The Namesake-Week 6 Post A

Gogol's journey as an American born Bengali continues on with many cultural changes and differences. First of all, it is very prominent now that Gogol is an American child pushing his Bengali background away. First of all, Gogol finally has his "pet" name become official, and his parents don't want to press the issue with the school so they let it slide, but that isn't all that they let slide. A major cultural change that occurs is when Ashima and Ashoke decide to let Gogol celebrate the "American Holidays." When Easter rolls around they hide the eggs around the house for Gogol to find, when christmas comes Gogol receives heaps of presents, and when the 31st of October comes Gogol dresses up and goes trick-or-treating. It does not bother the Ganguli's as much to allow this, but when Gogol comes home from a field trip at the cemetery his mother is less than pleased to see that they traced the names on the grave. She tries to explain to him that the way they bury American's is much different than how they do in Calcutta. In calcutta the bodies are wrapped in sheets and flowers and then burned, but never buried. Gogol thinks a lot about this and is curious and imagines that when he dies there will be no engraved stone recognizing his life. Despite his mother telling him not to keep those pictures of the graves, he feels a special connection and hides them behind his dresser.  Ashoke and Ashima make some cultural changes bringing them closer to American culture, not necessarily farther form their Bengali culture, but just changes in general, mostly materialistic ones. Ashoke switches from his daily suit and tie attire and buys pre-made clothes that are more casual, and also begins to use ball point pens instead of his fountain pens. Although these are simple changes, they are still changes and count towards some of their change from Bengali to American culture.