Name: Gohil Hetalba
indrajitsinh
Roll no: 08
M.a. – Ii SEM – 4
Paper no:
Topic: Significance of the title “ the white tiger”
Submitted to : dr. dilip barad
Dept.
Of English
Maharaja Krishna
kumarsinhji Bhavnagar (Gujarat)
Year : 2013 – 2014
v Significance the
title of the white tiger
“It‘s the 21th century
World has advanced in many ways,
Yet poverty still cries
Looking at the little boy with tears in
eyes.
Desperately searching for love, companion
and good cloths.
We all know what it clearly indicates and show
poverty.
I see poverty in a rich man- trying to find
love;
I see poverty in a well – educated man who
lacks modesty.
I see poverty in selfish man who wants more
The world is still imperfect despite all
the advancements,
Because there is poverty.”
-
Neeru Tandon
v About
White Tiger’s author Arvind Adiga
Arvind Adiga was born on 23rd October 1974 in Chennai Tamilnadu.
His book The White Tiger received Man booker prize in 2008.
After immigrating to Sydney he studied English literature. Adiga began
his Journalistic career as a finical journalist. The White Tiger’s Indian hand
cover edition has sold in excess of 200,000 copies. In an interview Adiga says “I
don’t think a novelist should just write about his own experiences yes. I am
the son of the doctor, yes I had a rigorous formal education, but for me the challenge
of a novelist is to write about people who aren’t anything like me.” And Adiga
succeeded in doing so.
“At a time when India is going through great change and with china, is
likely to inherent the world from the west, it is important that writers like
me try to high light the portal injustices of society. That’s what writers like
Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens did in the 19th century and as a result,
England and France are better societies. That’s what I’m trying to do it’s not
an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self –
examination.”
v About
the novel
The novel is
about a poor villager called Balram. The boy lost his mother earlier and while
studying in school lost his father. At the school he was a scholar. One of the
inspectors who came for inspection in school called him White Tiger.
Unfortunately, at early age Balram was forced to earn money. Later on he
becomes a driver of taxi in Delhi. While in Delhi he saw the world of glamor
and fake personalities. He decides to kill his master. He took the bribe’s money
and left for Bangalore but treats people under him well. He doesn’t take wrong
path but he helps his drivers. A boy from a very small village with his
capacity becomes a great and wealthy person.
Adiga’s book is multi –
layered. The book is exotic, beautiful, mysterious, colourful, and mystical.
India’s major problem is vast ditch between the rich and poor. The white tiger
stands out from the most novels by
Indian writer as a distinct one. Adiga sees India through the eyes of his
protagonist. Balram Halwai India is developing as if it is a miracle. But
Indian people whose condition is similar to Balram’s situation will have little
chance of sharing the wealth of the nation. Adiga relates how a small minority
subjugate the majority.
A white tiger is the rarest creature in
the jungle that come along only once in every generation. When Balram attend
his school in village he was singled out by a school inspector as the “White
Tiger”, of his contemporaries. He was the only one child in the class who was
able to read and write. The inspector even promised him to give him a scholarship
further study to fulfill his potential. But this boy’s bright future was to be spoiled.
Fate had other plans. His family was in debit and he was forced to leave the
school. This brilliant boy could not study further but starts working in order
to pay his landlord’s debt. The land lordship ruined the poor not only in India
but everywhere. Adiga here skill fully develops the realistic view of the
Indian village where to grow something you have to pay second person, to get
water to the field you have to pay the third person, to drive you have to pay
to another person. Currently Baba Ramdev raised the issue of tax. Indian has to
pay many type of taxes, house tax, water tax, entertainment tax, etc. A small
merchant had to suffer a lot, except paying tax he used to pay excise duties.
In Gujarat, now – a – days we don’t have to do so.
Adiga uses an
effective technique Balram’s life story is revealed through letter. Balram
comes to know from radio about the China’s Premier’s visit to India. So he
writes him to warn him not be fooled by false picture that the politicians
might paint during his visit about life in India. Balram believes himself to be
a social entrepreneur who thinks the best way to understand life in India is to
tell his story.
As soon as Ashok returns from America Balram becomes his driver. Apart
driving he also cooked, cleaned and did all sort of work his new master
demanded. Balram calls the master - servant relation to be the “Rooster Coop”
syndrome. In the markets of New Delhi, hens and are stuffed into wire cages
where they pack and shit on each other as they flight to breathe. According to
Balram, it’s the same for the poor in India. They are busy fighting with each
other that they cannot escape their cages.
