The White Tiger is a novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India's class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. In detailing Balram's journey first to Delhi, where he works as a chauffeur to a rich landlord, and then to Bangalore, the place to which he flees after killing his master and stealing his money, the novel examines issues of the Hindu religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India. Ultimately, Balram transcends his sweet-maker caste and becomes a successful entrepreneur, establishing his own taxi service. In a nation proudly shedding a history of poverty and underdevelopment, he represents, as he himself says, "tomorrow."Plot summary
Balram Halwai narrates his life in a letter, written in seven consecutive nights and addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. In his letter, Balram explains how he, the son of a puller, escaped a life of servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as an entrepreneur. Balram was born in a rural village in Gaya district, where he lived with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. He is a smart child but is forced to leave school in order to help pay for his cousin's dowry and begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working there he begins to learn about India's government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad servant but a good listener and decides to become a driver. After learning how to drive, Balram finds a job driving Ashok, the son of one of Laxmangarh's landlords. He takes over the job of the main driver, from a small car to a heavy-luxury described Honda City. He stops sending money back to his family and disrespects his grandmother during a trip back to his village. Balram moves to New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Throughout their time in Delhi, Balram is exposed to extensive corruption, especially in the government. In Delhi, the contrast between the poor and the wealthy is made even more evident by their proximity to one another. One night Pinky Madam takes the wheel from Balram, while drunk, hits something in the road and drives away; we are left to assume that she has killed a child. Ashok's family puts pressure on Balram to confess that he had been driving alone. Ashok becomes increasingly involved in bribing government officials for the benefit of the family coal business. Balram then decides that killing Ashok will be the only way to escape India's Rooster Coop - Balram's metaphor for describing the oppression of India's poor, just as roosters in a coop at the market watch themselves get slaughtered one by one, but are unable or unwilling to break out of the cage. Similarly, Balram too is portrayed as being trapped in the metaphorical Rooster Coop: his family controls what he does and society dictates how he acts. After killing Ashok by bludgeoning him with a bottle and stealing the large bribe Ashok was carrying with him, Balram moves to Bangalore, where he bribes the police in order to help start his own taxi business. Just like Ashok, Balram pays off a family whose son one of his taxi drivers hit and killed. Balram explains that his own family was almost certainly killed by Ashok's relatives as retribution for his murder. At the end of the novel, Balram rationalizes his actions and considers that his freedom is worth the lives of his family and of Ashok. And thus ends the letter to Jiabao, letting the reader think of the dark humour of the tale, as well as the idea of life as a trap introduced by the writer.Plot of 2021 film "The White Tiger", an adaption of the book
In 2010, entrepreneur Balram Halwai emails Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, requesting a meeting, and relating his life story. He states his belief that the Indian underclass is trapped in a perpetual state of servitude, like chickens in a chicken coop. As a young boy in Laxmangarh, Balram is offered a scholarship to a school in Delhi because of his advanced academics. He is told that he is a "white tiger," someone born only once in a century. However when his father is unable to pay off village landlord 'the Stork', Balram is forced by his grandmother to work in the village's tea stall, and he never returns to school. Balram's father dies from tuberculosis, with no doctor to treat him. As a young man, Balram aspires to become a chauffeur for the Stork's son Ashok, who has returned from the United States with his Jackson Heights-raised wife Pinky. Balram has his grandmother sponsor his driving lessons, with the promise of sharing his chauffeur salary. Balram is hired as the Stork family's second driver, but is also given menial tasks to complete and is otherwise mistreated. Balram is kept loyal by the threat of him and his entire family being murdered if he were to conduct a betrayal. Ashok and Pinky make plans to move to Delhi, where Ashok will bribe Indian politicians so that his family would avoid paying tax money. Balram, wanting to drive for them in Delhi, exposes the secret of the family's primary driver: he is a Muslim. After the