The Namesake - A Musical reflection

TISB Grade 12 student Aditya has recorded a violin cover of Homelands – a song by Nitin Sawhney. The recording was part of a reflection task when the class studied the novel 'The Namesake', written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel explores themes of loneliness, anxiety and confinement associate with immigration. Aditya submitted the recording as part of his Learner Portfolio submission in English, as the composer has made the majority of the music for The Namesake Film. 

The reason why I chose this particular piece, was because I believe it perfectly encapsulated the main theme behind Namesake through the beauty of music – Aditya, Grade 12.

The task was to work on a learner portfolio with six personal works that showed how students reflect on a given text. Since the assignment allowed space for creativity, Aditya used his keen passion for music to explore The Namesake, allowing him to delve further into the underlying themes and understand subtle nuances in the characterizations better. Aditya, who has been playing the violin for 10 years says that: "just like the protagonist of The Namesake novel, the composer Nitin Sawhney's family was also originally from India, but then moved to the UK. Although he too felt the lack of a single physical origin, he mentions in an interview that 'The real homeland is internal', an idea that I think this song really encapsulates, helping its listeners understand the same".

The listener may notice that throughout the song there is a combination or fusion of two different styles of music and blend to form a completely different sound. This is something that Aditya felt represented the diasporic space and the coming together of two cultures. “I’ve tried to highlight this diasporic space through the violin in the song’s introduction, where I first played a very Western styled improvisational line which is then followed by a different, yet similar one that is more inclined to the Carnatic genre”, explains Aditya who recorded and put together the cover in his home studio set-up. The panning of the sound also brings to life the idea of two different places in the world, eventually coming together in harmony to create the meeting point of two different cultures – something that Aditya feels represents Gogol’s, the protagonist of the book, identity.

The story of The Namesake is about a boy born in the late 1960s to Indian parents, originally from Calcutta, living in the American suburbs. It follows his journey from being a baby, to being a confused, faintly rebellious teenager, when he goes on to an Ivy League school, and eventually moving to the 1990s New York. Through the story the book explores the nuanced experiences and involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with distinct religious, social, and ideological differences – which often can leading to loneliness, anxiety and confinement, something that is a running theme throughout the book. This theme is something that Aditya has picked up on in his violin cover: “The continuous melancholic backing harmonies that are rendered both by the violin and the original vocals, to me, signifies an almost prolonging sense of pain and unfamiliarity that one feels, as an immigrant in a completely new world.”

To listen to Aditya's cover, click here. The background music was sampled from the official version by Nitin Sawhney. The recording also features Ashwin Srinivasan and Nicki Wells on vocals.