "And here are some other Indians in the back seat, having their marriage go sour on them." "It was so difficult to shoot this scene in New York because everyone recognised Kal and big bands of young boys would go by saying, "Kumar!" "Kumar!"" "And we would just get, you know, screwed on sound." "Again, this is another scene made in one shot - sort of the style of this whole film - in their one-room apartment in Thompson Street." "We wanted to make very clear that Zuleikha's character, Moushumi, is also someone who feels trapped and confused by the fact that her profession is going in one direction and her marriage is taking her in another direction." "It's not so simple." "This is a scene that Sooni so beautifully brought and realised - not from the book here - of Sally's character, you know, speaking of Joseph Campbell, and the whole idea of "What is bliss?", and following your bliss." "Not thrilled." "Just deeply happy." "It's called "following your bliss"." "You wanna try it?" "Well?" "Ashima, are you all right?" "I've been thinking of leaving." "Is that very selfish of me?" "You know, I thought now that the children are both well settled." "For me, this film was really an opportunity, because it's spread over 30 years, to bring together music that was also from the Bauls of Bengal right to the pulse of the sort of desi cool - the music that is now in New York." "And Nitin Sawhney was so superb in giving me that." "I loved Jhumpa's character of Moushumi - the badass, the unpredictable, mercurial Indian girl who doesn't do what is expected of her." "I love that kind of character." "Again, in one frame in this scene you have to contrast both the chic, cool, fusion-Chinese fashion of the Moushumi character, alongside Ashima, who is pretty settled." "She knows who she is." "And the contrast between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, and yet the companionship - the fact that Joseph Campbell can link them - was something that I loved." "This was an idea - to put a French song as her dial tone - by Dave Paterson, our sound designer, who thought it would be a little joke." "But, of course, the look here that Ashima gives Zuleikha" " Moushumi - she knows exactly something is up." "The intuition between these two women, the intuitive relationship, was something I wanted to indicate quite clearly." "Our makeup artist, Kelly, was so amazing in this film." "Such great artists." "I did not want any latex horror show." "I wanted the ageing to be really subtle and done from within." "And it was really the greatness of our actors, Ashima and Ashoke" " Tabu and Irrfan - who both internalised the ageing and took the ageing on their faces with such beauty." "This is all done in" "Diller and Scofidio's offices." "We used old models that they had not used as Gogol's models." "I wanted here Moushumi to be in a kind of stupor, the sort of swoon of having an affair, where she's really in that mood and quite oblivious to what her reality is." "And the desire when you're in love with someone to say their name, and so she unwittingly says Pierre's name." "But the Pyrenees are so beautiful." "Pierre says it's possibly..." "Who's Pierre?" "Are you having an affair?" "Are you?" "Who is he?" "Someone I've known a long time." "Why?" "I saw myself becoming my mother." "I saw myself stuck." "Maybe it's not enough that we're both Bengali." "That's the key." ""lt's not enough that we are both Bengali."" ""lt's not enough that we come from the same places." This is..." "This is why the story is so beautiful for me, is that it's not what we expect." "And that wonderful, touching, feeling environment of your parents' universe." "See?" "The mothers know before anyone else does." "She knows the moment he walks in that something is wrong, and that's why I didn't have to even cut to the front of her face." "The back was enough." "And this is this wonderful song that Partha Chatterjee brought to us." "It's a lovely mishmash song of Bengali and English, and this is the kind of play on words and language that we love to do." "And so I just said, "Please, Partha, sing this song."" "And everyone got completely and correctly into the mood." "This is a portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the great freedom fighter and the great Bengali leader who disappeared suddenly." "Some people still believe he's alive." "He fought for the freedom of our country." "So it was important for me to