The White Tiger

THE WHITE TIGER

by Aravind Adiga

 

Award: Booker Winner 2008

 

Dates Read: July 14, 2010 & September 7, 2021

 

What readers can learn from this novel is that the level of corruption in India is staggering and there’s not much people wouldn’t do to get ahead. One example: The village school teacher steals their lunch and uniform money but perceived by the kids as justified since he hadn’t been paid in 6 months. India seems like a country where all the morals and values the West believes in go completely out the window. I know that’s a gross generalization but you have to believe that most of the shenanigans described in The White Tiger actually happen.

 

Everyone is so focused on survival that there is no time to consider kindness, or to contemplate if one is being a good person. Everyone’s nose is so pushed to the grindstone, not much else matters. The bus driver from Balram’s village is envied for his uniform, whistle, and regular paycheck. The kids in the village aspire to be him one day.

 

Overall this novel is tragic, funny and brutal. I feel so appreciative to have been born in the U.S., even with all its flaws. I found myself walking a moral tightrope the entire way through this novel because on the one hand, I wanted Balram to succeed but on the other, not the way he chose to go about it. He had to be highly divorced from his heart to follow through on his scheme. Knowing his family would pay the ultimate sacrifice and going through with it anyway is pretty gangster.

 

The servants who are all poorly treated strive to gain some kind of edge or status over one another so they can act just as poorly; being a jerk shows your status. So much for brotherhood, helping each other succeed and kindness. Instead the wheel of shit just keeps spinning.

 

And once he does succeed and is considered successful, he tries to take the “moral” approach when confronted with some of the same situations he encountered when he was a driver. While he should be given some kudos for these meager displays of kindness and morality, he has already immersed himself so deeply in the filth of Delhi that these gestures are rendered moot.

 

Balram’s description of how the bosses are safe when reading the magazine Murder Weekly is hysterical. He cautions that when the servants stop reading about murder and start reading about Gandhi and Buddha that “…it’s time to wet your pants.”

 

Favorite quote: “Iqbal that great poet was so right. The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave.” 

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