An alcoholic tale, or an exposure of evil

In an alcoholic tale (literally, because the entire gamut of characters of the novel turn to liquor), Aravind Adiga chooses to expose the evils of Indian society stretching from Laxmangarh to Bangalore via the Indian capital New Delhi. Adiga's journalistic reportage in Time magazine (he had been a New Delhi correspondent of Time for quite a few years) definitely makes its mark in his Booker winning debut novel The White Tiger. It chronicles the India of the 21st century from the perspective of a lower caste Indian, if not from Adiga himself. The witty and pungent satire used in the novel are at times didactic and prophetic, leaving it to readers to settle whether they should pay heed to the prophecy of a person coming from the North Indian ghetto who likes to introduce himself in a wryly elevated term as "an entrepreneur".
The White Tiger is an epistolary novel addressed to the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India. In the detailed account of his entrepreneurship (!) Ashok Sharma, the protagonist (with the evolution of the status of his profession his name changes: from Munna to Balaram Halwai to Ashok Sharma, but inwardly he always sticks to the title "White Tiger" conferred upon him by his elementary school teacher), elaborates his experiences as a student in the elementary school, as a tea stall boy, as a driver, and finally as the owner of a company that boasts having twenty six Toyota Qualises that work on a contract basis to fetch to office and return home the employees of the "Internet Companies" that are located in Bangalore. Additionally, he is resolute to make a fortune in the real estate enterprise. Munna was born in the household of a rickshaw puller, in a north-Indian village named Laxmangarh which is near the suburban town of Dhanbad. Munna's family indeed takes its course designed by the domineering grandmother of the household Kusum.
Munna had to quit school and served at a tea shop in exchange of repaying a debt of the family that was taken on the occasion of the marriage ceremony of his cousin-sister Reena. Later he moved to Dhanbad and after taking lessons in driving managed to get the post of a driver cum aide in the house of one of the landlords of Laxmangarh who had a coal business in Dhanbad. When the young son of the family moved to Delhi to settle an income tax stalemate by bribing the minister and its allies, he carried Balaram (in this household Munna got the name Balaram) with him. Though a "country-mouse", a keen observer of the things that go around, Balaram did not take a lot of time to adapt to cosmopolitan Delhi. No wonder the sights and sounds of Delhi together with his master's degeneracy (though he had human compassion for the poor, especially for Balaram) and the misdeeds of the other drivers of the apartment house where he lived with his master contributed to his mischief. Balaram, starting from siphoning petrol, to take the car to a corrupt mechanic who billed him for work that was unnecessary and picking up paying customers in the car, even (when favoured by chance) started drinking and made futile attempts to sleep with a girl with golden hair. Ultimately, he murdered his master by hammering the strong "Johnnie Walker Black" with the least scruple. The novel ends in Balaram escaping to Bangalore and taking the very master's name, i.e. Ashok, whom he killed.
It is not apparent whether Adiga is a "minstrel for the Indian cause", but deep down he cherishes the dream of bringing about change in Indian society. Balaram/Ashok wanted to establish an English medium school for the poor with the money earned through real estate business: "After three or four years in real estate, I think I might sell everything, take the money, and start a school an English language school for poor children in Bangalore". But a master in story telling, Adiga takes readers through a maze because they cannot take Balaram/Ashok even to be the blurred shadow of Adiga.
Therefore, Balaram's prophecy ("the future of the world lies with the yellow man and brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse") might / might not be Adiga's. But surely while considering the didactic bits, The White Tiger puts forward the lesson that "poverty creates monsters"has macrocosmic significance for lands stretching from Laxmangarh to Las Vegas. Adiga's hero Balaram, though not new, is idiosyncratic, esoteric and most complex among heroes in modern English literature.
Again, Balaram seems to be mentally ill; he is more like a psycho who turns a deaf ear to the sufferings of his family. By killing his master, though, he comes out of the coop but paves the way for the doom and destruction of his family. Above all, things that heighten the bond among human beings are not discernible to him. Even in his intercourse with everyone from family members to fellow workers he kept his private life walled off from public view. Ultimately, Adiga in this novel digs into the cravings of both rich and deprived and brings to our notice only the rottenness of India. The picture that the novel draws is Indian society on the verge of rottenness. But obviously there are many other illuminating aspects that give birth to present-day India vying or even toppling the West in many respects.
The White Tiger is intricately knit and tightly woven; there is hardly any space in the plot to be filled with anything else. From the very outset to the end it is gripping as well as thrilling. The most important role of literature, that is, to entertain the reader is in every way maintained by Adiga through his powerful use of wit, humour and irony. Therefore, apart from the world of academia a big number of amateur readers will find reading it a rewarding experience.

Mizanur Rahman teaches English at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) .