primary driver is fired (due to the family's stereotypical prejudice against Muslims), Balram joins the couple in Delhi. In contrast to other members of their family, Ashok and Pinky generally treat Balram with respect and eventually become closer to him, though they still view him as a servant. In Delhi, on Pinky's birthday, she and Ashok get drunk and force Balram to let Pinky drive, which results in her accidentally hitting and killing a child. The Stork family coerces Balram into signing a confession endorsed by his grandmother. Ultimately, no one is charged, but Balram is left shaken, and in no doubt that he is completely disposable to the Stork family. Pinky leaves Ashok to return to New York, leaving Balram to emotionally support him. Balram realizes that loyal service to Ashok was no guarantee of a comfortable life once his services were no longer needed. Balram begins to defraud Ashok with fake invoices, while making money on the side by selling the car's petrol and using the car as an unlicensed taxi. Balram encounters a series of setbacks. He angers the Stork family when he donates change to a beggar. Balram's grandmother unexpectedly sends one of his younger nephews to live with him in order to learn how to become a driver. Balram also learns that his grandmother is following through with her plans to get him married against his wishes. Meanwhile, Ashok prepares to pay a particularly large bribe, while also arranging to imminently replace Balram with a new driver. Balram has an epiphany on how to escape servitude as the "white tiger". To obtain the bribe money, Balram murders Ashok with a broken whiskey bottle and flees the city with his nephew and the money. An arrest warrant is put out for Balram but he evades capture. Balram takes his nephew with him to Bangalore, then a bubble for large IT companies. He uses a portion of the stolen cash to bribe the police to eliminate taxi service providers for a lack of licenses. Balram starts his own taxi company, thus becoming wealthy himself. He treats his drivers as employees and not as servants. He takes personal and financial responsibility for any incidents caused by them, even employing a sibling of a child killed in an accident caused by a company driver. He sponsors his nephew's education, while acknowledging that his remaining family back home may have been killed by the Stork's men in retribution. Happy to escape servitude, Balram reveals at the end of the film that he changed his name to Ashok Sharma.Themes
Globalization
The White Tiger takes place in a time in which increased technology has led to world globalization, and India is no exception. In the 21st century, India has had one of the fastest growing economies. Specifically Americanization in India has played its role in the plot, since it provides an outlet for Balram to alter his caste. To satisfy Pinky's want for American culture, Ashok, Pinky, and Balram simply move to Gurgaon instead of going to back to America. Globalization has assisted in the creation of an American atmosphere in India. Ashok justifies this move by explaining "Today it's the modernest suburb of Delhi-National Capital Region. American Express, Microsoft, all the big American companies have offices there. The main road is full of shopping malls - each mall has a cinema inside! So if Pinky Madam missed America, this was the best place to bring her". By blackmailing Ram Persad, the other driver, Balram is promoted and drives Ashok and Pinky to their new home. Ashok is even convinced India is surpassing the US, "There are so many more things I could do here than in New York now...The way things are changing in India now, this place is going to be like America in ten years". Balram is noticing the rapid growth as well. From the beginning of his story he knows that in order to rise above his caste he should become an entrepreneur. Although his taxi service is not an international business, Balram plans to keep up with the pace of globalization and change his trade when need be. "I'm always a man who sees 'tomorrow' when others see 'today.'" Balram's recognition of the increasing competition resulting from globalization contributes to his corruption.Individualism
Throughout the book, there are references to how Balram is very different from those back in his home environment. He is referred to as the "white tiger" (which also happens to be the title of the book). A white tiger symbolizes power in East Asian cultures, such as in Vietnam. It is also a symbol for freedom and individuality. Balram is seen as different from those he grew up with. He is the one who got out of the "Darkness" and found his way into the "Light".Freedom
