Book Review Aravind Adiga "The White Tiger"

Lexmipapan

16 February 2009, 15:09

The Indian Nation, the Idea of India, secularism, patriotism, nationalism et al are part of the grand narrative and hold meaning only to the high born, wellheeled, and educated Indian. The underclass of India live in a territory of more subsistence concerns. Aravind Adiga’s post Naxal protagonist, Balram Halwai, hails from this class. He is a local guy who gets to have a share in the global pie. He is shown to manage this makeover not through the much lauded route of hard work but through a series of smart acts culminating in the smartest act, the murder of his master. It is a postmodern mini narrative which debunks and demolishes several grand narratives of old and new India. The ‘carnivalesque delight in irreverence.’ that Nicholas Sloboda identifies as one of the hallmarks of postmodern writing is evident in every sentence of Adiga.

The White Tiger is in the form of a long letter written over seven nights by “Thinking Man” and “Enterpreneur”, Balram, to Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister of China, who is visiting India shortly. The White Tiger wants to give Wen the true taste of India through an account of his entrepreneurial adventures before the Indian PM feeds him with the official claptrap about the moral and saintly India and the Gandhian legacy. The choice of the addressee itself is quite mischievous and subversive. Spilling the beans to the hostile neighbour and describing the Chinese as great lovers of freedom and individual liberty are unforgivable sins in the Patriot’s commandments!

Sitting in his 150 sq.foot office in Bangalore, he kisses the arses of 36,000,004 gods in true Bharateeya tradition, and launches into the autobiography of the half baked Indian that he was described as by his ex- employer Ashok. He has learned
many such expressions from Ashok and his wife, Pinky Madam. Like the typical postmodern man, he is a copy, not an original. But he has clear cut theories based on eavesdropping, observation, experience and a deep understanding of poets Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib and a fourth fellow whose name he cant recall.

Thus he is not confused about the diversity of India. There are only two Indias: the India of Darkness, Servants and Small Bellies and the India of Light, Masters and Big Bellies. He is in the Light now. But his origins were in the Darkness of Laxmangarh on the Ganga whose divine origin and capacity to grant salvation to those who take a dip in her waters are all bunkum. The Ganga is the black river full of filth and faeces. She cannot liberate anyone. Her black mud can only suck you in when you are a corpse.

The Hanuman cult receives a similar knock. Hanuman was the devoted servant of Rama. Hanuman worship is insisted upon to confirm the servants in their servanthood. The Masters of the village, the Big Bellies who ate it up, were the four landlords who lived in big mansions outside the Darkness: The Buffalo, The Stork, The Raven, and The Wild Boar. Over and above them was The Great Socialist, the political master of new India who saw to it that all the voters were merely names on paper and never exercised their franchise.

The doctor he appointed in the government hospital outside the Darkness – the Darkness had three foundation stones for hospitals – after ensuring a regular cut from his salary – treated patients on paper and made money working in private hospitals during official duty time. The village school where he could not continue long was another story. But it at least gave him his name, surname and nickname. ‘Balram Halwai’ was the teacher’s gift at the time of admission when he was just Munna and ‘The White Tiger’ was given by the Inspector in appreciation of his brilliant answers to questions. The teashop where he worked as the human spider with utmost dishonesty, lack of dedication and insincerity turned out to be the first training ground for the future entrepreneur. He took his education forward there, identified eavesdropping as the great tool towards progress and honed his skills at it. He got the sack, of course, for these exceptional talents.

His fortunes improved on getting to Dhanbad with Kishan, his elder brother, after their father’s death. He learned driving, gatecrashed into the U.S., returned to Ashok’s house, and got a job as driver. The irksome thing was he was Driver No.2 driving the humble Maruti Suzuki while Ram Persad was Driver No.1 in charge of the Honda City. Driver No.2 is more of a servant than No.1. Balram fixed this problem very soon. With a bit of sleuthing in the month of Ramadan he discovered that Ram Persad was a Muslim. The Stork was anti Muslim.