have these details that really located Gogol in this universe." "And this was, again, another memory of the same moment, shot on a different stock to make us remember Ashoke and Dostoevsky's line." "I believe it was Dostoevsky who said that we all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." "That is my handwriting." "And that seemed to be the perfect way to cut into this scene - from Gogol's eyes - of the memory of him and his father where there was nowhere left to go." "We've seen this scene earlier from Ashima's point of view, and this time it's from Ashoke's point of view." "This scene was shot on the first day of shooting." "In the morning, we had the snowfall and her pulling the laundry across the snow and everything, and then we ran across to New Jersey to Rockaway Beach where it was not snowing, but fortunately not sunny because I really wanted this to be an overcast scene." "We used smoke and the overcast to give it that silvery quality of almost a black-and-white film." "And to connect this always with Ashima's singing voice - the idea that her singing voice would bring her back to a place where she could live and celebrate her life." "And that was the segue into Calcutta." "As, of course, the bridges were also a segue between the two countries." "In Tabu's performance of this speech, there was not a dry eye, genuinely, on the set." "She does her work with such a lack of vanity, with such beauty and such truth that it's bound to touch us." "And it was really..." "This was a little memory from Ray's film which I wanted to put in there just as a subliminal cut to remind us of the romance, of the dewdrop quality of these two young lovers compared to what life has meted out to them now." "But to always keep that idea of youth and now being present in both." "Similarly, Ashoke in the airport, which was one of his most affecting moments, and was, in retrospect, the last time she saw him alive." "The ending was a great challenge for us, to combine layers of buoyancy, to give us this whole sense of Gogol's own buoyancy and desire to see the world - to pack a pillow and blanket to see the world " "which was the message I wanted to give to the audience." "But the way it came together " "Allyson Johnson, my wonderful editor, we both had to..." "We did many cuts to make these two worlds come together - the goddess helped us a lot - to bring the whole world in his eyes at this moment." "Then keeping him on a train that would take him into another train - the train of his father - which would lead him into his mother's voice." "And this is, of course, my own personal fantasy." "When I am 50, I want to be singing classical music on the rooftop of a Calcutta roof by the Ganges, hence this image of Ashima." "You know, her coming back to her voice - it was something I wanted to use as shorthand, like I said in the beginning, of her understanding herself again, of her using her talent, of her using her mode of expression to keep on singing, to keep on living," "to not be defeated, and to..." "Basically, like her son, in her own way, she would too pack a pillow and blanket and see the world." "I'm back." "You know, he's willing to go on vacation with someone else's parents, but not to see his own." "Forget it, this is America." "Soon as the kids turn 16, they're gone." "I lost the company of my parents when I first came to this country." "Now I feel I'm losing my family all over again." "Besides, what kind of a girl is called Max, huh?" "Maybe it's a boy." "There are things you should know." "No kissing, no holding hands." "My parents are not Lydia and Gerald." "I've never seen them touch." " A little depressing." " A little bit." "You really want to forget all this stuff." "What?" "Why're you getting truffles?" " They won't like them, will they?" " No." "Come on, Nick, everyone loves truffles." "(Gogol) Ma, we're here." "Ma." "Hi." "Ma, this is Maxine." "Max, this is my mother." "Hello, Ashima." "It's so nice to finally meet you." "Hm." " These are for you and Ashoke." " Oh." "There was no need." "Thank you." "Please come in." " Come." " Thank you." "Please sit." "I will get drinks." " It's nice." "This is where you grew up?" " Yeah." "Nikhil's father is upstairs with the man from the alarm company." " Why are we getting a security system?" " It was your father's idea." "Now that I will be on my own." "You know, even in good areas like this, these days there are