Adiga's Roar: A Review of The White Tiger
Welcome to the world of Adiga. In this blog I will review the Booker prize winning book, " The White Tiger" published in 2008. Intresting fact- Times of India called it Adiga's "masterpiece".
First let's talk about the cover.
The cover shows a cartoon tiger and rooster on red grass with a black background. It feels like a cool and dark joke, and the book is exactly that – fun and full of surprises.
The rooster and white tiger are treated the same in a coop. They seem equal, but their futures are set. Ironically, in India, rich and educated people have more power, keeping poverty going. Instead of saying this directly, the author tells a dark story about a white tiger breaking free.
The rooster on the cover represents the "rooster coop" metaphor Balram uses. He tells the Chinese Premier about the oppression of India's poor. Balram compares it to roosters in a coop, watching others get hurt but not rebelling.
The long discription of rooster scene put us in thought why are they not rebelling ? As compare to common men they are working more hours and also do physical labour. Still the law-wages be there as unanswerable question. This reflects the fate of the poor in India. People at lower economic levels also feel resentful because they can't see their peers move up the economic ladder.
“The Rooster Coop was doing its work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters, or entrepreneurs. Yes, that’s the sad truth, Mr. Premier. The coop is guarded from the inside.”
Let me introduce story in brief.
"Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English."
It is the story divided in seven nights. Balram Halwai( our narrator, hero or anti-hero we don't know) tells the story of how he becomes a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, a tech hub in India. Born in a small village in Bihar, he couldn't study much.
The story is based on letters from Balram Halwai to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. I think epistolary form is experimented by Adiga. We are only looking at the story from Balram's perspective. Balram is unreliable narrator, is't he ?
The information comes from an unreliable source, All India Radio. Wen Jiabao is visiting Bangalore to learn about Indian entrepreneurship. Balram thinks the Premier should know his story. He hopes the Premier sees the real India,(Indian of light and India of Darkness too) not just what the Prime Minister's office or brochures show. The communication has a superior tone, as if the Chinese Premier will gain a lot from these revelations.
Balram Halwai became 'The White Tiger' because he was the only one who could read and write in his Government School during an inspection. The inspector called him the White Tiger, a rare creature.He was promised a scholarship and a chance to study in Dhanbad. Sadly, in darkness, his dreams were shattered.
Let's take a look at present scenario. According to ASER 2018 report,only 27.2%of the students of goverment school can read at least a standard 2 level text. Ten years ago in 2008, nationally, more than 20% of girls in the 15 to 16 age group were not enrolled in school. In 2018, this figure has decreased to 13.5%. This number reveling the, what Adiga said is right. There is also gender gape.
Unfortunatley, Balram was taken out of school and made to work at a tea stall to repay a loan for his cousin sister's wedding, borrowed from the village landlord. Balram's views however, are different related to the education and school.
"If the Indian village is paradise, then the school is paradise within paradise."
With this dialouge it reveled that how Balram learned and planned everything.
" I am not original thinker-but I am Original Listener."
"But that is your fate if you do your job well—with honesty, dedication, and sincerity, the way Gandhi would have done it, no doubt. I did my job with near total dishonesty, lack of dedication, and insincerity—and so the tea shop was a profoundly enriching experience."
This lines don't make you suspected about Balram ? He used rather this skills, so we can consider him smart in this sense.
Adiga weaves together rural education, healthcare, police work, coal mining, democracy, and urbanization in a story. He adds details like driving in Delhi and the difference between Maruti 800 and Honda City. This detailed give it Indian touch.
The rich in the novel aren't named but called animals or birds like stork, raven, buffalo, wild boar, and mongoose based on their traits. Balram somehow becomes a driver at the Stork household, his first step out of darkness. Later, he drives for Ashok and Pinky Madam, Stork's son and daughter-in-law returned from America. Becoming a driver for a rich Indian family changes Balram. Working for Ashok and Pinky gives him modern insights into Indian society and helps him become financially successful.
Moreover, After the British left in 1947, chaos ensued, and the caste system blurred. There used to be a thousand castes, but now there are only two – those with big bellies and those with small bellies. The theme of bellies is important. One scene is there, in that rich is going for walks to reduce fat while thin servants stand by with water and towels. Adiga also touches on how in India, a driver does multiple jobs like cooking, serving, and massaging when not driving.
