Oct 15, 2008 11:38 AM
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News of the day
Well - that was quite surprising. The young Chap who migrated from Chennai to Mumbai got Booker Prize for his debut novel (only three others got this luck previously).
So, $86000 with good rupee valuation and lots of respect in the society is on his way!
In MS also, I have seen the members rejoicing over the fellow Indian (Not an NRI) getting the "Great Award".Just because he is an Indian and Just because we value Booker Prize as something great - we are happy! But friends - how many of you have read the book???? And how many of you have really assessed whether it is the time to be happy or ----?
Well - I have read this novel before a month and hence could give you some insight about the same.
Plot
The plot is presented through a series of letters written over a perioid of sevennights, through Balram Halwai.
He is one who applauds the premier of China - making occasional comparison between India and China but it ultimately proves to be a feeble excuse for him to unburden himself, and because the premise is so poorly utilised undermines much of the novel.
He give an account of how he got to where he is now (as a successful entrepreuner in Bangalore)
Born in a small village in northern India, his parents couldn't even be bothered to give him a name, just calling him 'munna' --. The near-feudal conditions there meant that everything was controlled by a very few powerful families, and that opportunities were limited.
Balram calls himself; "half-baked", like many others in the country -- not allowed to finish school. His smartness was recognised by the school inspector who praised him as a 'white tiger', "the rarest of animals -- the creature that only comes along once in a generation".
Also, he promises to arrange a scholarship for him but the family take him out of school and puts him to work at a tea shop.
Balram slowly manages to distance himself from his family. He learns driving and considering this as an opportunity to escape he becomes driver of Ashik and his wife who eventually brought him to Delhi.
During the course of the novel, Balram explains why Indian servants are so honest: because of what he calls the Rooster Coop. No matter what the opportunity, a servant will not take advantage of his master -- not when it comes to what really matters.
Adiga, doesn't convey adequately why so many Indians are supposedly stuck in this Coop -- with families like Balram's. Also, Balram's own pangs of conscienceare not being protrayed enough to convicne the readers.
Along the long way Adiga does a decent job of describing the divide between the haves and have-nots, and the way the servant-class is treated. He's particularly good on Indian corruption, where the teacher steals the money for the school-food-programme and sells the uniforms meant for the students -- but no one holds it against him, because he hasn't been paid in six months and that's simply the way the system works. Anyone in power abuses it for his or her own benefit. By the end, when he's a boss, Balram has certainly learned to work the system too -- which is largely about greasing the proper wheels.
The White Tiger says a lot about contemporary India, but it tries to do so far too hard. Adiga has some talent, but leaves it at loose ends here. What suspense he builds up early on surrounding Balram's crime dissipates far too fast, while he tries too hard with his Indian panorama. And Balram isn't a fully realised or convincing character, either, even though he's talking all the time, as Adiga's attempt to make him both a peasant-everyman (representative of so many Indians) and a white tiger confuses things.
"I'm tomorrow", Adiga has Balram claim early on, but it's unclear what kind of tomorrow he represents: his success is found in imitating the dime-a-dozen corrupt wealthy class, which is nothing new (also abandoning family)
Should these 'letters' ever have reached Chinese premier Wen Jiabao he would, no doubt, have been completely baffled by them -- as well as why they were addressed to him. Unfortunately, readers of the novel likely will be similarly baffled.
Booker Prize ---
Friends - you should present your country in the bad light! Arundhati Roy did it by portraying EMs Namboodirupadu and Communist revelution in Kerala -- Salman Rushdie always does the same -
And Adiga through Balram has the voice of what may, or may not, be a new India: quick-witted, half-baked, self-mocking, and awesomely quick to seize an advantage. India's othersides which does not want to be heard outside was beautifully supressed.
Just watch programs on India in Discovery Channel - where in Indians eat Rat, Rats inside temple ------- The White Elephantis no way different from this.
Whether to be happy or not??? It is your choice. I wont recommend this to MSians.
