American-born Gogol, the son of Indian immigrants, wants to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers, despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways.

The Namesake, adapted by Sooni Taraporevala from a book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, is about the hopes, disappointments, pains and consolations of life over some 40 years as experienced by Ashima a Bengali girl who marries an Indian scientist Ashoke, settles in America and has two children.