The Namesake summary

Chapter #2

 

The Ganduli’s baby was born at 5:05 in the morning; he is welcome for his parents, and visited for three Bengali friends. After three days of staying at the hospital is time to go home, but the Ganduli couple have a problem because they didn’t name their baby yet; since they are waiting for Ashima’s grandmother letter, which has the baby’s name which is a Bengali tradition where the elder of the family choose the child name . The hospital required the baby’s name for the birth certification, so Ashoke decided to call his son Gogol in honor a Nikolai Gogol who is the author of the story which he was reading when he had the train accident. In February, when Gogol is six months old, Ashoke and Ashima celebrated his annaprasan or rice ceremony where Gogol should choose between three plates, one with a clump of soil to predict if he will be a landowner, other with ballpoint pen to predict if he will get a scholarship and the last with money to predict if he will a businessman, but Gogol doesn’t choose anything. In August, the Ganduli are preparing to visit their families, so Ashima spends time buying gifts, which she lost in the train. Fortunately, in the following days she could recover everything, and this miracle causes Ashima to feel connected to Cambridge. One night, they received a call from Calcutta with bad news; Ashima’s father suffered a heart attack and died; consequently, they decided to travel to Calcutta six weeks before what they planned.