The White Tiger — a book of choices
I read a lot. The characters in most books generally fade into the background of my memory. The protagonist of The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga, however, won’t be fading anytime soon. He is an self-made man in India, an entrepreneur who rises from poverty. But this is no Horatio Alger story, with a hard-working, morally upright protagonist. No, this protagonist, Balram, chooses the only path he sees available to him to leave his grinding poverty behind — and it’s a path that involves hurting others.
Now the logical thing would be for me to say that I disliked the book. But I didn’t. And I say this even though it’s an earthy book — not quite graphic, but earthy. Early on, I knew this character Balram, and I experienced what he was experiencing. He is absorbed with life, and with his quest for freedom from the chains of servanthood, and I became absorbed with his quest. I wanted to talk with him, to reason with him to choose a path that didn’t involve hurting other humans. I liked him and figured there must be another path available to him. I wish he was one of my patients.
Of course, my perspective is that of a woman of privilege who has always had a variety of choices before me. That is what poverty strips a person of — choices.
When I was a much younger doctor I became frustrated with my patients who hadn’t bought the prescriptions I had prescribed. Or, those who had bought it but hadn’t taken it regularly. Or maybe they were still smoking, or not yet exercising, or still eating too many fatty foods. Now I ask many questions, and try to avoid frustration completely. I don’t know what living this person’s life is like. Maybe they have done all they can do to get to the appointment that day. Maybe their life is so chaotic that it’s going to take several visits for them to understand the danger of their medical condition. Maybe they didn’t understand what I was telling them last visit and I need to slow down and explain it again, and this time more carefully.
Maybe they haven’t had the opportunity to make many choices in their life. To move toward health is a choice. It’s a choice that even the poor, whether they realize it or not, do have available before them.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Amy - Great that you are reading Indian literature and I love the comment about poverty removing choices from your life. You remind me how blessed I am with many choices and enough money to pursue them.
I read a great Indian novel (in English not Hindi) several years ago when I was living in India. It also tracked another history of poverty in the despotic reign of Indira Gandhi. It’s images and narrative still stay with me. But of course I can recall neither title nor author.
So I dug around the internet and found this interesting who’s who amongst Indian writers on the web. It reminds me that I could do a little more reading. India is an amazing country given its history, its people, and its culture all multiplied by its experience with the English language. Of course reading this quote, I still recongize almost none of the names…
So here’s the quote:
“Ask your friends to name the twenty greatest Indian novelists of the last two centuries. I tried this a few weeks ago with a group of people who were in general both far brighter and far better-read than me. All of us could name the small but growing pantheon of those who write in English, from Mulk Raj Anand to Kamala Markandeya, Nayantara Sahgal to Salman Rushdie, Pankaj Mishra to Amitav Ghosh. After that, the lists divided sharply on regional lines. Few of us could do more than name a handful of great names who wrote outside the comfort zone of the languages we were born to and spoke at home.
Collectively, we came up with a respectable list. To quote it in full would be tedious, but this might give you a rough sense of the size and capacity of the category we call Indian literature. It would include Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories, the novels of Rabindranath Tagore and Sharatchandra, plays by Girish Karnad and Vijay Tendulkar, stories by Ismat Chugtai, Qurrutulain Haider’s Aag ki Dariya, novels by C V Raman Pillai and short stories by Vaikom Mohammad Basheer, Srilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari, Rahi Masoom Raza’s A Village Dividied, Premchand’s entire oeuvre, Mahasweta Debi’s selected short stories, Ashapurna Debi’s work, U R Ananthamurthy’s writings. As you can see, this is by no means exhaustive or even more than mildly indicative, but even this brief list compares with the best of European writing.”
Cousin Chris
November 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Happy Day! (part 2 of my posting)
After some more digging I found the book “A Fine Balance” I read about India and Indira Gandhi. It’s part of a trilogy and not for the faint hearted. Given its unrelenting vision, I cannot fully recommend it but Rohinton Mistry’s characters, narrative lines, and passion are vivid. Here it is listed amongst other famed Indian contemporary novels (an easier list to digest then my last one)…
Best of Contemporary Indian novels (English) (Feb 2006)
Chaudhuri, Amit
— Afternoon Raag
— A New World
Desai, Anita
— Clear Light of Day
— Fasting, Feasting
Ghosh, Amitay
— In an Antique Land
Kureishi, Hanif
— The Buddha of Suburbia
— Gabriel’s Gift
— Intimacy
Mistry, Rohinton
— A Fine Balance
— Family Matters
— Such a Long Journey
Mukherjee, Bharati
— Desirable Daughters
— Jasmine
Naipaul, V.S.
— A House for Mr. Biswas
— The Enigma of Arrival
Ondaatje, Michael
— Anil’s Ghost
— The English Patient
Roy, Arundhati.
— The God of Small Things
Rushdie, Salman
— Haroun and the Sea of Stories
— Midnight’s Children
— The Moor’s Last Sigh
— The Satanic Verses
— Shame
Seth, Vikram
— An Equal Music
— The Golden Gate
Suri, Manil
— The Death of Vishnu
November 29th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Excellent list, Chris. You’re right — far too few Americans can name one non-English speaking writer, let alone 20!