The White Tiger

For someone who remembers their role as a patriot out of the blue and gets hyped up on discussions that question some well misunderstood aspects of India, this book might be a big blow to your ego. 

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The White Tiger, published in 2008 and winning the Booker Price for the same year, potrays a bitter side of India, focusing on various major issues like poverty, communal tention, corruption in high places, etc, in a crude and offensive way that actually has some point to it, when given a radical approach. The White Tiger is writer Aravind Adiga's debut novel, and is the fourth Indian born author to win the price after Salman Rushdie, Arundhathi Roy and Kiran Desai. 

The book received mixed criticism, mainly because Aravind Adiga exaggerates social issues, and contains some silly representations, like those in colonial literature. Adiga defends himself by commenting, "At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society (Indian). That's what I'm trying to do – it is not an attack on the country, it's about the greater process of self-examination. The criticism by writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens of the 19th century helped England and France become better societies".

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The book is written in the form of a letter by the lead character Munna alias Balram Halwai addressed to the Chinese Premier. Balram introduces himself as an entrepreneur, breaking the bonds of poverty and rising to be a successful businessman.

Balram's character make us second guess our support for the "poor" in India. When exposed to extreme corruption, Balram strove to become the very thing he "fought" against, highlighting his hypocritical nature. He belongs to the genre of people who finds comfort in the bitter darkness, surviving off of it. 

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What I liked about this book is that Adiga brings out sadistic traits of the human character. The protagonist Balram, takes pleasure from a murder scene by saying that he "knew the corpse" where as his parents (the corpse's) "knew the foetus". The book also points out the complex relationship between a servant and a master in the time when India struggles to be a modern Global economy. But the writer goes overboard in criticising India, and from his bio and his writing we can confirm that he belongs to the genre of Indians who is only an by birth and English by spirit, just like how our colonial rulers wanted an Indian to be. The book has a realistic story line, and while most of us might get disgusted on how the author looks down at the "poor" India, he basically made several strong points that provides a striking image against why India is still a developing country.

I could strongly say that this story has nothing relatable to the movie Slumdog Millionaire, apart from the general rags-to-riches theme. The story has rightly highlighted the Darkness and the Light with some inaccuracies. The White Tiger is a story that is not only possible, but probable and even likely whereas Slumdog Millionaire depends on a series of mind numbing coincidences, which is something totally out of Bollywood.

Like I said, for someone who blindly loves his country, this book may seem outrageous, while for someone who wants a different book to read in the midst of all the other genres, this could be for you, although I would recommend something better.

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My Rate: 6/10

Status: Not for the patriots, retards and boring people. Can be read once, twice or an infinite number of times if one genuinely wants to know the complexity of the story.

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Inspired From: Wikipedia, Goodreads.
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-The Violet Woman