Now nothing stood between him and the Honda City on its way to Delhi with Ashok and Pinky Madam. There were other discoveries. That Ashok was the son of Stork, one of the Big Bellies from the Darkness, that Stork was brought to Dhanbad by the Great Socialist to do flourishing business in illegal mining of coal, all protection promised at huge costs to be paid to politicians here, there, everywhere and that Ashok was to be in Delhi to carry out the bribing missions.

Once in Delhi, the eyes of the “Country Mouse”, as another Delhi driver called him, opened wide to the glitter of the capital. He saw great structures, seats of power, grand hotels, and big malls. He also enjoyed a peep show into the private life of his master and mistress. Malls did not admit drivers in their uniforms. Balram bought cheeper look alikes of Ashok’s clothes and got entry into one of them. Ambitions grew in him, as did resentment. Not that Ashok ill treated him. Full of American innocence, according to his brother Mukesh, the Mongoose, he was very courteous to Balram. (American innocence is another reversal of perceptions. Somewhat like the Inscrutable Americans. Conservative Indians believe that their young compatriots are innocents who go abroad and are corrupted.) But it was still the condescending courtesy shown to a servant. There is the hilarious scene of Balram joining a line of crappers in the slum area – the Darkness – in Delhi and mimicking his master’s offer of help: “We’ll take care of your wedding expenses”. We’ll even fuck your wife for you, Balram”.

The rapport he established with the squatter next to him was so instantaneous that the fellow repeated the words in uproarious glee and fell down, bottom up, laughing. What was actually given for the wedding expenses was a hundred rupee note! Ashok was guilty of another offence,too. Pinky’s drunken driving at night had killed a child . He colluded with the Mongoose in making the driver the scapegoat. And despite his Hanuman- like loyalty, Lord Krishna-like counselling and caring, when the Pinky Seetha deserted him, Ashok was secretly looking for another driver. That was the last straw. Ashok, the undecided, pseudo liberal had to make way for Balram, the White Tiger.

On an important trip taking bribe money to the tune of seven hundred thousand rupees stuffed in a red bag, his skull was smashed in with a Johnnie Walker Black bottle. Balram stopped being a servant that very instant

After a piecemeal journey by various trains to avoid being caught, he landed in Bangalore with the red bag intact and a nephew in tow. The little boy had been thrust upon him by that Rooster Coop, his family in the Darkness tyrannically controlled by his ghoulish grandmother. The much hyped joined family in India is the most insurmountable hurdle to freedom of action. It is what keeps a servant, a servant all his life. In the call center capital of the country, the BPO industry beckoned him. In his previous service, he had mastered two arts, the driver’s art and the bribing art. He tapped both and established his business of supplying vehicles and drivers to the call centers.

Balram looks upon himself as the epitome of success. Unlike Macbeth, he does not see any ghost sitting in his chair. He has known his masters committing worse sins. Crime in traditional narratives is treated in terms of the moral order, human conscience and the punishment that follows inevitably.The White tiger is not weighed down by such baggage. In his new identity he is not Balram Halwai. He is Ashok Sharma as is seen in the conclusion of the letter to Wen.

He has eaten and digested his master and become him. It is a parodic subversion of the Eucharist. (You partake of the body and blood of Christ and become Christ or at least a Christian.) In fact, parody is the predominant figure of speech in the novel. Poetry and perversity form such a mix in the potential killer that he is impelled to make the decisive stab by Mohammad Iqbal’s great lines: “I was looking for the key for years But the door was always open.”

Balram Halwai’s journey from the Darkness of Laxmangarh to the Light of Bangalore is a profane translation of the spiritual journey enshrined in the great prayer: “Thamaso Ma Jyothirgamaya! (Lead me from Darkness to Light!”) Through his underdog anti hero’s perspective , Aravind Adiga has given a focused view of India minus her sheen and moral grandeur. But any gloom that may assail the reader is dispelled in the hilarious lightness of being created by his playful style. Style transforms substance magically in this tale of two countries in one country.

Comment

  1. I have to read this! I read Tarun Tejpals Story of of My Assasins and loved that as well!!!
    Prithvilok/Mahaphuddus as we are, are screwed!

    — Samir · Feb 19, 07:50 · #

  2. Very nice review. Involved, discursive, informative…and it makes me want to read the book more than I did before!

    — Ashok Banker · Feb 27, 13:35 · #

Textile Help