Page 135 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 16: Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger—Detailed Study

Balram also changes his previous mind of golden- coloured hair girls like they always are in the Notes
shampoo advertisement. He doesn’t trust the TV and the posters anymore and thinks it’s not
healthy. Also he believes that the Nepali and Indian girls are the best prostitutes.
After hearing mobile phones cause cancer in the brain and testicles he throws it away because his
brain is too important for him. The novel ends with the statement of Balram in which he declares
that the yellow and brown men will reign the world in about twenty years.
Self-Assessment

1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell
............... .
(ii) Balram Halwai is a ............... man.
(iii) Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink
liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the ............... .

16.2 Summary

• The Book “The White Tiger” from Aravind Adiga is about a men who writes a letter to the
premier of China, Wen Jiabao. The name of the man is Balram Halwai. He lives in Bangalore,
India. In his letter he wants to ask the premier, if it’s true that he wants to come to India and
talk to Indian entrepreneurs, like Balram hear to on the All India Radio before. He also hears
that the premier wants to know the truth about Bangalore and Balram knows, that he can tell
him the real truth about Bangalore. He shows the premier the truth while talking about his
life. For example what happen when he visit Bangalore for the first time. “See when you
come to Bangalore and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on
your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book, wrapped
carefully in cellophane.”
• Balram begins to tell him a story about a day in his life, when he was driving in a car with
his ex-employer Mr. Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Mr Ashok tells Balram to drive on
the side of the street and then he was starting to ask him some questions.
• There is a tea shop in the central of Laxmangarh where his father works as a rickshaw -
puller. In front of the tea shop stops a car and somebody comes out. Another person is sitting
in the car. It’s the Buffalo, one of the four landlords in Laxmangarh.
• He is one of the chiefs in the lands around Laxmangarh. If someone wants to work for them,
they have to ask these landlords for work. Balram know, that his father don't want to work
with these landlords together, so he gets trouble with them.
• Balram’s granny recommends to keep the job in the tea shop. But Balram starts to search for
a taxi driver, who should train him how to drive. In his letter he also describes the job
situation in India, that many people are unemployed as they have not received any education,
never had a change to find a proper job.
• Balram calls himself half-baked because he never completed school and is half-educated.
Therefore his ideas are half formed, half digested and half correct and he even gets his name
by his teacher due to the fact that his parents just named him “munna”, which means boy.
The teacher backs him up and calls him “The white tiger” considering that the white tiger is
the rarest animal in the jungle and appears only once in a generation.

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