Sunday, February 15, 2009

White Tiger-A Review

Writer:Arvind Adiga
Publishers:HarperCollins (India)
Joint Venture:The India Today Group,New Delhi
Year Of Publication:2008

White tiger is a classic novel that is shortlisted for Booker Prize -2008.And the author is an Indian ,basically a Madrasi!!!!.Its entirely a story of fiction that revolves around an Indian entrepreneur and how he got a way to become an entrepreneur in Bangalore from a background of Darkness.The author clearly brings up the picture of the dark heart of India.

You can meet Balram Halwai ,a son of Rickshaw puller,who is the "WHITE TIGER" of the story.He is also a entrepreneur,philosopher,servant,teashop boy,driver of Honda city and probably the MURDERER too!!...

Mr.Halwai born in Laxmangarh,dark heart of India.He was taken out of school to support his family.He was put work in a teashop.He felt bad for it. Not only he,but still many people are there in the dark heart of India where they cant continue their schooling .They are all half baked like our Halwai.Thats why Halwai says"open our skulls,look in with pen light,you'll find an odd museum of ideas:sentences of history or mathematics rememeber from our text books".

But our Halwai doesnt stop learning after quitting his studies.He learnt a lot by eavesdropping on the people.The story also shows up the landlords who are crushing the lives of the rural people.The workers are humiliated everywhere and they were treated like slaves by those lords(just namesake). The landlords have their own mansions and bungalows while the workers are dying out of hungriness.Obviously ,the author narrates the story what leads to the NAXALS to arise.

Later our Halwai worked as a driver(Dream job of people in dark heart!!!)in Buffalo's(one of the landlord in Laxmangarh) mansion.Halwai drived car for Buffalo's son Ashok.Probably Halwai learnt a lot by eavesdropping on Ashok's conversation with his wife Pinky.


Halwai joined with Ashok and pinky to DELHI(BRIGHTER SIDE OF INDIA).Here the author brings a vivid picture of the feelings of man when he is meeting a completely different lifestyle....Halway is feeling strange for even a casual thing of the Metro.

But the metro taught him a lot of things......Probably about a murder toooooo.ya ,Halwai murdered his master Ashok and ran away to the CYBER CITY(Bangalore).Then he became a famous enterpreneur in Bangalore.He is not feeling guilty about Ashok.Instead he was like,"I have made it,I've broken out of the coop! I'm not a servant still...".Halwai now wants to open a school in Bangalore for 'The white tigers' where anyone's head cant be corrupted with prayers or about the stories of Gandhiji or 36,000,004 Gods in India(ha!)-nothing but only about the facts of life for the tigers

Its real.Still there are people in our country who yearns for their basic needs of survial to be fullfilled atleast.And Adiga wants us to remember those people also in our mind.He also warns us to get rid of our old-fashioned ideas and practices and to break the chain the slavery.


COMMENT:
We cant ignore the fact that our INDIA is unbalanced.Its not equally privileged.Yet we are not all inferior to anyone in this world.I can strongly allege that,we cant undervalue our country when compared to China or Japan or ANYTHING else as Adiga did.I cant go with Adiga in that idea.We, the Indians are equally enriched with everything.The only thing is we have to get away with those half-baked ideas and really come out of the chain of slavery....

INDIA SHOULD BE FILLED WITH WHITE TIGERS TO BECOME A SUPERPOWER."A WHITE TIGER WONT ALLOW HIS MIND TO GET CORRUPTED AT ANY CAUSE.HE WILL ONLY GO AHEAD TOWARDS HIS GOAL UPROOTING ALL THE OBSTACLES ON HIS WAY".