How much abuse and frustration can an ambitious man tolerate as a servant in modern India? How long will hundreds of millions of impoverished people suffer amid political corruption and an economic structure blatantly tilted to favor a wealthy elite? When will they rise up in a revolt for better lives?
These questions roar out from Aravind Adiga's acclaimed first novel, The White Tiger (2008, London, Atlantic Books, 321 pages). The book's powerful commentary about political, economic and social injustice in the world's “largest democracy” helped it to win the 2008 Man Booker Prize.
“…the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time.”
Readers soon understand that Balram Halwai, the narrator and main character, is a rare creature, like a white tiger, a man of deep passions and definite limits. How can he live by such unfair rules?
Do India, its politicians, business leaders and even school teachers all lack a sense of fair play? Are their spirits as murky as mud? Is their behavior justified? “You can't expect a man in a dung heap to smell sweet.”
From a village along the River Ganges in India's dark regions, the ambitious Balram works in a teashop and later as a driver. “The road is a jungle, get it? A good driver must roar to get ahead on it.”
Soon Balram's duties as a chauffeur and servant to a wealthy family active in the coal industry place him, the son-of-a-rickshaw-puller, into the swirling currents and bitter tensions of Delhi. “It wasn't hard to find the way – I just had to follow the buses. For there were buses and jeeps all along the road – and they were bursting with passengers who packed the insides, and hung out of the doors, and even got on the roofs. They were all headed from the Darkness to Delhi. You'd think the whole world was migrating.”
The book's setting, in various parts of a crowded and seemingly exotic nation, helps to guide the unfolding events. “The main thing to know about Delhi is that the roads are good, and the people are bad. The police are totally rotten.”
Adiga deftly describes places and situations. “Rush hour in Delhi. Cars, scooters, motorbikes, auto-rickshaws, black taxis, jostling for space on the road. The pollution is so bad that the men on the motorbikes and scooters have handkerchiefs wrapped around their faces – each time you stop at a red light, you see a row of men with black glasses and masks on their faces, as if the whole city were out on a bank heist that morning.”
Amid the injustices and resentments, Adiga tells of cockroaches and call-centres, slums and shopping malls, traffic jams, beggars and the giant “rooster coop” of Indian society that keeps everyone enclosed in their proper places. Most servants trying to fight back can risk only small actions. “A time-honored servants' tradition. Slapping the master when he's asleep. Like jumping on pillows when masters are not around. Or urinating into their plants. Or beating or kicking their pet dogs. Innocent servants' pleasures.”
As the humiliations mount, too many of them thoughtlessly inflicted by Balram's arrogant employers, he nears a personal breaking point. “No servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are. Do we loathe our masters behind a façade of love – or do we love them behind a façade of loathing?” Will the narrator, once a humble and sincere servant, turn to robbery and violence, even murder? If so, how will that right the many wrongs?
Powerful emotions and messages make The White Tiger rewarding to read. But as its Achilles' heel, there's an often-tedious format. Adiga tells the story by having Balram write a series of late-night letters to China's premier Wen Jiabao who plans to visit India to meet entrepreneurs and “hear the stories of their success from their own lips”.
“Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them.”
Seeing himself as a prime example of entrepreneurial excellence, Balram feels compelled to tell of his experiences. “Yes, it's true: a few hundred thousand rupees of someone else's money, and a lot of hard work, can make magic happen in this country.”
The narrator plans to mail his missives to the Chinese leader's office in Beijing. Few busy entrepreneurs would make such a presumptuous decision. Worse, the letters tactic creates a long tirade by one opinionated character. No one else has much substance, and the readers must devote full attention to Belram, no matter what his outrageous claims. Ultimately, the format turns tiring, even annoying, like being cornered by an angry, talkative drunk at a cocktail party.
Born in India back in 1974, Adiga, a former writer for Time magazine, grew up in Australia before studying at Columbia and Oxford universities. He lives in Mumbai.
At times powerful, at others tedious, The White Tiger earns a passing grade, not lavish praise. No doubt, the author can write even better novels.
Approval rating: 60 per cent.
For more information: www.atlantic-books.co.uk
(January 19, 2011)
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Aravind Adiga tells an award-winning
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