After choosing to rename himself, Gogol tries to remake his identity by distancing himself from his family and acting how he thinks Nikhil would. In his mind, Nikhil is the one that kissed Kim at the party, not Gogol. To him, Nikhil represents confidence and is capable of doing things that Gogol was afraid to do. The result was confusion as he sometimes felt that he was living a double life. In the text it states, “At times, he feels as if he’s cast himself in a play, acting the part of twins, indistinguishable to the naked eye yet fundamentally different.” (Lahiri, 105). He states that he doesn’t feel like Nikhil because the people that know him as Nikhil have no idea that he used to be Gogol and have no idea about his past. Our names define
