He begins to date a girl named Ruth, but they grow apart while she is studying abroad at Oxford. Gogol goes to Yale and introduces himself as Nikhil however, it takes a while before he really feels like Nikhil. The summer before he leaves for college at Yale, Gogol goes to probate court and legally changes his name to Nikhil. Lawson knows about the Russian author Gogol and assigns the class to read one of his short stories, " The Overcoat." Gogol begins his junior year of high school in the fall, taking English with Mr. The next year, the Gangulis decide to go to Calcutta for eight months while Ashoke is up for sabbatical at the university. Gogol stashes the book away when his father leaves. Ashoke begins to tell Gogol about the train accident that made him appreciate the author Gogol so much, but stops because he realizes Gogol cannot yet understand. Gogol is more interested in listening to the Beatles than looking at the book, and he is unable to appreciate it. On Gogol's fourteenth birthday, his father comes into his room and gives him his birthday present: The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. They learn about these deaths by phone call. In the next years, Ashoke finds out about the deaths of both his parents and Ashima finds out about the death of her mother. Ashima gives birth to Gogol's little sister, Sonia, in May. Lapidus, that she should call Gogol by his formal name, "Nikhil." But she overhears them referring to him as "Gogol" and asks him what he would like to be called. On the first day of Gogol's kindergarten, his parents tell the principal, Mrs. The new house is on Pemberton Road, and there are no Bengali neighbors. After two years in university-subsidized housing, Ashima and Ashoke decide to buy a home.
Ashima is extremely upset and they decide to go to Calcutta six weeks earlier than they had planned for the funeral.īy 1971, the Gangulis have moved from Harvard Square to a university town outside Boston. Ashima's brother Rana calls with the bad news that her father has suffered a heart attack and died. Six months later, the Gangulis are planning a visit to India.
Ashima and Ashoke hold a rice ceremony for Gogol when he is six months old. Ashoke chooses Gogol, the name of the author whose stories he was reading when the train crashed years before. However, it is time to leave the hospital and the letter has not arrived, so they decide to make up a pet name that will be used until they can officially name their baby based on his grandmother's wishes. It is the Bengali tradition to have a respected elder choose the name of a child. Ashima and Ashoke want to wait to name him until a letter arrives from Ashima's grandmother with two name options: one for a boy and one for a girl. Rescue workers found Ashoke because of the book page he clutched in his hand. On the train, he had been reading a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol, a Russian author, when the locomotive engine and seven bogies derailed, causing Ashoke's car to be flung into a nearby field. In the waiting room of the hospital, Ashoke remembers how in 1961, as he was taking the train from Calcutta to Jamshedpur to visit his grandfather and collect the books he was to inherit from him, there was an accident and he had nearly died. Her husband, Ashoke, accompanies her to the hospital in a taxi. The year is 1968, and Ashima Ganguli, a Bengali woman who has recently moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her new husband, is about to give birth.
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