This is Aravind Adiga’s first novel and the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
The white tiger is a quick-reading thriller, written in the first person by the main character, Balram Hawai, a self-proclaimed entrepreneur in Bangalore, about how he came to be successful. We learn Balram’s life story via 7 letters he has decided to write to the premier of China. He wrote these letters to educate the premier so that he wouldn’t be fooled by any of the false pictures the politicians he meets might paint about life in India when he comes for his official state visit. Balram decides the best way for the premier to understand what life is like in India is by telling him the story of his life.
He is the son of a rickshaw puller from The Darkness. He grew up in a small village in Bihar – named only “Munna” (boy) until his teacher named him Balram and gave him a birthdate so he could vote for the landlord.
A white tiger is the rarest creature in the jungle, only coming along once in every generation. When Balram was still able to attend school in his village, he was singled out by a school inspector as being the white tiger of his schoolmates for being able to read and write when no one else could. The inspector promised that Balram would be given a scholarship to attend a proper school so he could fulfill his potential. Unfortunately, fate changed these plans. His family were forced to pull him out of school to help pay off their debt to the landlord and he was put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coal and wipes tables, he dreams of escape from Darkness to Light. He gets a lucky break when he learns to drive a car, then lands a job as a driver in Delhi for a landlord from his village. Here he learns that success often involves corruption, cruelty and a different set of rules than those that apply to the servants who work for the rich.
As he drives his master to shopping malls and hotels, Balram becomes increasingly aware of the immense wealth and opportunity around him, knowing that he will never be able to gain access to that world. As Balram worries about his situation, he realises there is only one way he can become part of this glamorous new India – by murdering his master.
Balram has a sarcastic, cynical and crude voice, but is also quite witty, and so you want to keep reading the novel. In fact, what makes the events in the book so believable is the character of Balram. The white tiger is compelling reading for its subject matter as well as for the voice of its narrator – amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet strangely likeable.
Highly Recommended: *****
JW
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