crimes." "Ashima, I've been admiring what you're wearing." " Is this a kantha?" " Oh, yes." "I grew up with fabrics." "My mother curates textiles at the Met." " The Met?" " The Metropolitan Museum of Art." "Remember?" "I took you there." "It's the museum with all the steps and the Egyptian temple." "I remember." "My father was also an artist." "That painting you're seeing there?" "That is his painting." "Ah, it's nice." "So it will be installed tomorrow, all right?" " I'll give you a receipt." " It's really lovely." "Thank you, Mr Robbins." " (Gogol) Hey, baba." " Hey." "This is Maxine." "Max, this is my father." " Hello." " Hello, Ashoke." " How are you?" " Fine." "Fine." "This is the best Indian food I've ever tasted." "Nikhil's mother has been cooking for the past two days." "It's better than this boy here makes." "(Ashoke) Oh..." "I forgot the ice cream." "Nikhil, come with me to Briar's, will you?" " Sure." " I'll come with you." "Why don't you stay and keep Nikhil's mother company?" "We'll be back in no time." "Yes?" "OK." "(Ashoke) I wanted to tell you something before I leave for my semester in Ohio." "It is about your name." " My name?" " Gogol." "There is a reason for it, you know." "I know." "Gogol's your favourite author." "I remember." "(Ashoke) It is more than that." "It was... 1974, when I was a student in Calcutta." "Every year I would take the train to visit my grandfather in Jamshedpur." "I carried one book with me to read on the journey." " Gogol?" " Yes." "The Overcoat." "So on the train, late at night, a Mr Ghosh befriended me." "He kept trying to persuade me to leave India." "And I just wanted to get back to my book." "My grandfather always says that is what books are for - to travel without moving an inch." "And that's when it happened." "(shouting and screaming)" "(man in Hindi) There's no life here." "Let's go." "(in Bengali) No, wait." "That man, he's alive." "The book." "He's moving." "(Ashoke) I kept hearing Ghosh's voice in my head." "(Ghosh) Pack a pillow and blanket." "See the world." "You will never regret it." "That is how I came to America and you got your name." "Come, Maxine will be waiting for you." "Baba, is that what you think of when you think of me?" "Do I remind you of that night?" "Not at all." "You remind me of everything that followed." "Every day since then has been a gift, Gogol." " Samosas for the journey." " Thank you." "Thank you so much." " It was lovely to meet you." " Bye, Ma." "Same here." "Remember to check in on your mother now and again." " OK, baba." " Call to let us know that you've arrived safely." " I will." " Drive safely, Gogol." " What did your dad just call you?" " I'll explain later." "(# "Karate" by Kennedy)" "(Max) I would never have guessed that your parents are so different." "# I don't need no 9-mil Glock" "# These hands are deadly guns" "# From smokin', drinkin', being a thug" "# I sip Hynotyq from a coffee mug" "# I keep a healthy state of mind" "# I only drink and drive at night" " Ah!" "We're here." " This is beautiful." " You like?" " Yeah." "It's perfect New England Victorian." "Thus spake my architect." " We got truffles." " Hey, Gerald." "Hey, Lydia." " (Max) Hey!" "Hi." "Hi!" " (Gerald) Hi, Nick." "(Max) This is my absolute favourite place on earth." "I can map my life here." "You know, I envy you this place." "My parents never felt the need to be so far away from things." " Where did you guys go?" " On the road." "In rented vans we would travel with Bengali families to see other Bengali families, inevitably getting lost." "Dad's mulling over AAA maps on the side of the road." "When it was time to eat, we would pull over at some rest stop and pull out an Indian meal from a bunch of tiffins, when all I really wanted was a McDonald's." "It was kind of fun, though, if you didn't know anything else." "Well, you're here now." "So Ms Maxine, MFA, what's it gonna be - the museum job or the book on Mantegna?" "I don't wanna think about it right now." "I wanna be free." "He never called." "I'm sure they're fine." "It is you I am worried about." "You know, being alone, for the first time." "No big deal." "As the children always say to me." "It is easy for them, Ashima." "They grew up here." "You will be alone too." "How will you manage?" "But I will see you every third weekend." "I wish you would change your mind and come with me." "Hm?" "(in Bengali) Leave it." "(woman) That was Ratliff?" "I do have a number for a G