The Namesake: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The year is 1968. Ashima Ganguli, nearly nine months pregnant, is preparing a makeshift version of a popular Indian snack, for which she has an insatiable craving. She uses onion, spices, Rice Krispies, and Planters peanuts, but cannot quite manage to recreate the taste she so misses. As she reaches for another onion, she begins to go into the very early stages of labor, and calls out for her husband, Ashoke, although according to her custom she does not use his first name.

Together they take a taxi to the hospital, where the nurses replace Ashima’s traditional sari with a hospital gown that she feels is too short. Her doctor informs them that the labor will take some time, and Ashoke leaves Ashima alone with the other women in the room. She hears one of the other women’s husbands saying that he loves his wife, and Ashima reflects that this kind of affection will never appear in her relationship to Ashoke. She wonders if she is the only Indian present in this hospital filled with American strangers, until a twitch from the baby inside her reminds her that she is not alone after all.

The watch on Ashima’s wrist, a wedding gift from her family, fills her with thoughts of home as she calculates on her fingers what time it is in India right now. If she were there, this baby would be born in the home, not a hospital. She pictures what each member of her family is doing at this hour, immersing herself in the memory of her house until a view of the Charles River outside jolts her back to her reality in America.

Throughout the day in the hospital, Ashima is reassured by Dr. Ashley and her nurse, Patty, that everything is expected to be normal. But to Ashima, nothing feels normal about raising a child in a strange country, without her family. She rereads a Bengali magazine containing an illustration by her father, and then drifts into her memories of him. She is then interrupted by Patty, who accompanies her on a brief walk. Ashima makes a grammatical mistake in telling Patty that she hopes her baby will have only “ten finger and ten toe,” and is embarrassed by Patty’s smiling reaction, especially since Ashima had been a student of English back in Calcutta.

Drifting back, again, to her memories of Calcutta, Ashima recalls the first time she met her husband Ashoke. The meeting had been arranged by their families, and as she stood outside the room listening to her parents sing her praises, Ashima gave in to a strange urge to slip her feet into the shoes that the visiting Ashoke had removed in the entryway, as per Bengali tradition—exotic, leather specimens from the U.S.A. Later, in the room with Ashoke and their two families, she is asked whether she can imagine living in snowy Boston, alone. “Won’t he be there?” she responds, pointing to Ashoke. They become betrothed.

Ashima continues to reminisce, recalling her elaborate wedding preparations with joy and describing her new life in America with Ashoke. She has learned about his special fondness for potatoes, his careful approach to clothing, and his loyalty to his family back in India, to whom he sends a portion of his paycheck. In the evenings, when he returns from work, Ashima tells him about her daily adventures in the strange world of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with its unblemished rice and pistachio ice cream.

Ashoke has returned to the hospital waiting room, having been warned that the baby could come at “any minute.” He reads the newspaper, reflecting on just how quickly the time has passed since his wife first noticed her pregnancy. He wipes his glasses with the handkerchief embroidered by his mother and begins pacing nervously with the other expectant fathers. Although they all have cigars or champagne to celebrate the announcement, Ashoke is empty-handed. He does not smoke or drink, and “it has never occurred to him to buy his wife flowers.”

Ashoke continues to read the paper as he walks, limping slightly. This habit is carried on from his childhood, when he read voraciously everywhere he went, immune to distractions. He especially enjoyed Russian authors, which his grandfather read aloud to him in English translations as a boy. One day, when Ashoke was 22, he set out on a train journey to visit his grandfather, who, now blind, had requested that Ashoke read to him. He promised that Ashoke could take his collection of antique books home with him afterward—a treasure Ashoke had long desired.

On the journey to his grandparents’ home in the North, Ashoke brings only one book—a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol that his grandfather had given him upon his graduation from high school. He reads his favorite story, The Overcoat, laughing at the strange names suggested at its main character’s christening. Another passenger in his coach, Ghosh, strikes up a conversation. He has just returned from Britain after two years because his wife was too homesick for India, and urges Ashoke to travel while he is still young and free. Ashoke replies that, with the aid of his books, he can travel anywhere.

The other passengers in his cabin go to sleep, but Ashoke stays up late into the night, reading and taking in the sounds of the train. Suddenly, the train derails, knocked off the track by what some later believe to have been deliberate sabotage, killing hundreds. The area where the accident occurred is so isolated that no rescuers arrived for over an hour. Ashoke is trapped beneath the wreckage and unable to call out. It is only when the fluttering pages of his book finally attract the attention of a rescuer that he is found, still clutching one page.

For the next year, Ashoke lay flat in bed, unable even to feed himself, listening to the sounds from the busy streets. When he was strong enough to avoid the nightmares that haunted his sleep, he read late at night, but he would no longer touch the novels of his childhood. Instead, he read his engineering texts, keeping up with schoolwork as best he could, remembering Ghosh’s command to travel. A year later he finished college and secretly applied to continue his studies abroad, only telling his heartbroken parents after he had been accepted on fellowship.

Although he has now left India, the memory of the train crash still haunts Ashoke at times. He feels lucky to have survived, and considers his life to be broken into three births—two in India, and one in America. He is grateful to his ancestors for this bounty, for his nearly newborn child, and to Gogol, the writer whose book saved his life. At this moment, Patty enters the room.