How we read or seen the old-aged figures in literature and life ?
Good, generous, kind, helpful, supportive. Not here...
As Northrop Frye considered it as one of the archetype. But Adiga is different in this case.
Kusum, the grandmother and head of the Halwai family, is a powerful villain in the story's darkness. Such characters are rare in Indian fiction. She insists on the boys working instead of studying, ensuring their earnings and dowry come to her. She keeps the cycle of marriage, children, and death going.
Shall we consider her villan or not that is the question. What if story infolds with her perspective ?
An interesting link is drawn between Hanuman as the faithful servant to his master Ram; and how such mythological references instill a deep-seated servitude amongst its population. Slave morality rather then Master morality as Nietzsche said. It works because family is crucial for Indians. The constant threat to protect one's family from the masters keeps the harmful cycle going. The system decides that when masters commit crimes, innocent poor servants take the blame and punishment.
“…despite your triumphs in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic medals, still don’t have democracy….If I were making a country, I’d get the sewage first, then the democracy.”
Another interesting take is on democracy in India.He explains India has three serious diseases: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. We see fake or forced voting, candidates with criminal cases, and a clash between socialist and the current party in power.
"the Great Socialist started off as a good man. He had come to clean things up, but the mud of Mother Ganga had sucked him in. Others said he was dirty from the start, but he had just fooled everyone and only now did we see him for what he was."
Balram at the tea stall heard all the things. Author masterfully used narrator to comment upon the #India_of_Darkness. Reading, especially if you're Indian, makes you feel connected to the author's thoughts. For instance, Adiga talks about blurry pictures of criminals on police posters, saying it could be 'half the men in India'
EXCLUSIVE TRUE STORY: “A GOOD BODY NEVER GOES TO WASTE” MURDER. RAPE. REVENGE. Balram talks about the Murder Weekly magazine which telling the story of murder. It is famous among servants of the city not because they want to kill the master. But this cheap magazine prevents them to do such things. May be it is strategy of Goverment. Who knows ?
"to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse."
The inferior complex deeply rooted in the lower class people. It reveled how class disparity is so wide. Like in "Waiting for Godot" Pozzo can't leave his master, though he is blind, similarly here it works.
"The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor—they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor."
Throughout the novel this kind of small statments, incidents, and anecdotes are reveling the wide gulf between rich and poor. Putting us on lasting question without answer.
"Sleep in the day and then work all night, until two, three, four, five o’clock, depending, because their masters are on the other side of the world, in America."
This dialouge take us to the present scenario and the world of Consumerism. America is super-power and that is why controlling the world and it's economy. It can be told that due to technological empowerment and intellectual minds they are ruling.
"Yes, Ashok! That’s what I call myself these days. Ashok Sharma, North Indian entrepreneur, settled in Bangalore."
Now, the question arises in my mind while reading this is that, Why Balram chooses the same name ? But I think Ashok is the one who made him aware about buisness world, treated him as human. Somewhere, he has the ability to satrt buisness which is laking in Ashok. That would be the reason.
"I’ll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant. "
This second last lines reveal the mentle state of Balram. Though, he chooses the wrong path for becoming rich, Is there any other way for him? If he would be honest driver, will he be rich ?
This ambiguous ending leads us to so many new question. The novel has so many more things apart from which I highlighted. The essence of Darkness of India is very well captured here.
Indeed worth reading book.
Thank you.
References :
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger: Booker Prize Winner 2008. HarperCollins Publishers India, 2010.
“ASER 2018 : More than half of children enrolled in Class 5 can read at least a standard 2 level text.” Hindustan Times, 16 January 2019, https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/aser-2018-more-than-half-of-children-enrolled-in-class-5-can-read-at-least-a-standard-2-level-text/story-NMDvefZYbjggcGtx3cDBAI.html. Accessed 25 February 2024.
Nair, Ninu. “The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: Book Cover Designs.” Bookishloom, 27 April 2020, https://bookishloom.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/the-white-tiger-by-aravind-adiga-a-letter-to-the-book-cover-a2z-challenge/. Accessed 25 February 2024.
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