The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This book was recommended by a friend some time ago. It was quite a new experience altogether reading about a social setup that I know more closely being a Pakistani than the western culture which is usually expected when picking an English novel. Not just the culture but the sarcastic tone of the narrator was something unanticipated. I was rather expecting a depressed voice. Hats off to Aravind Adiga. This one truly deserved the Booker Prize. 

It was easy to pick pace with. It is one of those rare experiences when you don’t have to struggle with initial chapters. It just takes off and you don’t even realize that you have read almost fifty or sixty pages.

The book comprises of narrator's letters, or rather his diary in which he addresses a Chinese Government official. He hears that this Chinese official is coming to India on a visit and wants to meet entrepreneurs. The narrator calls himself an entrepreneur and wants to tell what it can take to become one in a country like India, where a very large part of population is deprived of even the very basic needs as a result of caste system and feudalism. The narrator is skeptical about everything but he makes his tone so innocent that the reader can start falling for him immediately. The whole novel is about his confession of committing the murder of his employer.

As the narrator Balram relates his story, I couldn’t help being impressed by the depth of knowledge the writer has about his country's customs and how deeply he feels for the people's deprivation. A lot of it must have been the result of his occupation as a journalist. He present the bitter facts about the nation generally known to be prosperous. I would add that it is not the complete picture but a considerable portion of it.

Balram was just another common man in a tribe of "Halwaiis" or sweet-makers. It’s a common thing in our villages that you are forced to take up a profession defined by your caste. This is a custom defined by the powerful feudal lords to keep their countrymen oppressed and needy and so badly caught in fulfilling their very basic needs that they can never rebel. But over time these customs are so religiously taken up the tribes that they do not feel the need to change anything. Balram, however, was the odd one out. He was intelligent and hungry for knowledge and was given the title of "White Tiger " by a teacher for his intelligence amidst all the dumbness of villagers. His father wanted him to study but he could not continue in school. Thanks to yet another custom of compulsion of dowry that her sister needed in order to get married. He relates the incident of his father's painful death, recounting the lack of any sense of hygiene or any medicine or even the doctor in the only hospital that was accessible by the poor of his village. Similar conditions are described regarding the so-called school in which he studied. So after leaving the school, he is forced to work with his brother in a teashop. There he picks up an idea of becoming a driver. He has a hard time convincing her grandmother, who was the head of family, to let him be a driver. At last he succeeds. He then learns how to drive and gets hired after lot of effort. This was supposedly a revolution in the sweet-makers' family.

In the course of his job, he learns about one his fellow servants in the same house who was a Muslim pretending to be a Hindu so save his job, because Hindus and Muslims cannot tolerate each other in their houses.

The thing that Balram ridicules the most is that India is known for democracy. He tells how the politicians buy entire tribes to vote for them. He tells how the politicians use the poor for playing their political tricks.

So Balram continues his job as Mr. Ashok's driver who was a feudal lord recently returned from America with an American wife. He tells how he learnt new things while listening to them while driving. He even tries to imitate his clothing and other habits. Then he moves to Delhi with them where he drives Mr. Ashok around so that he can bribe the politicians to get unlawful benefits for his family. He and all other servants in that house were supposed to do whatever their masters wanted. His position as a driver didn’t spare him from having to do cleaning, washing, cooking and massaging. It was not employment but slavery altogether.

I loved the part where he described his "rooster coop" theory. How the people in underdeveloped countries are so used to being deprived that they somehow feel comfortable enough to not even thinking of rebelling. They just feel a sense of resignation. That’s how Balram felt when he was asked to take the blame of a road accident committed by Mr. Ashok's wife. He says that even if somebody tries to get a better life for himself, his tribe does not let him do that and they make him an outcast. That is the punishment of wanting to prosper.

Balram killed Mr. Ashok simply because he wanted to steal the money he was carrying to bribe a politician. He insists continuously that he does not have any bad feelings about his employer and continuously felt guilty when he was killing him and stealing his money but he was still determined to win a better life. He knows that his whole family might be killed by the victim's father and brother but he just tries not to think about them. The police fail to catch him only because of their inefficiency. Its funny how he stands in front of his own "most wanted" poster in a crowded railway station and nobody recognizes him because his picture was blurred. The only man who recognizes him was illiterate and so could not understand the description with the picture.

Then he describes his "murderer's life on run ". How he tried to avoid tracked by the police and how he cannot even dare ask about what happened to his family.

Balram manages to start a "rent-a-car" service, for which he called himself an entrepreneur. He insists that he does not treat his employees the way he was treated as a servant. But in the process, he just becomes another briber, another hand in corruption. So that was the price he had to pay for a better life: become a murderer and just the same person as his victim was.

He also tells continuously how lonely he felt with nothing but chandeliers to talk to and that he wants to have a partner.

I can still continue to write about it but the review is already too long. I want to point out that as far as I know, this is definitely not the big picture of India. It is just some of the curses for the poor of villages that continue to prevail even after all the development and modernism in the cities. 

Finally I want to say that the book was a complete package: it has story, a message and an easy-to-read style that will keep you engaged.