Aravind Adiga - White Tiger

Reviewed by Malcolm Martland 9 April 2009
This is the tale of Indian Balram Halwai told in the form of a letter to the Chinese Premier who is due to visit Bangalore – and written over the course of 7 nights by the light of a preposterous chandelier.

It is a story of poverty and corruption told by Balram Halwai –servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer – also named by his educators as The White Tiger - the jungle creature that comes along only once in a generation – the jungle in this case being one of thugs and idiots. He outlines India’s lack of drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality but an abundance of entrepreneurs – thousands of them that have set up outsourcing companies that virtually run America now. But he humorously wonders how the Chinese Premier would cope with having to kiss the backsides of the Hindu’s 36 million gods plus the Muslims 1 God and the Christians 3 – I don’t know where he gets this from – making a total of 36 million and 4 backsides to pay homage too.

It is an amusing story but tinged with bitter reality – he speaks of his childhood – despite their poverty the families Water Buffalo is treated like a deity and fed and washed as a priority before his rickshaw driving father is attended to. They live in the village of Laxmanargh in the area of Darkness on a branch of the Ganga – here there is a temple containing a yellow god – half man half monkey – Hanuman – who is everyone’s favourite god in the Darkness He was the faithful servant of the god Rama and is worshipped because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love and devotion – Balram comments in his letter to the Chinese Premier “Understand now how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India”.

The book is littered with these short profound statements – he talks about his father’s spine as a knotted rope – the kind that women use in villages to pull water from wells – the story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.

He writes of his mother’s cremation – a funeral pyre on the mud of the Ganga – they have to wait for several earlier funerals first – and one of his mother’s feet suddenly pokes out of the flames. Colurful.

Later he takes his sick father to the free hospital to see a doctor – but there is no doctor there – Dr Ram Pandey was appointed through a series of backhanders allowing him to collect a salary – one third of which must given back to the Great Socialist who enabled the position – in return Dr Ram Pandey is free to work in a private hospital and at the end of the day the free hospital’s ledger has ticks by all the patients they cured that day. So Balram’s father dies – from TB – but the hospital records show he was cured!

Balram goes on to work breaking coal into manageable lumps for a teashop owner – but his break comes when he learns to drive and through sheer dogged persistence he gets a job as a driver for wealthy Mr Ashok and his wife “Pinky” Madam.

I’m up to the 4th night and I’m enjoying the book immensely – so far anyway – there are some slightly anti-British remarks but none yet that I have taken offence to.
I’ll let listeners know on the book show my feelings on the Radio Scilly Book Club Blog when I‘ve finished this so far entertaining and enlightening book!