Adiga has won great laurels winning the prestigious Man Booker Prize, 2008 for his debut novel, The White Tiger. The book is crafted in the epistolary form, as a series of letters written over the period of seven nights. Through these letters, the protagonist, Balram Halwai narrated the whole story of his life - how he became a ‘self-taught’ entrepreneur in Bangalore from a small, village boy working in a tea shop in Laxmangarh, his native place under Gaya district in Bihar, which is described as Darkness in the novel, and where his family like other villagers is subjected to exploitation and suppression by the village landlords. Due to extreme poverty, the boy has to drop his study though he was intelligent. The school inspector metaphorically called him 'the White Tiger', the rarest animal in the jungle. His visionary mind takes him to work as a driver to Mr. Ashok, the westernised son of a village landlord in Gurgaon. Living in the metro city, he is totally exposed to the corrupt world where he hopelessly watches his master consuming expensive wine, enjoying with other girls, carrying cash to bribe corrupt officials, politicians and ministers. Apart from driving job, Balram has to do many domestic works also. Moreover, he is often humiliated for his pronunciation, clothes and other habits. He develops some strange personality- shrewd, aggressive and violent. He adopts a new code of conduct which allows him to cheat them who are themselves cheats. Under this new morality, he murders his master and has no sign of guilt on his face, “I’ll never say I made a mistake that night when I slit my master’s throat.” As a socio-politically conscious artist, Adiga makes a severe attack on the existing social, political and economic system of the country weaving a moving tale of sufferings, humiliation and revenge of the protagonist.
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Kamla Rai College, Gopalganj, J.P. University, Chhapra