The family is at risk if the servant misbehaves. “Balram says it would
take a unique individual, a white tiger even to risk the lives of his entire
family for the seven hundred thousand rupees his employer carries in red
leather bag to bribe a politician.
Balram is humiliated many a
times. When his employer’s wife after getting drunk drove car, killed a child.
Balram was forced to sign a confession that he was driving. Balram is shown as
a perfect servant. He worries about each and every matter of his master. He is
not happy with his master but he is a part of the system he decries. With
enormous strength and luck, he is able to live up to his “white tiger” label.
Balram is not reformer yet he thought of opening a school where children get a
real education so they too can be “white tigers”. Balram’s India is such a
forest where there is no mercy. He wants many white tiger on his side. He wants
the freedom from oppression. Shockingly, he murder his employer_
A critic says _ “ I thought it was great one of my favorites , an
ambitious and brave book a well crafted allegory warning to the west were on
the rise you’re on the decline.”
After shocking murder Balram becomes an entrepreneur who hides himself
now and then in order to save himself from Indian police.
White Tigers are rarely seen and entrepreneur like Balram are hardly
seen. The white Tiger Balram is at the center of the book. He represents the poor,
the subaltern, the illiterate, lower class India. These people are deprived of
basic needs and are always victims of exploitation. Balram can be compared with
Velutha the protagonist of Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Thing” like Balram
he was vigorous person. His father was a servant here the son, Balram is
servant.
“Balram is a typical voice of underclass, metaphorically described as
Rooster Coop struggling to set free from age old slavery and exploitation. His
anger, indulgence in criminal acts, prostitution, drinking, chasing, grabbing
all the opportunities and means fair or foul endorse deep- rooted frustration
and its reaction against the haves.”
Kiran Desai’s ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ Arvind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger’
Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’ depict background India. All the three talk
about deprived and frustrated, upper and lower class struggle. Indian
religions, economical, social, political and cultural problems are discussed in
the books. ‘Gyan’ in ‘The Inheritance of loss’ was forced to join the movement
same way Velutha joins as a member of
political party while Balram was forced to kill a person who was him master due
to the slavery and cruelty of his employer. Unemployment in India is one of the
major problems.
Adiga shows the ‘darker’ and ‘brighter’ sides of India. The white Tiger
reflects the struggle, humiliations, atrocities and cruelties of the dominating
class towards the poor, inferiors and servant class. Balram’s statement draws
us into darkness and compels to think about the emotional and psychological
state of lower class people like driver, servants, guards and rickshaw pullers.
They are subordinate, marginalized and dominated by masters. Mukesh and Ashok
are presented as hollow men Pinky madam symbolizes the modern woman of dark India
far away from the social , moral and family values.
Like ‘One Night at Call Center’
The White Tiger also satirizes on Indian people. By the end of the novel Adiga puts
a big question mark on India’s more than sixty years old independence. He compares
men and women of Bangalore with animals who sleep in the day and work all night
because they have to work according to the time of their master’s country.
“See, men and
women in Bangalore live like the animals in a forest do. Sleep in the day and
work all night, until two, three, four, five O’clock depending because their
masters are on the other side of the world in America.” Here, we remember
Chetan Bhagat’s novel that shows the condition of people working at night for
the owner of the company in the U.S.A.
v Conclusion
No doubt Adiga present a dark jungle where
all social, political, legal and religious system seem to have entirely failed
but in this jungle Balram appears as a white tiger who survives beyond the bondage of the cage. The image of the white tiger is evoked for the final time
by Balram to “take money, and start a school an English language school – for
poor children in Bangalore.” In the end of the novel Balram’s optimism is seen.
No doubt The White Tiger is a shocking
tale that throws light on every dark aspect of modern India but even amid this
darkness the writer seems to be very optimistic for India. The White Tiger
revolves around the center figure Balram who was given the name White Tiger,
through his way of taking bribes money by killing seems judicious as far as his
suffering is concerned. The title ‘The White Tiger’ is very important. Tiger symbolizes the vigorous strength. Also the tiger is ferocious animal. People
like Balram awakens would make India shining in real sense.
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