The White Tiger by Aravid Adiga

I’m apparently going through a reading phase right now. Especially since there is very little to watch on TV and I’m bitter about them canceling Pushing Daisies. So, probably in the next couple of posts, you’ll get book reviews.

First up is The White Tiger by Aravid Adiga. It won the 2008 Man Booker Prize and it’s available online for free at The White Tiger.

"The Rooster Coop doesn't always work with minuscule sums of money. Don't test your chauffeur with a rupee coin or two—he may well steal that much. But leave a million dollars in front of a servant and he won't touch a penny. Try it: leave a black bag with a million dollars in a Mumbai taxi. The taxi driver will call the police and return the money by the day's end. I guarantee it. (Whether the police will give it to you or not is another story, sir!) Masters trust their servants with diamonds in this country! It's true. Every evening on the train out of Surat, where they run the world's biggest diamond-cutting and-polishing business, the servants of diamond merchants are carrying suitcases full of cut diamonds that they have to give to someone in Mumbai. Why doesn't that servant take the suitcase full of diamonds? He's no Gandhi, he's human, he's you and me. But he's in the Rooster Coop. The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy."

If you want a realist, witty, how the other half lives in India, this is your book. It’s told by Balram, a driver/servant for an upper middle class family. What makes this an excellent narrative is not only does he say what he’s thinking but he explains why he thinks it. The Indian culture is changing and you see a clash between the old and the new or a blending of the two. My only fault with the novel is that Balram’s story ends a little to neatly. His final journey was too easy compared to everything which came before.