Monday, September 28, 2009

The White Tiger - a review, and then some

I picked up Aravind Adiga's 'White Tiger' only recently. Definitely a late lateef purchase and no, not from the traffic signal. I hate badly printed books and do not pick up pirated copies as a matter of principle.

It's the least one author can do for another :)

Well, the first 40 pages of 'White Tiger' did not take my breath away.

a) I felt it was written for a foreign audience. The way journalists write about India in Time magazine. (Yes I know, the author was a reporter for that very same magazine not long ago!)

b) The idea of Balram Halwai, the driver from the heart of Darkness writing a letter to the Chinese Prime Minister in the Queen's English bugged me. I mean, really, it did not seem like his voice.

But 100 pages on I fell into the rhythm of the book and started enjoying it. And I was filled with sneaky admiration for what Aravind was trying to do.

The White Tiger addresses the issue that we live with each and every day and which shocks every White Man who visits this country. How can we as a nation exist skyscraper to slum, BMW to bullock cart, PVR to piss-on-the tracks and never quite blow up?

If the have nots outnumber the haves by so many millions why don't they simply rise up and finish us all off?

Well, the answer according to Aravind, lies in the 'greatest thing India has ever invented' which is the Rooster Coop.

Just like roosters who are caged and accept their fate at the hands of the butcher, so do human beings accept the cage they are bolted in. The poor have a station in life, which is to serve the rich, and theirs is not to question, or to rebel. As Balram aka White Tiger puts it:

"A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 % - as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way - 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."

Hmm. Dark thoughts but much of the book is laced with equally dark humour. Or so it appeared to me - one man's tragedy is another's comedy as they say!

Never before have people like me smelt the insides of a servant's quarters and visualised the nocturnal dancing of cockroaches. Thought about how icky it might be to massage hairy feet. Or realised the importance of caste, of religion, of 'background'. Even to get a lowly driver's job.

(Yes, we had 'Slumdog Millionaire' but that was more of a fairy tale)

I was also fascinated by some of side characters like Vitiligo Lips, Pinky madam and the idea of drivers passing their time reading Murder Weekly (is there really such a publication? Perhaps a spicier version of Manohar kahaniyan which I remember from summers spent at my native place!)

I wonder how much time Aravind actually spent observing Balram types, to be able to touch upon the hierarchy that exists even in a servant quarters. Like in college - "Main tera senior, zara bach ke rehna"!

For every blonde Ukrainian prostitute there is the fair skinned Indian with the dye job. Because everywhere, there are two Indias.

There's English liquor and country liquor.
There's penthouse and basement.
There's Light and there's Darkness.

We who type away at a computer connected to broadband in a language left behind by our former masters are in the 'light'.

But every day we brush shoulders with those in the darkness. Maids, cooks, ayahs, sweepers and of course, drivers.

I am surely a much kinder employer than the Mongoose or even the well meaning but ill fated Ashok (for context, refer book!) but when one Rajendra Yadav reports to work tomorrow... For a moment, I will be reminded of the White Tiger.

As long as the tigers - or the roosters, who form the majority - remain in their cages, life as we know it will go on. Naxal movements are wreaking havoc but are yet to touch the main cities. And so it that we have the occasional report of murder or dacoity but on the whole still feel 'safe'. And believe we will stay that way, for another generation.

But who can really say?

I sure hope our various social upliftment programs do some good because I really don't want to see more 'entrepreneurs' like Balram Halwai... angry and not so foolish ones! The kind who get their start up capital by slitting their employer's throats.

And then cross over to Our Side, melt into the neighbourhood and become 'high net worth' customers.

The White Tiger, Rs 395

P.S. Harper Collins, I hope you are coming out with a paperback edition soon coz the Balrams of the booktrade have been hawking it for months now!

Also read: my blog titled White Tigress

13 comments:

  1. Actually a paperback edition sells already, at least in US it does. Anyways do you feel the the book deserves the "booker" ? I want to know a author's point of view since I don't get to interact with many.

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  2. I rather liked the book. It meets my simple criteria for books I prefer: It is not pretentious, reads easy, has a story I can identify with, and is "different". Maybe someday, someone will make a film out of it, hopefully one that's better made than the crappy Slum Dog Millionaire (just my fervent personal opinion) ;o)

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  3. It made me look at every driver... at least twice. Effective writing as I would call it. Rashmi, thats a great review...

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  4. Hi Rashmi,

    Pretty comprehensive review..well writtenn.. Even I had attemepted to write a review for the book..
    here is the link.. hopefully u wud find time for it..
    Also..m hoping u wud review 'If god was a banker' someday..IIM alums et al..
    http://www.youthpad.com/blogs_detail/397/The_White_Tiger_by_Aravind_Adiga_.html

    Ankit Nagori
    YouthPad.com

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  5. 'But 100 pages on I fell into the rhythm of the book and started enjoying it. And I was filled with sneaky admiration for what Aravind was trying to do.'

    you liked the book., I found it like a bgrade hindi masala movie(if it had some spicy sex content).. I read the book thinking how it got an booker prize?? May be those folks love these routine b'wood stuff..

    & its the least u can do as an author appreaciating another author for a worthless book :)

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  6. I picked up the book...read a few pages...got bored so put it down. Will give it a shot again. However, i do not think our maids, drivers etc are in darkness...far from it. Theirs is a different life..an aspect that we can never touch the way they live. We are in the darkness about stark life realities that they face and live.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Hi Rashmi recently i have started reading your blog n i must say u r d finest one i had came across i know their will many more but u still hav got place among them!! keep up d gud work!!

    About The white Tiger!!! i like the book, even my experience was d same as yours during first 40 pages, but eventually i had managed to carry on!!! the way arvind had describe the darkness in the book n really make me scratch my head whether the Narrator was innocent or not!!!

    Its a some way different!!

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  9. Haven't read the book but just shooting from the review.

    Poor vs rich is prevalent in every other nation but what has to be done? What can the poor do for getting off that cage? Any suggestions?

    In our country there is strong entrepreneurship spirit - mostly due to lack of jobs and not willful businessmen. How do you expect a 10th class fail to make a living?

    Solutions:
    - ensuring minimal wages for every one - not a law which is passed but applied in practice
    - Ethics of the working population. Most of them in a 'chalega' mindset - which is not going to make you win in the long term.

    More suggestions are welcome!

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  10. Here's my take on this book:

    "I had been waiting to read this novel since a long time. Ordered it from rediff books, but my sister took it for reading. Finally managed to get my hands on it and finish it as well. How did I find it? Honestly speaking I didn’t find it worth any award (I don’t know the significance of Man Booker Prize but I believe it must be meant for something very interesting and innovative). I found it hard to maintain my interest. Infact I even though of switching to another novel but then I kept my patience. In the end, I felt it wasn’t worth a buy. May be coz I dint like the idea of a servant killing his master, stealing the money, becoming an entrepreneur and then boasting about it. May be becoz I also didn’t like the way of narration. But for one or many reasons I dint find the movie worth a read and definitely not worth the hype surrounding it. But then its just my own point of view."

    Pushkin Gupta
    http://www.bestreviews4u.net

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  11. this was just a very ordinary book getting unnecessary attention. Story was just like a 1980's hindi movie.
    its a very very ordinary book with real abject writing skills but again depicting the decrepit state of Indian village life which nomore is true bust just give white people a chance to spread this image of India worldwide through Oscars and Booker Prize

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  12. It was difficult for me to continue the book in the beginning but I do not actually like leaving a book midway so I read it. I can't say whether it deserved booker or not but it was an average book. But I did understand the message behind it nicely.

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    ReplyDelete

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