The White Tiger

For some time now, I have consciously stayed away from books "on India". I had my fill of pages filled with nostalgia, or the gushing of foreigners who claim India had changed their lives. I was also really not in the mood to read non-fiction and deepen my awareness of reality. Call it a phase of escapism (YES, I did read the whole "Twilight" series during that "phase" and yes feel free to laugh!). Nothing prepared me for the brutal shock of this book by Aravind Adiga. For two days, my child, my home and husband were severely neglected. Laundry piled up and I even read for hours in an unmade bed (and I hate unmade beds!!). Although some of the reviews claim this is a thriller, I would not call it so and this is not why it kept me on tenderhooks. It is the sudden and brutal recall of the reality I had chosen to stay away from, consciously, that prevents me to sleep at night ever since I turned the last page. I knew India has a side which is beyond my wildest imagination, even after living here for 10 years. But Adiga's insight into the minds, souls and lives of those who live in the "Darkness", or the poor, surpassed everything I had seen, or heard of, or guessed. I was really not prepared to read about all this, especially now that I am about to bring up two children in this country.

Balram is one of the anonymous faces I pass on the street every day. He could be the delivery boy of my neighbourhood pharmacy, or even my own driver. And now, maybe, somehow, I know a bit more about what is happening behind the smiling, or sometimes openly resentful, face of my neighbourhood Balram. What he probably thinks of me, how he eavesdrops on my life and probably knows about me much more than I would want him to. Of how, within the huge jungle of casts that India is, there are sub-casts even at his level, and the acute consciousness he has about the difference between him and other "servants". Of the kind of family he has left behind in the village. Of the kinds of pressures he may be subjected to, beyond his poverty.

I would really like to meet Aravind Adiga one day and ask him, did he actually live in a village like Balram's, how many Balrams did he interview and how did he go about his research to come up with such a raw, graphic and confident account of the life of this villager turned tea boy turned driver turned entrepreneur. His keen observations and the minute details he delivers are so staggering, that one has to actually remind one's self that he/ she is not reading "Lord of the Rings", but about a dark world that actually exists under our own windows.

Why this book was really good for me to read:

- I don't think I will ever look at my housekeeper, nanny and driver in the same way ever again. I will be a bit more conscious of what is important to them, even if from my position it seems really stupid and trivial.

Why this book was really bad for me:

- It leaves me hopeless that the Darkness these people come from will never change.

- It confirms the fact that there is a whole fraction of society out there that has a vested interest in keeping things the way they are.

- And yes, again, I will never look at the people who work for me the same way, but I will also never be able to shake off the spark of suspicion and fear about what is going on in their minds, that this book ignited in me.