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Unit 19: Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger—Critical Appreciation

But it is the account of the Bangalore city which is all the more interesting: Notes
When I drive down Hosoor Main Road, when I turn into Electronics City Phase I and see the
companies go past, I can't tell you how exciting it is to me. General Electric, Dell, Siemens - they're
all here in Bangalore. And so many more are on their way. There is construction everywhere. Piles
of mud everywhere. Piles of stones’ Piles of bricks. The entire city is masked in smoke, smog,
powder, cement, dust. It is under a veil. When the veil is lifted, what will Bangalore be like? His
account of the working people of Bangalore is quite revealing: Outsourcing which meant doing
things in India for Americans over the phone. Everything flowed from it - real estate, wealth,
power, sex. So I would have to join this out-sourcing thing, one way or the other. One of the
devices of portraying the land lords of village lies in his use of animal characters which appears
close to the art of Orwell in his novel Animal Farm. Thus he calls the four rich landlords as 'the
Buffalo', 'the Stork', 'the Wild Boar' and 'the Ravan', revealing thereafter the animal traits that
these persons possess. Take for example the character of the Wild Boar who owned all the good
agricultural land around Laxmangarh. If you wanted to work on those lands, you had to bow
down to his feet, and touch the dust under his slippers, and agree to swallow his day wages.
When he passed by women, his car would stop; the windows would roll down to reveal his grin;
two of his teeth, on either side of his nose, were long, and curved, like little tusks.
It is, however, the author's use of satire that gives a shocking insight into the Indian politician,
minister, and ruler. Ironically he calls the Indian public man as the Great socialist who uses his
own mechanism of exploitation. He explains these in his own way :
Now, imagine that I'm a doctor. I beg and borrow the money and give it to the great Socialist,
while touching his feet. He gives me the job. I take an oath to God and the Constitution of India
and then I put my boots up on my desk in the state capital.' He raised his feet on to an imaginary
table. 'Next, I call all the junior government doctors, whom I'm supposed to supervise, into my
office. I take out my big government ledger. I shout out, "Dr. Ram Pandey." He pointed a finger at
me; I assumed my role in the play. I saluted him: 'Yes, sir!' He held out his palm to me. 'Now, you
- Dr. Ram Pandey-will kindly put one-third of your salary in my palm. Good boy. In return, I do
this.' He made a tick on the imaginary ledger. 'You can keep the rest of your government salary
and go work in some private hospital for the rest of the week. Forget the village. Because according
to this ledger you've been there. You've treated my wounded leg. You've healed that girl's jaundice.'
Although the author makes use of symbols, but each symbol has a shallow significance. The little
rectangle mirror inside the car is one such symbol that at moments strips both the driver and the
master completely because every now and then; When master and driver find each other's eyes in
this mirror, it swings open like a door into a changing room, and the two of them have suddenly
caught each other naked?
Similarly the title of the novel The White Tiger attempts to suggest a good deal of symbolical
values in the book. The White Tiger is associated with many experiences of the Protagonist. First
it was the school inspector who spotted Balram Halwai as the brightest boy in the school for
having answered all his questions and he called him the white tiger. All his close friends and
associates always addressed him as the white tiger, particularly at moments of great crisis in life.
When rejected in the selection of training for driving, he fell back in dejections, but was lifted by
his cousins Kishan, and Dilip who addressed him as 'white tiger' and finally when he visited the
Delhi zoo and fainted under the impact of the white tiger in the cage. The entire significance of the
novel revolves round the white tiger in a cage, for Balram Halwai, always feels to have been
chained bound in his country like a white tiger in a cage. Hence in his letter to his granny, he
writes 'I can't live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny. I'm so sorry.' He falls down fainted, and the
term is used here as opposite of the paper tiger, metaphorically suggesting an India human being
who finds himself completely bound and chained like the white tiger; everywhere they are like
Balram, his village people, his driver friend and above all, even the educated young Indians, who

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