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The white tiger is an animal that is foremost a representation of power and individuality, and in a country of over 1.22 billion people, Aravind Adiga chose Balram Halwai - the son of a rickshaw puller who becomes a successful entrepreneur - to take on this mantle.
But Halwai’s story isn’t a didactic impression of the rags to riches fable; it’s a muddy first person account in which he confesses to crimes and amoral cunning used to rise above the ‘Darkness’ to become a successful entrepreneur.
Halwai’s journey begins in the ‘Darkness’, where Halwai is born into a lower caste family and is categorically thrown into the unsympathetic whorls of servitude. However this white tiger decides to throw off his banal enslavement. So he learns to drive and moves to New Delhi as a chauffeur. His master’s involvement with corruption finally drives him to murder and theft, among other crimes.
He then travels to Bangalore with a bag of cash stolen off his deceased employer, where amongst the sassy metropolitans he starts his taxi service. He is now the satiated entrepreneur; the owner of a successful business with statutory bribes, and the freedom he so coveted.
Halwai tells the story of his life, exonerating himself from his crimes by rationalizing the pursuit of freedom that has begotten him a taxi service and an elevated rank. A darkly humorous novel, The White Tiger provides a distinctly contemporary voice to the India that is far from its rigor of economic progress and resides in the hearts of the marginalized.
The White Tiger has been hailed for its uncompromising stance on removing notions of a generic India and engaging themes of globalization, freedom and individuality. First published in 2008, it not only earned Aravind Adiga the Man Booker Prize the same year but also made it to the New York Times bestseller list selling over 200,000 copies. The novel is to be adapted to a movie.ISBN - 9788172238476
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Pages : 328
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