Ratliff in Oyster Bay, but I'm afraid it's unlisted." "Happy birthday, Gogol." "Ah!" " Happy birthday, Nick." " Thank you." " (Max) Make a wish." " (cheering)" "(Gogol) Thanks, you guys." "Very nice." "(phone rings)" " Hello?" " (Ashoke) Hello, Ashima." "(in Bengali) I was just thinking of you." "(in Bengali) OK, listen." "That thing that the children gave..." "Ashima, I am in Cleveland General Hospital." "(in Bengali) Why?" "What happened?" "I don't know." "My stomach's been bothering me since morning." "I was invited by some Bengali students for dinner..." "Then take an Alka-Seltzer." "I did." "It didn't help." "I came to the emergency room because all the doctors' offices are closed today." "Who drove you there?" "No one." "I am here on my own." "(in Bengali) Really, it's not so bad." "I wish I had come with you." "I was also so selfish, only thinking about myself." "Ashima." "Don't worry." "It's nothing. (chuckles)" "OK." "What does the doctor say?" "I'm waiting to see him." "There's a long line." "Very long line." "And don't worry." "I am feeling better already." " Huh?" " All right." "And I'll call you when I get home." "OK." "(hums song)" "(phone dials)" "(answerphone) This is Professor Ganguli." "Kindly leave a message." "(tone)" "Yes." "G for green." "A for apple." "N for Nancy." "G for God." "U for umbrella." "L for letter." "I for India." "I have already spelt my name five times." "(woman) I'm just gonna have to put you on hold, ma'am." "(woman #2) Sorry for the wait." "To whom am I speaking?" "Ashima Ganguli." "Ashoke Ganguli's wife." "Who I'm speaking to?" "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm the intern who first examined your husband." "I have been holding on for half an hour." "Is my husband still there or has he gone?" "He said he will phone me." "I'm very sorry, ma'am." "We've been trying to reach you." "The patient, your husband, Ashoke Ganguli, passed away at 5:35pm." "Hello?" "It is a mistake." "He was not there for an emergency." "Only for stomachache." "Your husband had a massive heart attack." "All attempts to revive him failed." "Is there anyone in the Cleveland area who can identify..." "(screams)" " That's why the Blur Building's my favourite." " It's beautiful." " Hi." " Hi." " (Max) Jessie?" " (Gerald) Come here, Jessie." " Nick, your mother called for you twice." " Thanks, I'll give her a buzz in the morning." "Hello?" "Nick, it's your sister this time." "Hello." "Sonia?" "(Ashoke) I take 20 rounds every morning before going to work." "(weeps)" "I'm sorry, baba." "(# "The Chosen One" by The Elements, featuring Mykill Miers)" "# When I was young I thought that life was about muscle" "# But it's really all about surviving and struggle" "# On the block I learned life and death" "# Sometimes it's hard to breathe so I fight for breath" "# And where I'm from you don't know right from left" "# Too many obstacles, so I watched my step" "# Yeah, that's just the way I live" "Baba?" "# Cos I'm the chosen one The torch forever passed from old to young" "# I've been on the ground for years This life's about pain, ain't no time for tears" "# Yeah, man, I came from nothing" "# I kept on hustling and now I'm something" "# But the pain's..." "(Sonia) Ma." "Gogol." "(in Bengali) You didn't have to do this." "(in Bengali) I wanted to." "Excuse me, have you seen Nick Ganguli?" "Oh, he's over here." "Somewhere." "So tragic about Ashoke." "Him, going like that." "I'm so sorry." " Panditji namaste, is bhabhi OK?" " (in Bengali) Yes." " Hey." " How are you?" "Good." "Thanks for bringing my stuff." "(woman) Gogol." "(in Bengali) Get some oil from the kitchen." "Excuse me." "The ceremony is about to begin." "Do you want to sit?" "(Max) Thank you." "(man chants in Sanskrit)" "So when are you coming back to the city?" "I don't know." "They've given me a month." "More if I want." "I miss you." "I know how hard this must be for you." "But you guys can't stay with your mother forever." "You know that." "Listen," "I really, really, really, really, really want to come to India with you to scatter the ashes." "It's a family thing." "I thought we were family, Nick." "You are certainly part of mine." "I have so many regrets, Max." "You're bound to." "Listen, why don't we still go away for New Year's, like we planned?" "It might do you good to get away from all this." "I don't want to get away." "What do you want from me, Nick?" "I'm trying to be here for you, but it's like I don't even know you any more." "Max, this is not about you." "(in Bengali) Go carefully." "Maxine, we will all miss him, you know." "(man sings Bengali song)" "(boatman sings)" "(man chants in Sanskrit)" " (in Bengali) Your name?" " Gogol." " (in Bengali) Your father's name?" " Ashoke." "(man chants in Sanskrit)" " (in Bengali) Your name?" " Ashima." " (in Bengali) Your husband's name?" " Ashoke." "(boatman sings Bengali song)" "Gogol, baba." "Maybe we should let bygones be bygones now." "What do you mean?" "Make up with Maxine." "Ma, you never liked her, did you?" "That is not the point, Gogol." "The point is that now you should move on with your life." "By the time I was your age, I had already celebrated my tenth wedding anniversary." "This is America, Ma." "We'll have twins when we're 60." "Oh, Gogol, very funny." "Uh, do you remember Moushumi Mazumdar?" ""I detest American television."" "Don't be so rude." "You think your accents don't sound funny to other people?" "Poor thing." "Terrible, terrible tragedy." "She was supposed to have been married, but it was cancelled at the last minute." "The invitation cards were sent out, the hall was booked, even." "She's also in New York." "Alone, doing her PhD." "I told her parents, "Don't worry." "Gogol will call her."" " Hey, hey, Ma." " (Sonia laughs)" "You don't have time for one cup of tea, Gogol?" "Her parents came to baba's funeral." "This is the least we can do." "OK, time out." "Let's say that I take her out to tea, OK?" "Then what?" "What are we gonna talk about?" " She doesn't even speak." " Only reads." " Weird French stuff, Ma." " Bye, Ma." "Later, Gogol." "See you later." " This is her number." " Ma..." "Call her if you want." "Don't call her if you don't want." "OK, thank you." "(woman) Nikhil." "Yes." "As opposed to Gogol?" "Yes." " Excuse me." "Single malt, please." " OK." " I've never done this before." " What's that?" "Gone out on a blind date engineered by my mom." "It's not a blind date exactly." " No?" " No, we sort of know each other in a way." " Here you go." " I don't remember our ever talking, really." "Actually, neither do I." "Does your family still live in the same house I used to visit?" "Yeah." "I remember the kitchen." "It had these very blue cupboards." "Yeah, those are still there." "I was sorry to hear about your father." "How's your mother getting along?" "She's all right." "Sonia's been living with her, so that helps." "Why did you leave Paris?" "Wouldn't you rather study French literature in France?" "I moved here for love." "Surely you know about my prenuptial disaster?" "Not really." "Well, you ought to." "Every other Bengali living on the East Coast does." "So, should we make our mothers happy and see each other again?" "Maybe." " Give me a call." " OK." "I know why he went to Cleveland." "He was teaching me how to live alone." "(# "Riviera Rendezvous" by Ursula 1000)" "# Bonjour, monsieur" "# Bonjour, madame" "So of course my mother is appalled that I'm not cooking you Indian food." "You told her I was coming over?" "She called today." "What about you?" "Have you been giving your mother updates?" "Sort of." "Oh, God, I need to add more liquid." " You all right?" " God!" "Yeah." "Could you please help me with my glasses?" "Take them off and..." "# Comment allez-vous, monsieur?" "# Bien, merci Et vous-méme?" " God, did I really say that?" " (Gogol) You sure as hell did." "No wonder you never talked to me." "I tried." "You were the one who used to treat me like an untouchable." "Where'd you get so sexy?" " Paris." " Paris." "After years of convincing myself I'd never have a lover," "I began to have affairs." "How many?" " How many what?" " Lovers." "You don't wanna know." "But you must understand." "Without fire, this ceremony is invalid." "I'm sorry, sir." "I cannot allow you to light a fire anywhere within the hotel premises." "(Ashima) "I wandered lonely as a cloud" "That floats on high o'er vales and hills," "When all at once I saw a crowd" "A host, of golden daffodils"" "You're next, Sonia." "Cutie." "(man chants in Sanskrit)" "(# "Ye Mera Divanapan Hai" by Susheela Raman)" "Mm-mm-mm?" "(Moushumi giggles)" "(Gogol in Bengali) Leave me alone." "Leave me." "(in Bengali) This marriage cannot happen." "101 from the Bannerjee family." "OK." "That brings the total to 7,035." " Not bad, Mr Ganguli." " I'd say we made a killing, Mrs Ganguli." "Hold it, hold it." "Ms Mazumdar is the