In an interview with Aravind Adiga, he talked about how "The White Tiger" was a book about a man's quest for freedom. Balram, the protagonist in the novel, worked his way out of his low social caste (often referred to as "the Darkness") and overcame the social obstacles that limited his family in the past. Climbing up the social ladder, Balram sheds the weights and limits of his past and overcomes the social obstacles that keep him from living life to the fullest that he can. In the book, Balram talks about how he was in a rooster coop and how he broke free from his coop. The novel is somewhat a memory of his journey to finding his freedom in India's modern day capitalist society. Towards the beginning of the novel, Balram cites a poem from the Muslim poet Iqbal where he talks about slaves and says "They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world." Balram sees himself embodying the poem and being the one who sees the world and takes it as he rises through the ranks of society, and in doing so finding his freedom.Social class/classism
The book shows a modern day, capitalist Indian society with free market and free business. It also shows how it can create economic division. In India there are social classes and social castes. The novel portrays India's society as very negative towards the lower social caste. The novel is based on the disparities of two worlds: darkness, inhabited by poor and underprivileged who cannot even meet their bare minimums; and the lighted world, inhabited by zamindars, politicians, businessmen etc. who shamelessly exploits the ones from darkness, making them even more poor and grows their own grandeur. Balram refers to it as the "Darkness". When Balram was asked which caste he was from, he knew that it could ultimately cause a biased stance in his employer and determine the future of his employment. There is definitely a big difference seen in Balram's lower caste from back home and his current higher caste in their lifestyles, habits, and standards of living. This novel is showing how our economic system today creates socioeconomic discrimination that create a big division in society. It limits opportunity, social mobility, health, and other rights and pleasures that should be given to all. There is a big difference in the amount of money spread around in society today and this book is alluding to that fact.The White Tiger Character List
Balram
Balram Halwai, the story's narrator, protagonist, and anti-hero, tells of his rise from village peasant to successful entrepreneur. He has a significant faith in his exceptionalism, thinking of himself as a "White Tiger" not tied to conventional morality or social expectations. It is through this alternate system that he is able to rearrange his life and identity. Balram's dark humor, cynicism, and perceptiveness form the lifeblood of The White Tiger. Balram was born in the village of Laxmangarh, into a life he considers miserable. Despite his intelligence, he was forced to leave school early to work. Nevertheless, he continued educating himself by eavesdropping on conversations. As he progressed through the echelons of the underclass, eventually being hired as a driver for Mr. Ashok and the Stork, he developed a severe resentment against the upper classes, which eventually prompted him to murder Mr. Ashok. His other aliases include Munna, the White Tiger, and Ashok Sharma.Mr. Ashok
Ashok is Balram's principal master, the Stork's son, and the Mongoose's brother. Exceedingly handsome, Ashok is also generally kind and gentle to those around him. Unlike the other members of his family, he trusts Balram immensely, and the latter senses a strange, profound connection between them. Ashok is childlike, with a short attention span, and generally dislikes his family's business dealings. Ultimately, his strange connection to Balram is not enough to save his life when Balram decides to murder him.Pinky Madam
Pinky Madam is Ashok's wife, and just as good-looking as her husband. Because of her background, she is never fully accepted by Ashok's family. She is demanding, capricious, and deeply unsatisfied with life in India, constantly hoping to return to America, and is generally cruel to Balram. She eventually leaves Ashok to return to New York, and shows a deep grief over the hit-and-run that proved the last nail in the coffin of their relationship.Mr. Krishna
Krishna is Balram's teacher in Laxmangarh before Balram is pulled out of school by his family. He is responsible for giving Balram his first "real" name, but he generally proves himself emblematic of the corruption and inefficiency of Indian schools, since he embezzles the government funds allocated for uniforms and food.Vikram
Vikram Halwai is Balram's father, a rickshaw puller. Though he is not as attentive a parent as might be desired, he works extremely hard to provide for his family. Balram frequently thinks of his father and the sacrifices he made, and uses that resentment to inspire the murder. Vikram eventually died of tuberculosis in a deteriorating village hospital, a fate which largely motivates Balram to improve his station in life.Balram's mother
Balram's mother died when he was very young, and her funeral is one of his most vivid early memories. Her body was swallowed up by the dark mud of the Ganga River. His mother had a short, miserable life, and Kusum frequently disrespects her memory.Kusum
