The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
------A Story Of The Real India, Told By The White Tiger-----
Set in a raw and unromanticized India, The White Tiger---the first-person
confession of a murderer---is as compelling for its subject matter as it is for
the voice of its narrator: amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply
endearing.
Personal Review: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
In his Booker Prize winning novel, The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga has
achieved success where other illustrious writers have fallen short in recent
years. Kiran Desai, Monica Ali and Salman Rushdie have all entered the
fray and achieved considerable success of their own around themes
rooted in the ramshackle, disorganised, free-for-all, cost-cutter basement
of globalisation. Characters in their novels might live in New York or
London, but their thoughts continue to live in rural south Asia. They might,
through their labour, service the desires of the First World rich, but their
personal priorities might remain rooted in the concerns of Third World
poor. I accept that the grouping of these authors is unfair, since Salman

Rushdie's Shalimar The Clown is an overtly political book, whereas Monica
Ali's is largely domestic and Kiran Desai's is familiar. But they do all share
an overt interest in characters who have left their humble, Third World
origins for a First World status that is less than desirable, though their
motives might be diverse.
In The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga tries a different tack, and achieves
much. The scenario is unlikely, deliberately comic. The book presents a
narrative - apparently constructed in just seven evenings at a personal
computer - by one Belram, a man with origins in a poor area of an Indian
countryside he calls Darkness. Essentially, there are seven blogs or emails
addressed to Wen Jiabao via the Premier's Office, Beijing, China in which
the first person narrator tells his story. Belram, presumably, believes that
the Chinese people, via their leader, need advice on how to succeed in the
globalised twenty-first century. Since Belram has indeed succeeded, he
wants to share his experience as potential assistance to the most populous
nation on earth.
Belram's rise can be listed without jeopardising the potential reader's
interest or involvement with the book. He was of utterly poor rural origin,
but luckily - and also perhaps rather deviously - secured a job as a driver
for the middle-class, urban Mr Ashok. By the end of the tale Belram has his
own business in Bangalore, a place as far from his own origins as any
international destination. He now owns a taxi fleet that services the anti-
social working hours of the growing city's relocated call centres, whose
First World cost-cutter owners provide the financial umbrella-shade in
which budding entrepreneurs like Belram may shelter and prosper. Thus
he eases himself a rung or two up the social and economic ladder. If only
the elevation might have happened without treading on others...
The White Tiger is a delightful and engaging book. The narrator's humour
and world-outlook are both entertaining and stimulating. The book's
improbable structure presents no problem whatsoever once Belram's
engaging style is established. His story is simple, devious, credible and
incredible in one, and perhaps as close to a truth as one might ever
approach. Literature is full of schemers and opportunists. Anti-heroes,
however, rarely convince. Belram, on the other hand, almost demands we
share his success via emulation, and I encourage all readers to enter his
world on his terms.
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