"Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger is one of the most powerful books I've read in decades. No hyperbole. This debut novel from an Indian journalist living in Mumbai hit me like a kick to the head -- the same effect Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man had. - USA Today
There has been a resurgence of interest in Aravind Adiga’s book The White Tiger as Netflix recently released a movie of the same name based on this 2008 Booker prize-winning exemplary work of fiction.
I watched the compelling movie, and I was discussing it earnestly with my high school-friend Deepanita Singh, an avid reader who told me that I should read the riveting novel as the screen adaptation was merely an “insipid and watered-down version of what could have been!”
According to her, the “book is powerful and packs a punch” as “it is a brilliant and brutal satire on the neo liberal India of 2008”. I heeded her advice and read this darkly humorous thriller which did not disappoint.
Balram Halwai aka Munna is our pithy protagonist, a poor boy who hails from the village of Laxmangarh in the district of Gaya. In this epistolary novel, Munna writes down his life story in the form of a long letter addressed to “his excellency”, the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who is poised to visit India to learn the secrets of its rising entrepreneurship.
The story opens with our main character as a successful businessman in Bangalore. He says he is “in the light now” but he “was born and raised in darkness.” If you have not guessed it yet, light symbolizes the rich and darkness relates to poverty. His mom died when he was young and his tired, gnarled rickshaw puller dad said prophetically, “My whole life, I have been treated like a donkey. All I want is that one son of mine-at least one-should live like a man.”
The first step in Munna’s journey up the social ladder comes when he acquires a job as a chauffeur to his village landlord’s son Ashok who resides with his wife Pinky in Delhi. He suffers many indignities in this position and the final blow comes when he is asked to assume responsibility for a road accident he did not commit.
When Balram was young, an inspector visited his school and impressed by his intelligence, called him a “White Tiger’, a rare “creature that comes along only once in a generation.” This title stays in his subconscious and he signs his letter to Jiabao as “The White Tiger, A Thinking Man and an Entrepreneur”. His ambition propels him on a path to success and he is able to shatter the shackles of servitude.
How does he manage to break free? Does he literally cut a throat to become a cutthroat businessman? What does he lose and what does he gain in this journey to independence? You will have to read the book to find out.
This novel tugged at my heartstrings as I belong to the state of Bihar in India from where Balram was. I felt connected to the novel as I have fond memories of visiting Gaya in my childhood. However, it is heartbreaking to read about the hopelessness and despair experienced by the impoverished. The fate of the millions of people living in poverty is compared to chickens huddled together in a coop, who “see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.” It was depressing to read about nameless, faceless workers sweeping floors in tea shops, “human spiders” that go spend a lifetime “crawling in between and under the tables with rags in their hands, crushed humans in crushed uniforms, sluggish, unshaven, in their thirties or forties or fifties but still boys."
Balram is a narrator like no other: witty, sardonic, sarcastic, amoral, disdainful; he has an opinion about everything from bribery, corruption, traffic, love, prostitution, poets, politics and so on. He intersperses the narration of his story with tongue in cheek observations about Indian society which may sound condescending, but they are the profound truths of everyday life. He rightly says, “If I were making a country, I'd get the sewage pipes first, then the democracy, then I'd go about giving pamphlets and statues of Gandhi to other people, but what do I know?” He quips ironically, “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.”
When his father dies due to negligence and lack of proper medical facilities, he comments with a wry sense of humor, “I came to Dhanbad after my father’s death. He had been ill for some time, but there is no hospital in Laxmangarh, although there are three different foundation stones for a hospital, laid by three different politicians before three different elections.”
This novel caused a furor as people are sensitive when their country is criticized. However, I believe that whether we wish to face it or not, the author has been brutally honest about the harsh realities faced by the servant class in India. In his defense, Adiga said in an interview, "it's not an attack on the country, it's about the greater process of self-examination."
In 2021, we have made progress in lowering the poverty rate but according to an Oxfam report in 2020, "India's top 1% still owns half of national wealth; bottom 60% just 4.8%." Last year, when the pandemic broke and companies closed, the migrant workers were left stranded without jobs and pictures of them drudging home on foot served as a pertinent reminder of the unfairness of it all.
The picture Adiga paints in this book is extremely bleak. There is no joy in Balram’s life. Everyone, from his employer to his grandmother is out to exploit him. Growing up in India, I have seen first hand that poor people can be happy. I have seen joyful children in villages; playing, laughing, swimming in streams nearby without a care in the world. I have seen parents who delight in their children, who are personable and hopeful despite not having enough money. Sadly, Balram does not have even one experience of elation to share with the readers.
Adiga has faced some criticism from critics who doubt the authenticity of his voice. They point out that Adiga has never been poor, he is middle class and Oxford educated. Balram's excellent English and manner of speaking do not correspond to someone who is poor and street smart. But then, he is the White Tiger, so we really cannot cannot question how and why he is so well read and articulate.
The servant master dynamic in the book is brilliantly depicted. Balram is a sycophant who can be excessively obsequious to win favors and be in the good books of his masters. Since Ashok and Pinky treat him better than most employers, his feelings get hurt when he must dress up as a Maharaja to entertain or when they make him say something so that they can laugh at his expense. Balram asks a thought-provoking question, “Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love - or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?”
Balram commits peccadillos like cheating his master by giving false receipts or using his car as a taxi on the side but he rationalizes his behavior when he thinks to himself, “The more I stole from him, the more I realized how much he had stolen from me.” Emboldened by getting away with misdemeanors, Balram plans the ultimate sin. Will he get away with it or will he be caught? The book will shock you but also make you ponder about the injustice of social inequality and if there should be a better option in life than to “eat — or get eaten up.”
If this review piques your interest, do click on the book cover below to access this book in the Richland Library catalog.
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If you are interested in fiction from India do browse these booklists:
31 Outstanding Fiction Books by Indian Authors
Read a Book by a South Asian Author - India
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