Page 45 - desi pages July 2022
P. 45
BOOK REVIEW family is too poor for him to afford
to finish school and he must work
in a teashop, breaking coals and
wiping tables. But Balram gets his
break when a rich man hires him as
a chauffeur and takes him to live in
Delhi. The city is a revelation. As he
drives his master to shopping malls
and call centers, Balram becomes
increasingly aware of immense
wealth and opportunity all around
him, while knowing that he will
never be able to gain access to that
world if he continues to serve and
remain loyal to his master.
• Through the life story of Balaram the
author portrays the class struggle
and poverty existing in India. The
fate of the millions of people living
in poverty is compared to chickens
huddled together in a coup. Some
“The WHITE TIGER” of the other notable quotes from
the book are “If I were making a
- By Madhavi Nair country, I’d get the sewage pipes
first, then the democracy, then I’d
go about giving pamphlets and
• “White Tiger’, a rare “creature that comes statues of Gandhi to other people,
along only once in a generation.” The but what do I know?”. Another of
protagonist of the story Balaram was given the my other favorite one is, “See, the
title of the White Tiger when he was young by poor dream all their lives of getting
a school inspector. Balram Halwai aka Munna enough to eat and looking like the
is a poor boy who hails from the village of rich. And what do the rich dream
Laxmangarh in the district of Gaya. In this of?? Losing weight and looking like
novel, Balaram writes down his life story in the poor.”
the form of a long letter addressed
to “his excellency”, the Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao who is poised
to visit India to learn the secrets of
its rising entrepreneurship. His title
stays in his subconscious, and he
signs his letter to Jiabao as “The
White Tiger, A Thinking Man and
an Entrepreneur”.
• The story opens with our main
character as a successful
businessman in Bangalore. He says
he is “in the light now” but he “was
born and raised in darkness.”.
The light symbolizes the rich and
darkness relates to poverty. His
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