name." "We've already discussed this." "Yeah, but I thought, you know, both names?" "Do you know how many letters that is?" "Imagine spelling that over the phone." "I've begun to publish under my name." "No one would know me." "Come on, Nikhil." "What if somebody asked you to change your name?" "I already have, remember?" "Forget it." "I was just being silly, Ms Mazumdar." " It's our anniversary." " So we'll celebrate." "I wish we didn't have to go." "Tonight of all nights." " We promised." " No, no." "We didn't promise." "You promised." " Bought you a gift." "Have you bought mine?" " I'm not buying it." "I'm making it." "I'm designing a dream house for you, so you're just gonna have to wait." "So we're thinking "Prescott"." " Sorry." "Prescott?" "Why?" " It's a family name." "What does it mean?" "A name should mean something." "What does "Moushumi" mean?" "A damp southwesterly breeze." "Stop worrying." "If he doesn't like his name, he can always change it." "I'd never change my name." "It's my grandmother's." " Nikhil changed his." " Really?" " What do you mean, he changed his name?" " Nikhil, it wasn't the name he was born with." "What name were you born with?" "Gogol." "(laughter)" " As in The Overcoat?" " Yes." "Ah, I get it." "Nikolai Gogol." "Exactly." "What in the world made your parents choose that name?" "My father was a fan." "What I told you about my name was personal." "Nobody cares." "It's notjust some joke." "And for you to bring it up in front of these people..." "These people happen to be my friends." "You know, I had a life before I met you." "You can't wish away my past." "You know I can't read French." "It's an offer to teach, at the Sorbonne." "Don't worry." "I turned it down." "I'm going to be a good Bengali housewife and make samosas every Thursday from scratch." "It's so hard to know what to do sometimes." "I was looking at this Joseph Campbell book the other day, and he says when you feel lost, you should close your eyes and think of when you were most happy." "Not thrilled." "Just deeply happy." "It's called "following your bliss"." "You wanna try it?" "Well?" "Ashima, are you all right?" "I've been thinking of leaving." "Is that very selfish of me?" "You know, I thought now that the children are both well settled." "(man) Un jour, j'espére que tu tomberas sur ce livre, et que tu te souviendras de moi." "Ton Pierre." "You don't know how happy I am that both my children have found their life partners." "You don't mind that Ben's not Indian?" "Times have changed." "No, I don't mind." "He's a very good boy, you know." "And he makes Sonia very happy." "She's following her bliss." "You've been reading Joseph Campbell." "(# "Riviera Rendezvous" as ring tone)" "Ah, c'est toi." "Je cuisine des samosas avec ma belle-mére." "Et toi?" "A tout á I'heure." "Bisous." " Can't believe my sister's getting married." " You better believe it, Goggles." "(Ashima) I have something to say." "Gogol, I did not want to tell you on the phone." "I have decided to sell the house." "I am going to do what your father and I had always planned." "Six months in India and six months here, with all of you." "Then I can go and start my singing again in Calcutta." "That is if any guru wants a 45-year-old student." "Of course he will." "I want to be free." " Like your name." " (Gogol) What do you mean?" ""Ashima" means "without borders, limitless"." "(phone rings)" " Mo." " No Mo." "Your ma." "Hey, Ma, what's up?" " Gogol, there's a buyer for the house." " Are they meeting your price?" " Yes." " Then do it, Ma." "I have told them they will have to wait until after Christmas." " Both of you are coming?" " Of course." "It will be the last party at Pemberton Road." "I know." "I don't see it." " So, this year..." " Mm-hm?" "..they're renting a house in the Pyrenees for the summer, and I told them we mightjoin them." "Astrid and Donald for an entire summer?" "Can't." "But the Pyrenees are so beautiful." "Pierre says it's possibly..." "Who's Pierre?" "Are you having an affair?" "Are you?" "Who is he?" "Someone I've known a long time." "Why?" "I saw myself becoming my mother." "I saw myself stuck." "Maybe it's not enough that we're both Bengali." "That's not why I love you." "So, when are you giving us the good news?" "Just because your mother's going, don't forget us." "Yes." "You must come over." "You should not feel shy." " We're your family also and we're still here." " Thanks." "I am never