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Nov022008
The White Tiger - A travesty of reality
When a journalist embarks on a novel, he simply cannot shrug it off as pure Fiction and certainly and quite expectedly, Mr. Aravind Adiga hasn’t done so. Instead he is quoted as saying that the attempt was to highlight the brutal injustices of Indian society.
The narrator of the novel, Balram Halwai is certainly “half-baked” as he admits because the author never wants him to be anything more than that. He has a laptop, but looks to All India Radio as the source for the latest news, he is ignorant and cunning, sympathetic and ruthless, his emotions and feelings is like the swing of a pendulum. Sounds like a boring cliche? Mr. Adiga has hundreds of such plain comparisons. The best of the lot is “An old man in a brown uniform, which was like an ancient army outfit”! The narrator hails from a region of “darkness” and gets to drive his master around Delhi in Honda City.
The descriptions totally lack in detail and read very naively artificial if there is such an expression. Here is what the narrator says about village shops: “three more or less identical shops, selling more or less identical items of kerosene, incense and rice”. Beyond a certain point, they become frustrating and annoying. There is a not a single good word about our country. All the narrator of the novel thinks about our system boils down to hopelessness.
Not even a figment of positivity or goodwill for anybody remotely working for the Government. Ministers can be bribed, politicians make empty promises, Government school teachers “spit paan” endlessly and pilfer money, policemen can be “lubricated”.
Some satire is acceptable but not if it deliberately translates into heedless obscene vulgarity without respite:
“Kishan got two weeks to dip his beak into his wife,..”
“That brother’s wife was finished off by three men working together.”
“this country, in its days of greatness, when it was the richest nation on earth, was like a Zoo.”
Every person is painted with the same brush. There is no discrimination employed. All servants scheme to cheat their masters, the poor suspect the rich and the rich, the poor and every Indian from a landlord to a bus driver has some inherent caste/religion based stereotypes. This is not simply oversimplification, but an obvious attempt to misrepresent or worse falsely and disapprovingly represent a huge chunk of people.
I had very strong urges to leave the book unfinished but in the end, continued till completion. I won’t deny that the book is entirely without any high points. The only genuinely inventive and really good piece of writing that I am able to recall is when Balram imagines two puddles on the road assuming two distinct sides in his mind’s eye and starting to argue. The language is not very impressive; it is understandable given the story.
The motive of the driver is not clear and whatever is made obvious is too amateurish and blanketed with references to the White Tiger. (“In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals..”). The narrator here claims “The story of my upbringing is the story of how a half-baked fellow is produced.”.
The White Tiger, very sadly is hardly 10-15% baked. It does not deserve any praise. I am appalled that some critics feel it is “seducing” or “an unexpected journey to a new India”. All I can say is that, the Booker has given some unworthy readership and credibility to the pages of the most depressing book “supposedly” written on the Indian condition. Mr.Adiga has let his imagination run riot! Chetan Bhagat in his first novel was far better and most importantly he had a clear disclaimer in the beginning.
The views expressed in this post are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by Mutiny.in
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Polar
001
10:29 pm
Is that really such a bad thing to have done?
Natarajan
002
10:33 pm
@Polar
Not bad when done responsibly. You’ll know when you read it…
Sanjay
003
4:24 am
This guy Adiga is just profiting off of using the poor as props in India. I’m sure you’ve heard of the growing phenomena of ‘poorism’, whereby some people will even organize tours to show tourists poor people and their poor living conditions as some kind of spectacle. What kind lurid showmanship is that? It’s pathetic.
Adiga would have been better off writing about why industrialization is being blocked in the country, preventing so many poor people from getting unskilled/low-skilled jobs.
Ye Kya Ho Raha Hai?
004
9:01 am
This is a work that belongs to a genre that presuppposes a necessity to talk in an abnormal tone about everything - from homogenised bias, badness and poverty to incest. As if that is the only thing that can fetch a pat on the pack from the Booker jury.
I agree with Natarajan ans Sanjay. When will we ever get out of this poor tourism mode?
Undercover Indian
005
11:13 am
I have read about 100 pages so far and I am left thinking on what basis he has won Booker prize!!! The language is tacky and plot (if there is one) full of all kinds of cliches.
I have read some dark accounts on India like by VS Naipaul, but Adiga to me till now sounds like someone who has been badly screwed up in backside and needed to take off his anger on somehting. Or may be he was perenially constipated while writing.
I didn’t understand his fixation with 30 million hindu gods either. Come on Mr. Adiga, even an ordinary guy on street knows the truth better that that.
Thers is no denying that India has a big , ugly underbelly which contemporary literature needs to explore and highlight in these times when focus is only on shining India part, but White Tiger is a lame attempt. And I dont even feel like completing the rest of book. Want my 300 bucks back.
Natarajan
006
12:34 pm
@undercover Indian: you are spot on when you say “Thers is no denying that India has a big , ugly underbelly which contemporary literature needs to explore and highlight in these times when focus is only on shining India part, but White Tiger is a lame attempt.”
R
007
10:39 am
I think Adiga is a very clever writer.
He understands western sensibilities well and knows what will get read, appreciated and awarded in the western world.
The critics, readers and jury members in the developed world do not have time, inclination and intelligence to really understand a society which is not their own.
caricatures and stereotyping aka ‘white tiger’ helps them ‘understand’ the developing world much better. and at the same time gives them comfort that their way of living is not going to be challenged any time soon.
I am sure Adiga understands this very well and has written the book with that in mind.
He has in fact successfully ‘gamed’ the booker price!
Amitav Ghosh had no hope of getting the booker, as his poppies attack the very foundation of western empires, which Adiga beautifully extols by rubbishing the alternative i.e modern India.
Sharninder
008
12:59 am
There is not doubt that the book was written with a western audience in mind and even though I think Adiga has gone overboard with his description of the poverty and stuff, I do think that he has written about an India that no other writer has till now dared to.
Natarajan: I don’t think this book was worthy of a booker, but then I don’t think so of half the books that have got international awards. What I do know is that “the white tiger” is better than most books that I’ve read on India.
Have you ever been to the places Balram halwai is talking about in the book ? Have you ever even spoken to someone who has been in that condition ? If you had you’d have understood the premise and the story of the book better.
Balram halwai is not an educated man and that should explain his language, which I think suited his character perfectly. In the end, the novel is about india depicted through a story.
SSK
009
12:00 am
You seem to have missed an important distinction. You acknowledge it but you miss its significance due to a defensive response brought by any negative portrayal of Indian society.
What I mean is, you acknowledge that “the narrator of the novel, Balram Halwai is certainly ‘half-baked’,” but then you lapse into “Mr. Adiga has hundreds of such plain comparisons.” It’s not Adiga who paints everyone with the same brush, it is Balram.