Monday, November 30, 2009

Conversation between Lahiri and Nair

Mira Nair, who directed this course's assigned film Monsoon Wedding, also directed the film adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's award-winning novel The Namesake. We are reading the Hema and Kaushik trilogy in Lahiri's more recent collection, Unaccustomed Earth. Here is a filmed conversation between the two artists to enrich our discussion of the connections in their work.

2 comments:

  1. One thing that I really enjoyed about the movie the Monsoon Wedding was Mira Nair's depiction of the arranged marriage. Previously, I always wondered about how two people could be forced to marry eachother and live happy lives together. It seems that The Namesake is similar in that Mira Nair demonstrates throught another arranged marriage that in fact people can grow to love one another.
    --Alley Heffern, Friday, November 20th, commentary

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  2. I thought it was really interesting to see how two cultures can collide both in Monsoon Wedding and in this preview of The Namesake. The concept of an arranged marriage is one of traditional standards that is still practiced today. I think it is amazing that even though the world is rapidly changing and people are becoming more global that families still manage to maintain a sense of where the roots lie. It is also cool to see an integration of newer customs yet still keeping the old tradition. Something else I noted was that though these two women are of the same culture, their accents are different. It goes to show that cultures are spreading all over the world and the world is becoming one big community.

    Lamar Walker
    November 30th Commentary

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