Kusum is Balram's grandmother, and the matriarch of the family, ruling through fear. Intimidating and sly, she attempts to exert her power over Balram, ensuring that he send money home once he becomes a driver, and later trying to coerce him into marrying. She has a habit of rubbing her forearms when she feels happy, a trait that Balram frequently comments upon.Kishan
Kishan is Balram's brother, who takes care of him in the wake of their father's death. He is a strong, father-like figure who has a formative effect on Balram's own development.the Stork
The Stork, actual name Thakur Ramdev, is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. A fat man with a large mustache, he owns the river and collects taxes from fishermen and boaters. He is father to Ashok and Mukesh (the Mongoose). His highly unethical business practices involve bribing officials, evading taxes, and stealing coal from government mines.the Wild Boar
The Wild Boar is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He owns the best agricultural lands around the village. He has two protruding teeth that resemble the tusks of a boar.the Buffalo
The Buffalo is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He is considered the greediest of the four landlords. He owns and operates the rickshaws, and his son was kidnapped and killed by the Naxals, for which he visited retribution on the entire family of the servant who aided in that kidnapping.the Raven
The Raven is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He owns the worst land, the dry, rocky hillside around the fort, and charges the goatherds who use this land for their flocks to graze. He is called the Raven because he likes "dip his beak into the backsides" of the goatherds who can't pay. ("Dipping one's beak" is a sexual euphemism that Balram uses).the Mongoose
The Mongoose, actual name Mukesh Sir, is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He is the Stork's son and Ashok's brother. A much worse man than Ashok, he does not question the family's business practices and condemns Ashok's interest in the American way of life. Mukesh is favored by the Stork and has more influence in the family than Ashok does.Ram Persad
Ram Persad was the Stork's primary driver - and hence in charge of the Honda City - until Balram discovered that Ram was a Muslim and used that information to take control. After his secret is discovered, Ram Persad disappears without a word.Vijay
Vijay is Balram's childhood hero, his model of a man who improved his station in life by forging his own identity. The son of a pig herder, Vijay's first success came with becoming a bus conductor. Balram and the other village boys admire his prestigious job and his uniform. Later, Vijay enters politics and quickly rises in the ranks. By the end of the narrative, Vijay is a powerful politician, just as corrupt and power-hungry as any of the rich elites in the novel.Great Socialist
The Great Socialist is a powerful politician who controls the Darkness with the help of corruption and election fraud. He is described as having "puffy cheeks, spiky white hair" and "thick gold earrings" (86). People disagree as to whether he was always corrupt or if he began his political career with good intentions. Though his character essentially serves as an amalgam of typical corrupt Indian politicians, he is believed to be based on the actual politician Lalu Prasad Yadav.Vitiligo-Lips
Vitiligo-Lips is one of the other drivers Balram encounters in Delhi. His lips are marked by vitiligo, a skin disease that affects many poor people in India and causes a lightening of skin pigment. Vitiligo-Lips serves as a sort of guide to Balram in Delhi, introducing him to city life, answering his many questions, and giving him access to a variety of illicit products ranging from Murder Weekly magazines to prostitutes. Since most of the other chauffeurs and servants in Delhi mercilessly tease Balram and make him an outcast, Vitiligo-Lips is crucial to Balram's survival.Dharam
Dharam is a young relative of Balram's, sent to Balram by the family so he can be taken care of. Dharam is a sweet and obedient boy. Balram brings Dharam with him after the murder, and the two live together in Bangalore.Ms. Uma
Ms. Uma is a former lover of Mr. Ashok's; he reconnects with her after Pinky Madam leaves. Though she begs him to marry her, Mr. Ashok is anxious about reintroducing her to his family. She is indifferent towards Balram, and ultimately plants the idea of replacing him into Ashok's head. Balram considers her a bad influence on his master.Balram's family
Balram has countless aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews living in Laxmangarh. The family is very poor and traditional. Men and women sleep in opposite corners of the house. The most cherished member of the family is the water buffalo, who is kept fat and healthy and provides milk. Balram frequently feels guilty because Ashok's murder likely caused the death and torture of Balram's family.Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao is the Premier of China, to whom Balram addresses the letters that narrate the story.Dilip
