We all came out of Gogol’s overcoat!

Namesake (2006)

We all wear coats to hide what we wear inside. Sometimes we are ashamed of what we have underneath and need to cover it all. At other times, it is chilly outside. Occasionally, what we have beneath it is inappropriate. Shame, political incorrectness or social awkwardness are all put aside; the real person under it all is the real us.

The act of being someone else that we are not may come back to bite us. Additionally, wearing blinkers and staying adamant about what we have without being receptive to positive external input is self-defeating.

Life is a learning experience. We are all eternal students picking up wisdom as we go. Our final destination is one that amalgamates all the wealth, baggage and tradition that we carry inside. In short, we are what we are but should not forget where we came from, but at the same time, learn to adapt and adopt our new environment.

We have often heard of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, the famous Russian writer and his work surrounding human psychology and religion, mentioned in many classic movies. In this movie, the character is heard stating one of Dostoyevsky's famous sayings, 'We all came out of Gogol's overcoat'. Even though he meant that Nikholai Gogol had influenced later Russian writers, this phrase can be interpreted at different levels.

In Gogol's short story 'Overcoat', the protagonist, Akaky, a poor worker who is often teased by his co-workers for wearing a patched-up old coat. Embarrassed by this, Akaky saves up to buy a new overcoat. His co-workers rejoice by celebrating his purchase. Unfortunately, Akaky's joy is shortlived. He is mugged off his coat on his way back home in a poor neighbourhood.

That is the dilemma that most of us face in our daily lives. We are damned if we do and damned if we do not like Akaky, who is heckled for an old coat but robbed of an expensive one. In the same way, we do the best for our offspring giving the best that we can offer but expect to be as street-smart as the person who had survived the hard knocks of life. We pad their every fall but still expect them to be robust. We think the third world is not good enough for them to prosper but still expect them to have our ancestral values when they grow up immersed in their newfound motherland's cultures. The best they can do is to embrace the best of both worlds; the ancestral and sojourning homes.

Through the saga of an Indian professor who made the USA his home and his Indian wife plus their American-born children and Gogol's book, the screenwriters try to narrate the dilemma of NRIs. They are not quite American because of their names but yet feel alienated in India. They also cannot fit into what is perceived as Indian culture as is expected of them in the Indian community of the USA.

Sociologists have researched these children, whom they refer to as 'third-culture kids'. They discovered that after getting caught in cultures, though challenging, they become independent and confident and often benefit from their multicultural background.

An exciting presentation starring Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Kal Penn that makes you think. It will want you to find out more about Gogol and Russian literature.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Between a rock and a hard place!

The Householder (English, Made in India; 1963)

Ivory-Merchant Collaboration

This must be the greatest nightmare that many a goody two shoe Indian new husband must feel early in their matrimonial life. Two women demanding more attention than the other from the husband who is trying his best to be in everybody's good books.

Prem Sagar is a lowly paid lecturer in a private college. He is newly married to a girl whom he cannot stand. He is unhappy with his students whom he cannot control and his principal who refuses to give him a raise, or rather he cannot raise the courage to ask for one! He has a landlord who is not too busy or drunk to listen to his pleas to reduce the rent. And he does not like his new wife's cooking. In midst of all these uncertainties, his wife, Indu becomes pregnant.

A desperate Prem thought getting his mother to stay with him would reduce his burden. On the contrary, his mother becomes a domineering attention seeking female who likes to run down the inefficiencies of Indu and glorifies her role as a mother, wife and daughter in law in her younger days. Indu, after some time, packs her stuff and leaves for her parent's home.

A distraught Prem tries to understand the aim of life by discussing his plight with his colleague, his childhood friend and a new American friend. This American friend left his home in USA, and together with his other friends are mesmerised with India and what it has to offer. They are into yoga and to immerse themselves in Indian culture.

Prem find them not giving him the answer he is seeking for. 

By then, another friend introduces him to a swami (holy man) who knocked some sense into him when Prem wanted to renounce everything and go into religion full time. He was told that he had certain duties as a husband and a father before head on into religion.

