The White Tiger

Title: The White Tiger
Author: Aravind Adiga
My Rating: 3.5*

"I threw the potato from the masala dosa on the tracks as it makes my master fart. A driver knows everything about his master right from mouth to anus". The novel is full of rib tickling lines like these. It's a story about this smart boy who moves from his village to city as a driver and then goes on to become an entrepreneur. Smartness amongst the darkness of Indian villages is rare just like white tiger in a jungle. Hence the title. While narrating the journey of the protagonist's life, the author exposes the (literal and figurative) dirt, graft, cast-ism that India still is under the patina of "Rising India". The villages are in so much
"darkness". And it's just impossible for anyone to get out of that "darkness" and move to the "light". The author argues that Indians are caught in a "Rooster coop" from which there is no escape. And even if a rooster does try to escape, there are enough number of others who will not let him do that. They stay put in the coop well aware of the fact that they will be pulled out one day and butchered.

Darkly humorous and blatantly true. Rising India is just a farce. Under the covers it's still the caste ridden, corrupt and dirty India where a majority line along the rail tracks to relieve themselves in the open in morning. The narration addressed to the Chinese premier is also well thought. The striking comparison of a democracy to a developed communist regime is apparent in the narration.

Where it fails I think is when it doesn't talk anything in favor of the developed India. In that sense Aravind portrays a partisan view of the present India. As a reader therefore am left unconvinced. While I empathize with most of the things mentioned, I can't help pondering "Is it really so bad"?

A must read though and worthy of the Booker that it won!

~Ashish.