This has happened to me before, where I decide that it’s time to make a statement on something going on in the story and so make up a post, then pick up the book and find my thoughts pretty much confirmed.
On my previous post about the real reason Gogol is feeling so adamantly against his name, I’d picked up a thought more along the lines of a cultural clash that he is undergoing. In this next section, there is more going on that makes the conflict more evident. For one, Gogol is enamored with a girl named Ruth who he knows his parents aren’t willing to accept with open arms. Then he attends a lecture, one of his cousins being a member of the panel, on the subject of what they call “ABCD” or “American-born confused deshi” which brings the plight of someone like Gogol to light. His problems as an Indian in America is not the same as his parents’, as they relate to the old country whereas he relates to the new. His name merely brings what Gogol sees more as confliction rather than confusion to a more constant state.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology