A White Tiger

I just finished this book by Aravind Adiga called The White Tiger- the 2008 Man Booker Prize Winner. If you’ve enjoyed watching Slumdog Millionaire- and all the depressing social slaughter of the deprived, and the ensuing ‘virtuous’ atrocities, then you’ll enjoy this book. Incidently, it also highlights India’s slums.

The world of our hero, Mr. Ashok is immoral, corrupt, with senseless injustice. But Adiga also writes with a touch of humour. I’m not a person who is usually attracted to dark comedy like this, nor am I particularly fascinated by slumeoples. (the people living in the slums) *hey, Shakespeare created hundreds of words in the English language, I thought I’ll take a feather from his book.*=p

It makes one wonder, for these slumeoples, are they bound to our law? Code of ethics? Well, are they supposed to respect the lives of their masters when they themselves are barely acknowledged as human beings?

But on the other hand, are the people who are at the receiving end of a social system created by individuals solely for their own benefit, are these slumeoples completely innocent of their own miserable destiny, or rather, lack of it? To quote a phrase from the book,
“They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world.”

It makes me wonder whether they could have done anything different for themselves. It makes me wonder whether I would.