It's this damn book! I started reading "The Namesake" a few days ago on and off whenever I could squeeze in few minutes here and there while riding the metro. So this afternoon I got to page 84. And when I got home last night, I picked up the book again and couldn't put it down and a little more than 200 pages later and a few bathroom breaks in between, I finished it!

Lately, I've been reading a string of books with Indian characters, themes or settings. It all got started when my friend Cynthia got me this amazing book called Shantaram for my birthday.

The description on the back cover of "The Namesake": Jhumpa Lahiri's debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, took the literary world by storm when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Fans who flocked to her stories will be captivated by her best-selling first novel, now in paperback for the first time. The Namesake is a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama that illuminates this acclaimed author's signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the tangled ties between generations.

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as Gogol stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.

With empathy and penetrating insight, Lahiri explores the expectations bestowed on us by our parents and the means by which we come to define who we are.

While the story is filled with descriptions of Bengali customs and traditions, I can relate to the experiences of the main character, Gogol. Being that I was born and raised in the USA while my parents and the majority of my extended family were born in the Phillipines. I'd go to family gatherings where my relatives would speak fondly of home aka the Phillipines and they would ask me something along the lines of, "When was the last time you went 'home'?"

I'd usually say something like, "But I am home. The USA is my home."

You can probably imagine where the conversation went from there. While I do acknowledge my filipino roots, I can't deny the fact that I am also an American. Whatever. Frustrating stuff. In the book, I learn the meaning of the acronym ABCD: American Born Confused Deshi. Deshi is another word for Indian. Growing up I've heard filipinos refer to me as being "Americanized." Kinda reminds me of the derogatory term Twinkie used in the movie "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle." Twinkie meaning yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Ugh.

Anywayz, read the book. It's well-written and I promise you won't be able to put it down and if you're a child of immigrants, you'll find a lot of situations in the story that you can relate to. And if you're too lazy to read it, you can wait until the movie comes out sometime in Spring 2007.

My thanks to my friend Aru for recommending this title.

OK, so I digressed from the topic of flamenco. Well in the grander scheme of things you could say that I'm learning about the culture of the geographic region where the gypsies originated.

So enough blogging for now. I better get some sleep. Tonight (Thursday) I'll be performing at the Andalucia restaurant with dancer Pam de Ocampo. Call 301-770-1880 to make your reservations. See you there!