Dilip is a cousin of Balram and Kishan; he accompanies them when they move to Dhanbad.Ram Bahadur
Ram Bahadur is the Stork's head servant at his mansion in Dhanbad. A cruel Nepali with little concern for Balram, he is blackmailed into making Balram head driver after Balram discovers that Ram Bahadur must have kept Ram Persad's secret.the minister's assistant
The minister's assistant, Mukeshan, frequently takes advantage of Ashok when the latter comes to bribe his boss.Anastasia
Anastasis is the prostitute Balram hires, hoping she will be like Kim Basinger, as Mr. Ashok's prostitute was. When he discovers that her blond hair is only dyed, he grows angry, and is assaulted by the manager.the manager
Anastasia's pimp is called "the manager." He assaults Balram after he screams at Anastasia.Muslim shopowner
The Muslim shopowner in the secondhand book market of Old Delhi introduces Balram to Iqbal and the other great poets.Ashok Sharma
Ashok Sharma is the final alias Balram takes for himself, after reaching Bangalore. It is obviously taken from his former master's name.Mohammad Asif
Mohammad Asif works as a driver for Balram's company in Bangalore, and hits a boy who is riding a bike. Balram has to bribe the police to remedy the situation.the Premier
Wen Jiabao is the Premier of China, to whom Balram addresses the letters that narrate the story.The White Tiger Quotes and Analysis
"There's no one else in this 150-square-foot office of mine. Just me and a chandelier above me, although the chandelier has a personality of its own. It's a huge thing, full of small diamond-shaped glass pieces, just like the ones they used to show in the films of the 1970s. Though it's cool enough at night in Bangalore, I've put a midget fan-five cobwebby blades-right above the chandelier. See, when it turns, the small blades chop up the chandelier's light and flight it across the room. Just like the strobe light at the best discos in Bangalore. This is the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier!" Balram, 5 In this passage, Balram introduces his audience to one of his most prized possessions, the chandelier in his office. To Balram, the chandelier, a gaudy physical manifestation of wealth, symbolizes his success at transforming himself from a peasant into a Bangalore entrepreneur. As a particularly opulent source of light, it further represents his escape from the Darkness. By chopping the light into a strobe effect using a fan, Balram provides some insight into his talent for remaking himself. He is exercising a control over light and darkness, symbolizing the way he moved himself from one realm to the other to now straddle both. However, for all its virtues, the chandelier also represents Balram's inability to ever fully transform himself. The chandelier is laughably out of place in his small office space, and later in the novel, Pinky Madam, a true member of the elite class, remarks that she finds chandeliers to be "tacky" (71). Thus, the chandelier also demonstrates the meaninglessness of Balram's achievement in the greater scheme of a society that continues to oppress its underclass, as well as Balram's inability to make a full transition from his past life. His village sensibilities continue to manifest through his lingering guilt and superstitions. No matter how far he rises, he can never know whether he has definitively left the "Rooster Coop" behind. All of these contradictions are captured in the symbol of the chandelier. "Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India-the black river." Balram, 12 Balram's vision of two Indias forms the central image around which the novel is organized. The most significant of the many dualities explored in the text, the dichotomy between the Light and the Darkness frames Balram's journey. His fervent desire to enter into the "Light" of urban coastal India is the driving force behind the dramatic transformation detailed in his narrative. This passage also suggests an impenetrable barrier; in the same way that the ocean is immovable, so are the Light and Darkness necessarily distinct. That Balram is able to transcend that barrier is evidence of his unique abilities. That he remains uncertain whether he can ever fully be a denizen of the "Light" represents his belief, expressed here, that the separation is beyond any individual's control. "This mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight the black mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her in. It was so thick, and more of it was becoming created every moment as the river washed into the ghat. Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start licking her. And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras-this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here." Balram, 14-15 In this intricately constructed passage, Balram uses gruesome, highly vivid imagery to depict his mother's burial. With disjointed clauses and repetition, Adiga reflects at the level of sentence structure the struggle of the mother's body against the thick mud. The mud of the Ganga River is a potent symbol for the oppressive cycle of repression that traps India's poor in the Darkness. Balram's despair at the thought of being eternally caught in this cycle forms the impetus for his journey of self-improvement. His ability to see symbols in life is largely responsible for his ability to refashion identities (think of the "White Tiger," the chandelier, or the "Rooster Coop"), and he here reveals that he had that instinct for symbolism even as a young boy. "I swam through the pond, walked up the hill, went into the doorway, and entered the Black Fort for the first time. There wasn't much around-just some broken walls and a bunch of frightened monkeys watching me from a distance. Putting my foot on the wall, I looked down on the village from there. My little Laxmangarh. I saw the temple tower, the market, the glistening line of sewage, the landlord's mansions-and my won house, with that dark little cloud outside-the water buffalo. It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth. I leaned out from the edge of the fort in the direction of my village-and then I did something too disgusting to describe to you. Well, actually, I spat. Again and again. And then, whistling and humming I went back down the hill. Eight months later, I slit Mr. Ashok's throat." Balram, 36 The Black Fort, which sits on a hill over Balram's village, serves as a significant symbol in the text, representing Balram's aspirations to escape the "Darkness" into the "Light." He leaves no ambiguity as to what the symbol represents. As a boy, he was too frightened to explore the Fort. However, here, returning to Laxmangarh after having been hired as driver, he not only approaches the Fort, but in fact spits down at his village from that vantage. It is no accident that he had to cross through water to arrive at the Fort, indicating a type of baptism into a new man. He has overcome the fears that limited him as a boy, and thereby paved the the path for his ultimate escape. He makes it clear that escape will later be facilitated both through a repudiation of his family (symbolized by his spitting here) and through his murder of Ashok. Returning later in his narrative to this same image, Balram reveals that he now imagines himself in that moment as a version of the poet Iqbal's Devil, rejecting the creation of God in order to fashion his own identity. "Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life-possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life; only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth." Balram, 39 The relationship between Balram and Ashok is fluid and volatile, constantly vacillating between love and distrust, respect and hatred, intimacy and distance. Constantly emphasized, however, is the unique bond that exists between the two: they are twinned versions of one another, one from the Darkness and one from the Light. In this passage, Balram expresses his belief that by murdering Ashok, he absorbs and comes to possess the master's identity. In other words, he sees the murder as an almost sacred event, which somewhat allows him to justify the atrocity. In describing this phenomenon, Balram repeats the macabre imagery with which he described his mother's death, which was the first moment in which he realized the oppressive nature of India. By emphasizing the first moment here, Balram further presents the murder as a spiritual event, part of a cycle that exists largely to allow the exceptional "White Tiger" to achieve his potential. Ultimately, the way Balram views the murder can be seen with horror - as he is able to rationalize such a terrible thing - or with a strange respect, since it shows his ability to remake the world into the one he needs it to be. "In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat-or get eaten up." Balram, 54 Interestingly, Balram expresses a degree of nostalgia for the days of the old caste system in India. While the social structure was similarly rigid and people's fates were predetermined, he preferred the orderliness of the old system, which he believes made people happier by ensuring that everyone had a productive place in society. There was no real opportunity for social mobility, so everyone was satisfied. From that perspective, the oversimplified view, that the abolition of the caste system improved the social structure, is made more complicated. Balram argues that this societal shift merely further empowered the rich while trapping the poor in perpetual subservience. Worse, the new system promised the chance for social mobility, which offering no real outlet for it. As a result, the poor remain poor but are now unsatisfied. In this new India, then, the only way to take control of one's social standing and to shape one's fate is to take drastic and often ethically dubious actions, to compromise one's self as Balram does. There is no room for a middle ground - if he wishes to have a 'big belly,' he must destroy the part of himself with a 'small belly.' "From the start, sir, there was a way in which I could understand what he wanted to say, the way dogs understand their masters. I stopped the car, and then moved to my left, and