Book Review - The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Completed my first book of 2019. I had this book on my wish list for a long time but never attempted to read it. One reason was that I always thought all these books which have won literary awards may not turn out to be an interesting read. However that belief was proved completely wrong when I read this book.

First of all the author wrote the book in a tremendous lucid language which had a wonderful flow; I didn't find any word / information which would have needed me to open the wiki/dictionary. And that again surprises me since this book was a New York Times Bestseller apart from being a Booker Prize winner.

The book is about the two different countries forged into one country, India, through the life the protagonist named Balram Halwai who makes his transition from one to the other. Since the economy opened up in the 90s, India has steadily grown to be one of the largest economies in the country. We have urban centers which have grown in size along with the steady growth of billionaires and millionaires. But along the process of that development, we have left behind a chunk of our country (mostly rural) which still languish by the lack of education, health, nutrition and pulled by down by extreme poverty; author very aptly labelled this India as 'Darkness'.

The journey of Balram Halwai is an endearing one. The novel provides a brilliant depiction how in the age of globalization, a rigid caste system still controls the fate of most in the hinterland. Balram's travails with himself while undertaking the painful and risky process of making the transition is worth reading.

However one thing that really intrigues me whether the literary quality of the book is good enough to have won the Booker or is it just that a negative portrayal of Indian's growth story touched the right chord with our erstwhile colonial masters; or may be because it was published in UK. Frankly there have been multiple works which explores this same situation of inequality that exists in our country. But yes Indian poverty does sell well internationally as we have seen with the case of the movie Slumdog Millionaire which incidentally swept Oscars in the same year, 2008, in which this novel won the Booker.

Overall I must say that my first of 2019, published back in 2008, was a satisfying read which I completed successfully; this I say because there have been some books in the past few months which I did start but didn't complete. I managed to get the book from the local library and have secured one of Aravind Adiga's other works as well. And then I have one from Shashi Tharoor along with few e-books to wrap up. Target is to read at least a dozen books in 2019; one for each month. Hoping for the best.