By then, Indu had returned. Prem arranged with his sister to take his mother away in the pretext of using the mother's services for some ceremony. Prem's mother goes off happily thinking that she is so indispensable. 

Sanity prevails. Prem and Indu are happy together.

Through this movie, I came to know of an actress, Leela Naidu, who was Miss India in 1954 and was voted as the 10 most beautiful women for that year. She is of Indo-Franco-Swiss parentage and is the daughter of an Indian nuclear physicist who worked with Marie Curie. She is her mother's only surviving child of her mother's 7 pregnancies.

Nowhere people

Karma and other stories (Rishi Reddi 2007)

Picked up this book the other day, another writer with Indian roots. The author is not an Indian living in India writing about Indian stuff but rather she is an American with Indian roots who spent most of living times in the confused land of opportunity.
I guess from the contents of the books that many Indians who migrated to the land of plenty ended up being confused. Confused, that they are viewed upon as outsiders in the land that their intellectual eyes opened and also as outsiders in the land that their parents speak so highly of. Confused too, as they wonder what drove droves of its citizens from a country which had all, the civilization, the bond with nature, have analysed and have stories of good virtues, conduct, culture and governance. How come a culture so highly developed failed their subjects?
This book does not give all answers to the above. It only stimulates your mind and thinks. The answers for these lie in twilight zone that borders the intricate shades of  grey.
This book is written by a lawyer with inner burning desire to write a book since the age of 9. I guess she must have immersed herself in books and fantasy land after being a single child and the odd one out in the mid west of USA where she grew, among other places.
The collection of stories tells stories without being judgmental, neither hailing nor downplaying either cultures. It picks a time in the life of someone who had landed in US by choice or otherwise.
Justice Shiva Ram Murthy
A retired judge stays with his son in America. His usual hangout is with another middle aged Indian in a particular Indian restaurant. On the blessed day of Christmas, as their usual hangout was closed, they land up  in a Mexican restaurant. After being entertained by a rude young punk and served beef when they were vegetarian, our learned retired judge was contemplating taking the establishment to courts. The whole fiasco was settled amicably with a simple apology from the restaurant.
Lakshmi and the librarian
A mid 40s homemaker befriends a mysterious librarian who finds passion in his books. Lakshmi, the protagonist, fearing the roving eyes of fellow Indians, finally picks up courage to coax the librarian who was dealing with a personal dilemma.
The valididity of love
Two strong minded desi girls, 20 something, whose priorities are different from people of one generation before their time, have to deal with the question of marriage, morality and chastity.
Bangles
A widow comes to America to stay with her son. She cannot fit into the family dynamics. She try to inculcate her kind of upbringing of her grandchildren with disastrous outcomes.
Karma
Two brothers who use to live together part ways. One is a successful physician while the other move from job to job as he cannot fit into the system. Back in India, he is a professor but managed to obtain a Green Card with disastrous outcome.
His wife starts job as a packing lady in a grocer. On his way to the employment office, he is side tacked to help an injured migratory bird. He goes out to help more injured birds as he thinks it is his karma to help them after injuring a bird in his childhood.
Devadasi
A 16 year old Desi girl, American in her thinking, and an American boy as boyfriend to complement has only the ability to dance the Bharatnatyam as her link to her Indianess, cuts a deal with her parents to learn the dance from a Master in Hyderabad if she were to follow her parents for a wedding in India. It was a time of religious unrest and she is humbled by the kind gesture of a Moslem boy when she is caught in a crossfire. An interesting discovery for me... while mostly told that the temple dancers were labelled as being married to temple deities and had to quench the desires of the priests, here we are told that it is untrue. The dancers, actually were quite powerful, having direct communications with royalties and people of power. The disgruntled individuals, unable to achieve their agenda spread lies.
Lord Krishna
A familiar story of coming of age and grappling with your beliefs and being ridiculed by the ignorant majority. Here, a teenage Hindu boy, becomes the butt of joke in a predominantly ignorant Christian Bible belt society. He is ashamed of his heritage and is thinking changing his name to suit to the society.

A good light read to illustrate that it is not necessarily 'no place like home' but rather 'any place can be home' if you make it!