The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

Balram Halwai was a driver in New Delhi. Born and bred in Laxmangarh, commonly known as the Darkness along with all other poor slums and villages, Balram was from a low caste in the Hindu society. Life was tough in the Darkness, people lived in extreme poverty, survived from the land, with the water buffalo being the fattest living thing in each family as it provided the essential milk. Families were also used to work, and education was unimportant, so each child left school early to help. Bahram, a bright boy, was set to work in a tea shop, and after seeing his poor father die of TB he knew he had to get out of the Darkness. A boy with ambition, he managed to ...  Read the complete review

This book was in the Times newspaper, voted as one of the best books of the decade. And that is how I came upon it. See, I vowed (or challenged myself) to read the 100 books before the end of the decade (ie. in a month's time...) Having come across so many great books on this voyage of discovery, I have to say, this is one of my favourites so far. The story was so intoxicating, I literally couldn't go to sleep until I had come to a comfortable, stable and uninteresting point. So, starting reading at about eight, the night flew past as I dissolved into the life of Balram, an 'entrepeneur'. It was early in the next morning until I finally put down the book. ...  Read the complete review

If the American Dream has been about money, power, success, making it (and big shoulder pads) then the Indian Dream, for me at least, has been something far more spiritual, ethereal and mystic. In this stunning, thrilling and shocking debut novel author Aravind Adiga exposes an altogether harsher, completely un-mystical world, something more primal and more raw and more brutal by far. The white tiger of the title plays on this theme. We learn that a white tiger is that rare find, someone seen at a school with raw natural talent. If they are lucky they have or are offered an opportunity to use their talent, but for the majority - the great majority - of Indian ...  Read the complete review

============================================= ''Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepeneur, murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells his story..." ============================================== This is the first paragraph in the dust jacket of the book "The White Tiger." Balram is a young man from the "Darkness" who is determined to step in to the light and as time goes on, we find he will do whatever it takes to do so. This tale is told by Balram himself in letter form to a powerful Chinese man visiting China. Balram ...  Read the complete review

A very good book! I wasn't sure what I was going to get with this book as I don't read fiction all that much but the story really appealed to me. The book is written in a very interesting style as the narrator tells his story about how he went from a poor boy in the darkness in India to a dishonest murderous millionaire. The way the narrator swings from present to the past is very well done and you are really able to imagine everything that he describes in detail even if you have never been to India. Although you start off by knowing that the narrator is in fact a murderer, as you read you are able to emphasise with the character in ...  Read the complete review