"Good Job Shruti!!!". For the first time I got such a compliment in Life Skills class for presentation of a Book Review. As many people know that in this whole world the thing which threatens me the most is "The Presentation". So I was very surprised and happy by this compliment. I read the book "White Tiger" by Arvind Adiga and wrote my own review on that like a critic for the first time. Here is what I felt about that book.
First of all, I don't like this book as it's flow is not generating interest to read it. It is written as first-person narration by Balram Halwai, a self described entrepreneur in Bangalore about how to become successful. The basic plot of book is very simple. Balram Halwai is born into poverty. He gets a boring job as a driver for a wealthy family who treats him very badly. This thing leads Balram to kill his master Ashok and after killing him, he runs away to Bangalore with Ashok's money. It is in form of seven letters to Chinese Premier Jiabio who is scheduled to visit India. By this story, Balram wants to give him an idea about the Real India. Part of the story involved being a driver to a rich family in New Delhi where he learned that success often involves corruption, cruelty and different set of rules. It proves the saying that
"The truth, as it begins to emerge, is as shocking as it is fantastic."
Balram Halwai is the White Tiger and anti-hero. He begins his journey from the rural 'darkness', a world of landlord and escapes to 'light of cities', it is into a world of masters and servants. The sentence he wrote is "Once I was a driver to a master but now I am a master of drivers."
He has wrote many sentences to criticize Indian politics and to state the difference between The rich and The poor in India. He wrote "Free people don't know the value of freedom that is the biggest problem." He also says that "The poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and look like the rich, but what the rich dream of?" "Losing weight and looking like the poor." The writer showcases the reality of Indian politics and poverty in villages very nicely.
As Arvind Adiga is an article writer, the style of his writing also repeats here which makes most of the parts uninteresting and story line is not properly maintained also the flow breaks many times. I felt that the story line is good but the writing style of Arvind Adiga as a hard-core narrator increases the length unnecessarily. It makes it 'a thesis on Indian politics' covered by a short story with a good start but confusing end.
Another weak point is that there is a long description of Balram's family in between the story which is of no use. Balram kills his master and after that point, there is no story related to Ashok;s family and how Balram safely escaped. In spite of all this, the story suddenly shifts to Bangalore without any obvious reasons and comes to a confusing end. It contains more of political criticism and explanation of every situation with fewer characters and dialogues.
Gives the feeling of 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie which won Oscar prize because International readers are more interested and feel very amazed by knowing 'Poor India, Dirty India or Real India, Corrupted India' and so they gave Oscar to such movie and may be Booker to such book. Being Indian, we all are aware of all these situations and scenarios, so I could not find anything new and interesting in this book. At last the moral of the story may be
"Listening is the best exercise in order to become Successful."