he moved to his right, and out bodies passed each other (so close that the stubble on his face scraped my cheeks like the shaving brush that I use every morning, and the cologne from his skin-a lovely, rich, fruity cologne-rushed into my nostrils for a heady instant, while the smell of my servant's sweat rubbed off onto his face), and then he became driver and I became passenger." Balram, 94 Here, Ashok and Balram share a strange moment of intimacy, wherein Balram wordlessly understands Ashok's desire to drive the car. Balram describes the fleeting moment in protracted detail, which is highly vivid and sensual in nature. The touching of their bodies, the exchange of scents, and the wordless communication between the pair denotes a high degree of closeness. The fluidity that exists between the two twinned characters, suggested elsewhere in the text, is thus made literal in this moment by an actual instance of physical intimacy and a symbolic interchange of physical positions. Balram's consistent ability to see the world as made of twinned images is largely responsible for his ultimate ability to remake himself, but repudiating who he is in favor of becoming someone else. "I realized that this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, foreign-educated man, who would be my only master in a few minutes, when the long whistle blew and this train headed off toward Dhanbad, was weak, helpless, absent-minded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a Landlord. If you were back in Laxamgarh, we would have called you the lamb." Balram, 120 Though Balram's respect for Ashok occasionally wavers, it is usually quite high. At this moment, however, Balram perceives for the first time that his master is fundamentally weak. Using his usual tendency towards animal imagery, Balram positions himself, the White Tiger, against the helpless Lamb. Once Balram realizes that Ashok lacks the instincts to survive in the "Jungle" of India, his ultimate decision to assert his power over Ashok becomes inevitable. Because he sees the world in terms of fate and natural cycles, a jungle of sorts, Balram recognizes the necessity of conquering his weaker foe so that he can reach his natural potential. "We came to an enclosure with tall bamboo bars, and there-seen in the interstices of the bars, as it paced back and forth in a straight line-was a tiger. Not any kind of tiger. The creature that gets born only once every generation in the jungle. I watched him walk behind the bamboo bars. Black stripes and sunlit white fur flashed through the slits in the dark bamboo; it was like watching the slowed-down reels of an old black-and-white film. He was walking in the same line, again and again-from one end of the bamboo bars to the other, then running around and repeating it over, at exactly the same pace, like a thing under a spell. He was hypnotizing himself by walking like this-that was the only way he could tolerate this cage. Then the thing behind the bamboo bars stopped moving. It turned its face to my face. The tiger's eyes met my eyes, like my master's eyes have met mine so often in the mirror of the car. All at once, the tiger vanished." Balram, 237 In this scene, Balram confronts a physical manifestation of his inner self, the White Tiger. Encountering this twinned version of himself in one of the novel's many explorations of dualities, he is overwhelmed. The spiritual nature of the encounter is further stressed when he faints and then reawakens, in a type of rebirth. The moment occurs during the psychological upheaval that precedes the murder, and is the final hurdle he must overcome to find the strength for that atrocity. Seeing the majestic, rare creature with whom he so identifies trapped in the cage finally emboldens Balram to embrace his own inner White Tiger in order to triumph over the Lamb, Ashok. Only in this way, he realizes, can he break free of the cage that is the Darkness. "When the veil is lifted, what will Bangalore be like? Maybe it will be a disaster: slums, sewage, shopping malls, traffic jams, policemen. But you never know. It may turn out to be a decent city, where humans can live like humans and animals can live like like animals. A new Bangalore for a new India. And then I can say that, in my own way, I helped to make New Bangalore." Balram, 273 Balram ends his narrative by speculating upon the future of India. While much of his story casts the nation in a negative light, emphasizing the near-impossibility of escaping the Darkness and improving one's social standing, Balram's belief in the future potential of Bangalore infuses the tale's conclusion with a note of cautious optimism. However, given the morally dubious underpinnings of his entrepreneurial success, Balram unintentionally adds a layer of darkness here. In thinking of his story as a model for the new India, he suggests that the nation will never become a place where social mobility and dignity can be achieved without upending the established models of morality and society. He was able to remake himself, but Balram is unlikely to remake the world.
