The White Tiger - Book Review

I never wrote book reviews, although I always wanted to. I started writing this review, because I felt the most of the reviews on this book (just like the book) are incomplete and biased except one. I need to acknowledge this guy, who really made me to think and write this review.

Note: You should have read the book to understand this review completely.

Coming to the point, the first reaction that I had after reading this book is that "This is not true". I was depressed, dejected, and little bit frustrated. The book was acclaimed to reflect the "real India". But it didn't. What I actually felt is that, it is meant to grab focus. When everybody is saying "Indian is shining", you just create a fiction which symbolizes the opposite of that. There are certain things that I agree with the author but not all.

Certain things that I really liked about the novel are: The way it starts. Balram Halwai, a Bangalore based entrepreneur writes a letter to famous Chinese personality, Premier who is going to visit India to learn about entrepreneurship. In this letter Balram writes his own story of entrepreneurship in way to unburden the pain that he is carrying by killing his ex-boss. I really liked the way he unveils his story starting from his poster, which shows that a driver has killed his boss and ran away with that money.

Coming to the other end, the author mainly focuses on the fact that there is a vast gap between the rich and poor in India, between cities and rural areas. He symbolizes these things as "the Light" and "the Darkness". I agree with this fact. But the disturbing factor is that the narrator of the story kills one person to cross this rich-poor barrier. Somehow, the novel reflects that the only way for a poor person to become rich in this country is to kill somebody or to get corrupted or to get amoral. The narrator, Balram, justifies this saying

"But isn't it likely that everyone who counts in this world, including our prime minister (including you, Mr. Jiabao), has killed someone or other on their way to the top? Kill enough people and they will put up bronze statues to you near Parliament House in Delhi—but that is glory, and not what I am after. All I wanted was the chance to be a man—and for that, one murder was enough."

Well, I agree with this point w.r.t politicians in India but not for entrepreneurs. This is really a misguiding factor about the present day entrepreneurs.

One other factor is that, the author tries to show a worst-case scenario instead of a balanced view. For example, he says that every thing that his school gets, mid-meal programme, uniforms, books; everything is swallowed by the school teacher. This reflects that the system is completely corrupt. I don't agree with this. I would say that there is corruption; there are things which are swallowed in the middle. But definitely, there are people who are good and who are not corrupt. And there always remains something at the end. Its not 100% corruption.

Sometimes, I felt that author was not really describing the present. Some of the descriptions made me to imagine that he is writing about the past some 2 decades back from now. I may be wrong in this point. For example, the narrator who lives in Bangalore city listens to All India radio for latest updates of news. I don't think that people living in cities are still dependent on All India Radio for news updates.

During some descriptions, the author praises the communist attitude of China, while degrading the India's democracy before it. I accept that China is the fastest growing economy but I don't support that India should follow this communist attitude to become China. We all know what communism could lead to. Democracy is the only solution for the future.

The most disturbing factor for me in this novel is "Balram killing his ex-boss Mr.Ashok". I don't think that there is no symbolism in this novel. I guess, the author deliberately choose characters as symbols. Balram, the main character is symbolized to represent the poor of India. Stork, Buffalo, Wild Boar, and Raven are symbolized to represent the rich, feudal lords of the past India. The two sons of Stork, Mukesh and Ashok represent two diverging Indian perspectives. Mukesh is just like his father, another feudal lord. Ashok is an educated man, who returns from US, with an American wife. Ashok is a sensible, good mannered, socialistic type of guy. Just like any typical educated Indian man. Ashok is portrayed to be a helpless man, who is confused by his own principles and the society, the show-cased real India. Because of this helpless nature, his ambivalent nature, his wife (a foreigner) leaves him. And then he gives into corruption and becomes amoral. And finally, the good-natured guy is killed by the poor Indian man, Balram. This is totally wrong. Completely misleading. My take on this, if India has changed in the recent past, one of the main reasons is: people like Ashok. They have directly and indirectly contributed to the growth of the India. In spite of the Government failures, they have pushed lot of money into various NGO's to reform India. They became entrepreneurs to reshape the economy of India. They are the next generation leaders. If people like Ashok are killed, then there will be no India. I would have been happy, if Balram (poor guy) has killed Mukesh (rich, feudal lord).

About writing style and all. I think this is not a book, worth to be a Booker Prize winner. I have read the past Booker Prize winners from India. Midnight Children, The God of small things and The loss of Inheritance. Definitely, this author, Aravind lacked that kind of subtlety. He tried to show India in a symbolic way, which could never be complete and perfectly right. Just being sarcastic won't make it a perfect book.

There is one more thing I wanted to add. After about 100 pages (total of 193 pages), the book became somewhat monotonic. I got a repulsive attitude towards the descriptions of rich-poor differences.

In conclusion, I would say that it’s a book for a weekend reading, but don't think that it is India. India is a far better world