Mira Nair Essays

The movie “Mississippi Masala” directed by Mira Nair, is a heartwarming yet powerful film that reveals a side to racism, separation, and oppression that many may be unaware of. In a specific scene in the movie, the main character Mina attends a small gathering at the home of her romantic interest, Demetrius. Demetrius’ cousin Tyrone finds Mina to be appealing and delivers his best form of a pick-up line: “You think if I go to India and get me one of those Aladdin lamps, rub it real good, you think

Nothing reminds you of how far you are from home more than giving birth to a child in a foreign, distant land. As Jhumpa Lahiri describes in her novel, The Namesake, being a foreigner is like a life-long pregnancy, a perpetual wait, a constant burden, an ongoing responsibility, and a continuous feeling out of sorts. Throughout the novel, Lahiri accounts the story of a couple moving from India to America, as well as, the complex process of raising kids in an unknown country, without family, without

Attaining one’s own self identity and self relation are usually molded by your surrounding influences and environment. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, the author creates the juxtaposition of the conflictual relationship between the experiences of children living in American mainstream culture vs. the family culture of a first generation Indian family. Lahiri used the internal conflict of the “namesake” of Gogol vs. Nikhil as the ultimate symbolism of the conflict between the two cultures

The film The Namesake’s most significant impression on me was how Ashima and Ashoke remarkably influenced their marriage to work through exceptionally intense conditions. They did not have any acquaintance with each other yet after a meeting over tea, they are hitched and moving all over the world in love. Their way of life did not condone separation from marriage, and thus they needed to influence theirs to work. They grew an affection for each other. It immensely influenced me to consider the separation

In the novel The Namesake, author Jhumpa Lahiri describes the Ganguli family’s life transition from Calcutta, India to America. Ashima Ganguli constantly tries to adapt to American culture, while still holding onto her Indian past. Ashima and Ashoke’s son, Gogol, struggles with his identity and various relationships as he grows up through school and his career. Though Author Lahiri reveals how a person creates new identities when building relationships with some people in their life, it is often

Part of growing up is leaving your parents and determining what is best for yourself instead of listening to what others think is best for you. In both Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and the movie Dead Poets Society we were introduced to characters who were beginning to make these steps in life; Siddhartha himself, and Neil Perry. While each character had many differences, they both faced the same problem, their fathers had set out a plan for their lives that they would follow no matter what was for

There are some different types of identity in the society. People can maintain the identity as a member of a community such as a country or religion, and the identity as an individual, or personality. Thus, the theme of identity can be argued in some ways. For example, “First Muse,” the poem written by Julia Alvarez is about the Mexican-American girl who faces the problem to have her identity as an American. The Catcher in the Rye, the novel written by J. D. Salinger, is also based on the process

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Argumentative Paper The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a novel that looks into the life of Changez, a young Pakistani man, that came to the United States to receive a college education from Princeton University. Changez later lives in New York City and has a very well paid job at a business evaluation firm. With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Changez goes through many physical and emotional hardships before eventually returning to his home country. Throughout this novel

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri socially and culturally features the value of family through the characters as well as the author. It is shown through cultural influences by the characters when they start to celebrate Christmas and by Lahiri when her parents are skeptical of her getting a degree in creative writing. It is said in the movie, “For the sake of Gogol and Sonia they celebrate, with progressively increasing fanfare, the birth of Christ, an event the children look forward to far more than

In the beginning of the school year, I defined an Asian American as American that participates in Asian culture. As I read “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, I always questioned Gogol’s identity. Even though he’s the son of first generation Americans that come from Asia, he often tries to run away from his heritage . So, would Gogol be considered Asian American? During his adulthood, from his breakups to the death of his father, Gogol matures mentally. He begins to regret resenting his trip to Calcutta

Introduction: My essay will examine Surrealism and how it influences early and modern film. Surrealism is a cultural movement that originated in the early 1920s. André Breton expressed Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought." Surrealism is founded by Andre Breton in 1924 and was a primarily European movement that fascinated many members of the Dada movement

The film Monsoon Wedding (2001) directed by Mira Nair has been my favorite film so far. What makes the film so interesting to me is that Mira Nair put her own twist on the film by mixing an expected traditional Indian Bollywood film and adding modern Hollywood styles to the film. After doing research on Mira Nair and the film for my presentation, I can see why this is incorporated in the film since she spent time here in the United States studying acting and film at one of the top ivy league university’s

traditional culture to a modern, westernized one. With this shift, many Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) struggle to create a balance between what they have been taught and what they are learning through globalization. In the film Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair, an Indian family in New Delhi is a perfect model for a globalized India and the tensions it brings to family life. While the family lives all around the world, those who reside in westernized countries seem to embrace the contemporary culture, some

ABSTRACT ' 'We are like that only ' '-runs the subtitle of a popular production of Mira Nair, representing Indians today. Released in 2001, Monsoon Wedding is Nair 's ' 'love song to my home city". Through a reworking of the tropes of Bollywood cinema, a medium that connects the global audience, Nair 's film depicts the enthusiasm coupled with certain darker shades, more so in the midst of a wedding, of a Punjabi middle class family in contemporary India. Set in the metropolitan

The judgmental nature of the 1950s American corporate-driven society and the treatment of any criticism of such regime, as represented in Ginsberg one of the most prominent pieces of work, are also explicitly presented in the 2012 movie directed by Mira

adaptations of the most successful foreign media. For example, we can look at “Mira Nair’s brilliant film[:] Indian Cabaret, we see [...] young women, barely competent in Bombay’s metropolitan glitz, come to seek their fortunes as cabaret dancers and prostitutes in bombay, entertaining men in clubs with dance formats derived wholly from the prurient dance sequences of hindi films” (Appadurai 303). Cabaret is an American movie that Nair adapted into her own, nationally and culturally rooted, piece of content

Love, Trust, and Family Renowned film critic Roger Ebert has praised Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding for the way that it “leaps national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature.” Indeed, despite the many differences that seem to divide people, there are also aspects of life that are present in the lives of everyone that can be used to relate and understand those with a different background. Throughout the story, the creators allow their audience to relate to a traditional Indian family through

In Mira Nair’s, The Namesake, Nair sheds light on American immigrants and the internal tug-of-war between one’s ethnic identity and cultural assimilation. Narratively full of layers, this film uses cinematic techniques to exemplify global flows such as Appadurai’s ethnoscapes and ideoscapes to develop its implicit plot. In the case of the character, Gogol, he struggles to separate humble his Bengali roots from his more secular life as a second generation American. In this film, Nair uses a literary

Ashutosh Aryal End of Affectionate Relationships The world is an assorted spot as we examine distinctive nations. Every nation has their own extraordinary societies, conventions and dialects. As we grow up, we tend to see and comprehend diverse things around us, yet the point of view may contrast with every individual on the grounds that not everybody has same the feeling towards things. This should differ from era to era, particularly with foreigners and their original American kids. Regardless

Namesake: By Jhumpa Lahiri(A comparative analysis of film and novel) From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of another fabulous novel written “Interpreter of Maladies”, Jhumpa Laheri’s critically appraised first novel is a finely wrote, deeply moving Moving family drama that highlights the significant themes: the immigrant experience, the Clash of cultures, the forced and conflicted tie between generations. The storyline of namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition- bounded life in