Another ‘slumdog millionaire’ plot hit me recently and to no surprise it is again a a bulls eye hit. With so many takers all over the world for Indian success stories ‘The white tiger’ is able to win the ‘Bookers prize ‘apart from all other recognitions from the west. Why these people applaud all these stories that we don’t really want to admit.
What here we have is a story of ‘Balram halwai’ rising from the poverty and darkness of villages of Jharkhand to being a social entrepreneur in Bangalore. The incessant attack on our illusory morality, the fight between being logical and being practical makes mockery of the rich Indian values that we all claim to hold.
The book presents a vivid account of the poverty, the rituals, the darkness that still prevails in the villages of India and the fight of a person to break his consanguinity , a ‘Rooster Coop’ as he describes. Cogitated sub plots present descriptions that one feel incontrovertible. Then there were many new adjectives that I came across like ’Vitiligo lips’, ‘The moongoose’. The narration is full with arguments of which this one I liked the most
‘Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?’
Overall a good, well layout fast story which I would rate 3.5 out of 5. If I had read it before Q&A I could have of course rated it higher. Now there seems lot of repetitiveness. Though I hope some director must have started out his new venture on the plot because slumdog success is our new mantra and we don’t want to miss it again at the hands of some firangi.