gonna remember all these names." "It's all right." "You don't have to." "Just call everyone "auntie", you'll be fine." "Where's Moushumi?" "(man) Ashima, morals, morals." "(all talk at once)" "You are not far wrong if you think..." "And considering our evolutionary stage..." "About morals we care a hang..." "(singing from downstairs)" "(sings comic song)" "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." "One day you will understand." " Hey, Googly." " Hey, Ma." "And baba?" "Everything is OK?" "Between Moushumi and you, hm?" "Ma, Moushumi found someone else." "Some... some old boyfriend." "A French guy named Pierre." "For once somebody else's name bothered me more than my own." "It is all my fault." " I'm sorry, Gogol." " Ma..." "Ma, it has nothing to do with you." "We're different people." "We wanted different things." "I will not go back to India now." "I cannot go." "You have to go." "Listen to me." "You know, I know that I'm supposed to be devastated everybody's gone, but..." "I know this is gonna sound crazy, but for the first time in my life, I actually feel free." "Look." "Look what I found." "It's baba's graduation gift from high school." "See." "(Ashoke) For Gogol Ganguli." "The man who gave you his name from the man who gave you your name." "There are no accidents, Gogol." "Baba made you find it." "He is with us." "Don't go so far that I cannot see you." "He's too little." "Jump." "Jump." "(in Bengali) Are you listening?" "Oh, baba, the camera." "It is in the car." "All this way and no picture." "Huh?" "(in Bengali) What should we do?" "We just have to remember it, then." "Huh?" "Will you remember this day, Gogol?" "How long do I have to remember it?" "Remember it always." "Remember that you and I made the journey, and we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go." "(Ashima) For 25 years, I missed my life in India." "And now I will miss my life here, and all of you who became my family." "I will miss living with my daughter, and the surprising friendship we've found." "I will miss phoning my son at all times of day or night." "And I will miss this country, in which I had grown to know and love my husband." "And though his ashes are scattered in the Ganges, it is here in this house, in this town, amongst all of you, that he will continue to dwell in my heart." "(man) Hear, hear." " Long live Ashima." " Cheers." " Cheers." " Cheers." "Cheers." "Thank you." "(man) "After several minutes, blushing all over, he began reassuring them, quite simple-heartedly, that it was not a new overcoat at all."" ""That it was just so." "That it was an old overcoat."" ""Finally, one of the clerks, even some sort of assistant to the chief clerk, said:" "'So be it." "I'll throw a party instead of..."'" "(Ashoke) Pack a pillow and blanket." "Go, see the world." "You will never regret it, Gogol." "(woman singing)" "(# "The Same Song" by Susheela Raman)" "# How many roads have I wondered?" "# None and each my own" "# Behind me the bridges have crumbled" "# No question of return" "# Nowhere to go but the horizon" "# Where, then, will I call my home?" "# Nowhere to go but the horizon" "# Where, then, will I call my home?" "# How many roads have I wondered?" "# None and each my own" "# Behind me the bridges have crumbled" "# Where, then, will I call my home?" "# Where, then, will I call my home?" "# Where, then" "# Will I call" "# My home?" "(# "Falling" by Nitin Sawhney)" "# Someday" "# The wind will change and you will see me" "# Clearly" "# One day" "# But that's a million somedays from today" "# Lately" "# The sunshine makes a different shape" "# Around me" "# Lately" "# My music has a different sound" "# To show me" "# Oh, lately" "# I ask questions of the world" "# But no one's listening" "# Falling, falling" "# Falling" "# Or am I flying?" "# Flying, flying" "# Flying" "# Or am I falling?" "# Falling, falling" "# Falling, falling" "# Falling" "# Or am I flying?" "There's no life here." "Let's go." "No, wait." "That man, he's alive." "The book." "He's moving." "Leave it." "I was just thinking of you." "OK, listen." "That thing that the children gave..." "Why?" "What happened?" "Really, it's not so bad." "You didn't have to do this." "I wanted to." "Get some oil from the kitchen." "Go carefully." "Your name?" "Your father's name?" "Your name?" "Your husband's name?" "Leave me alone." "Leave me." "This marriage cannot happen." "Are you listening?" "What should we do?"