The White Tiger

There is no excusing this, and no resisting it either, after all it won the Booker you see! In fact, ‘The Man Booker Prize Winner’ tag would alone carry this book forward, and record sales, for we Indians are suckers for recognitions and accolades (just look at Slumdog Millionaire), and the book- reading lot would seldom go to a store and pick up books based on the merit of their blurbs, the publications, or the flash of seconds when some books talk back to you. We probably lack the courage of picking up random books. We would rather stay with the mediocre, and keep discussing the mediocre over and over again, than acknowledge the presence of things lying at the extremes of that mediocre!

Now, the reasons attributed to its success at the Booker were that The White Tiger is “compelling, angry, and darkly humorous” and that it is a book about “real India”. I simply prefer to call it cold; because of thousands who have admired it, it would be extremely difficult to find one who might have heartily chuckled at it; although, there are moments in the book that would induce a response similar to a smirk, but certainly not a response that is synonymous with humor. This write-up is probably on ‘Why, The White Tiger should not have won the booker?’




To begin with, I had absolutely no problem with his protagonist but the point of view had to be shifted from Balram to Adiga himself. Sorry Mr.Adiga, but Balram simply could not pull ‘your’ full weight in the book! I thought it was absurd to make Balram the narrator, as he himself says that he was dragged out of school when they were just beginning on the English alphabet, therefore his story in a language foreign to his thoughts is quite unacceptable. Of course, there is some sort of justification provided in this regard (“Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.”) but when you begin to plumb the book as a product it simply refuses to click! On another spectrum, however, I guess the whole method of the point of view that I am talking about was quite a thought-out ploy by Adiga to take no responsibility for some of the things that Balram says in the book; you know how easy it is to discard allegations by saying “oh, it is the character that speaks, not me!” There are moments when you feel like knowing what’s going on inside the mind of the rich man but all you get to hear are the ravings of Balram, but the quibble in itself is not considerable.




Now, all the other talk about the depiction of the “real India” could be quite irritating, let alone illumining. In “real India”, all interests, real or imaginary, all topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a thread of general existence, are crushed in the absorbing consideration of food to be obtained for the family. What an irony, the world finds it singular to India; at least that’s how Indian writers have depicted it over the ages, but why single out India when all over the world, beyond the price of bread, all other news is senseless and impertinent! Oh, that may be because our government is not sophisticated enough to issue food-stamps I guess! It’s a pity how people generalize “reality”, but as some stories are said to be too good to be true, it may with equal truth be asserted of this bi-verbal allusion, that it is too good to be natural! No matter how hard we try India would still remain a country of dirt and squalor courtesy books like the one in question.



The White Tiger is a thematically impressive novel, but is ultimately disappointing. Even the prose fails to compensate the other drawbacks, and in the end you perpetually catch yourself wondering, “Gosh, how could this one ever win the Booker?” The book is good as a ‘process’, but unfortunately it fails as a ‘product.’(Of course that’s strictly for me)


My Verdict:: Some books have a knack of putting upon us gifts of no real value or the intention of engaging us in a substantial gratitude; we obviously, thank them for nothing.