‘The White Tiger’ written by Oxford educated ex-Time magazines correspondent has focused deeply on India as a place of brutal injustice for the less powerful and this fact in itself would boil many Indians’ and invite them to challenge this presumable thought by the writer. But the fact is that majority of India (65% India is rural) does suffer from this harsh reality. People from the land of poor are deprived of nutrition, education and humanity and enriched with multiple diseases.
Well this has always been a topic of concern but the other main point which Adiga has touched is to try to show the current existing state of India and has predicted the future India by keeping in mind the major complexities that is the complexities of the majority-the poor. According to him India will no more be the same place as before, the place where more than individual goals family goals mattered, people never did something out of the league and servant’s trustworthiness to his master was unquestionable. This he has highlighted through his main character of the story Balram the son of a rickshaw puller, the White Tiger who has been shown as wave who is slowly transforming India into a place which is very much unlike India. This has been shown through his many activities like showing disrespect to the mother, murdering the master and being involved in corruption and theft.
Balram’s rise as an entrepreneur also shows India as a place of opportunities and a place where time has come that people stop running in hunt of jobs and become self sufficient. There are many entrepreneurship venture which exist and not only in Bangalore but other places too so why did the author choose Bangalore as the place and providing taxi to the call centre employees at night as the entrepreneurship venture. According to me India generally considered as a dead place at night is slowly getting active even at night which is very much un-Indian act. And Bangalore is a place in India which is different from India in most of the aspects and the mentioning of Bangalore points out on the fact that the city Bangalore which is a very small part of India right now is very slowly spreading all over India.
Even the importance of education is shown in this story. Where Balram is shown as a good student who is forcibly taken out from his school and hence fulfils his crave for education by learning from the daily experiences he comes across. And a contrast to this is shown in form of his boss Ashoka who has been educated abroad and holds different beliefs and principles from his father and brother. Culture of studying abroad also hints to invasion of India by un-Indian thoughts.
So in all, Adiga has exposed the mindset of people of India and with the help of the White Tiger Balram, character like Ashoka and city Bangalore has shown the un-Indian activities which have started happening on the Indian map and leading India towards urbanisation.
By Aman Garg.
Not one of the best Booker Prize winning novels I have read, but there are some aspects which are quite interesting. I particularly liked the way in which the novel showed us 2 Indias. The author uses humor and wit to show us how a large part of India suffers under the tyranny of the rich minority.
ReplyDeleteThe novel manages to make the reader himself uncomfortable, as it seems to suggest that the responsibility (for the oppression) lies on every person who can call himself a part of the 'more privileged' India; even if he himself may not be explicitly involved in the acts of oppression.
I read this book last July, and I must admit that I was a bit disappointed with how it all played out in the end. I would not go as far as to call the book an 'eye-opener,' but it was still a good read (for the most part).