Page 146 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes The rooster coop
The author frequently mentions the rooster coop when describing the situation or characteristics
of the servant class in India and he also defends himself for murdering his master with it. The
author first describes how the rooster coop looks like in the market in Old Delhi, in order to give
the visualization to the target audience: “Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters
stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and
sitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible
stench…The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers
lying around them.”
However, the chickens are not trying to escape from the poor-constructed cage. Hence, the author
compares those chickens living in a miserable condition with the poor class in India. “The very
same thing is done with human beings in this country” From his analysis of the structure of the
inequality in the country, the author comes to believe that liability for the suffering of the servant
also lies with the mentality of the servant class, which he refers as “perpetual servitude”. This
ideology is so strong that “you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will
throw it back at you with a curse”.
According to his philosophy, individual action is the key to break out of the rooster coop and the
servants are self-trapping. He validates his evil actions to his master by saying, “I think the
Rooster Coop needs people like me to break out of it. It needs masters like Mr. Ashok – who, for
all his numerous virtues, was not much of a master – to be weeded out, and exceptional servants
like me to replace them.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Dilip attends Balram and Kishan to ............... .
(a) Patna (b) Dhanbad (c) Old Delhi (d) None of these
(ii) Reena is married with a boy from the next village and they celebrate a ............... wedding.
(a) Modern (b) Ancient (c) Traditional (d) Both (a) and (b)
(iii) Dharam is Balram’s ............... .
(a)Son (b) Nephew (c) Grand son (d) None of these
(iv) Balram's grandmother is called Kusum and the oldest member of the family.
(a) Kishan (b) Kusum (c) Laxman bai (d) None of these

18.3 Summary

• Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering
suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly
inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen. Balram Halwai is a complicated man,
Servant, Philosopher, Entrepreneur, Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the
scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story
of how he came to be a success in life — having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his
village’s wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man’s
(very unlucky) son.
• Balram begins by explaining that he is not just any murderer. Should the Premier wish to
know more. Balram reminisces about his job as a driver for the Stork’s family. After his
father dies of tuberculosis, the family sends his brother Kishan to work in the city of Dhanbad.
Balram and his cousin, Dilip, come along, and the 3 get work in a local teashop.
• The narrator Balram Halwai grew up in the fictive village Laxmangarh in India. Like most
families in this region his family is very poor. Furthermore he lost his parents very early. His
family neither gave him a name nor a date of birth.

140 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY