Last man in tower- Arvind Adiga

                                                           
Author: Arvind Adiga
Best seller : The White Tiger

Synopsis:
Vishram society is a tight knit society of middle class and mostly aged people. Located in the suburban area of Santacruz east this building suddenly becomes desired by the builder Mr Dharmen Shah. When he offers them 250% the cost of their land, there are members willing to do anything to get the deal done and some strongly oppose the redevelopment while some others are still confused!
The members have been living in the society for decades. This is their chance to become rich.
Initially opposing only because his friends did not wish to leave the society, Masterji- a retired school teacher and a widower, is forced continuously to sign the deal. The coercing makes him all the more stubborn to oppose the builder. Now its not about being comfortable or supporting his now turned hostile friends.. It becomes his fight for his right to say no.
He becomes the target of all the anguish of the members and lives in isolation there after but only gets stronger in will power to go against them.
Can this man hold on against the redevelopment or does he become a victim?

Excerpts:
"Sangeeta, what is going on?"
"Ramu.." She turned to her son and said (forcing a big smile on her face so he would not suspect the content of her words),"..tell your Masterji that the boycott is going on."
"Boycott?" Masterji said." What does that mean?"
"Ramu.." Mrs Puri smiled again.".. Masterji, being a famous teacher, must know all about Gandhi and Nehru and what they did to the British. So tell him not to ask us what a boycott is."
"Gandhi and Nehru and.. Mrs Puri this is madness."
"Madness?" Mrs Puri chuckled. Ramu, at the table, joined in the fun.
"And refusing an offer of 250% the market value of his flat is not madness, Ramu? Some people should not speak of madness, Ramu."

Maithili Speaks:
In this book, Arvind Adiga brings out a brilliant sketch of a middle class close knit society. The ideologies, the inherent nature of people, the constant struggle to keep aiming for more and the greed of human nature are the highlights of this book. Redevelopment and use of unfair means for bringing a common consensus is uncovered as also corrupt measures to which a person can stoop for his own selfish needs.
People as they are painted in this story are essentially greedy. In the beginning, the people have deep bonds which have lasted for more three decades in some cases.
Masterji who has lost his wife Purnima the same year and his daughter Sandhya, a few years before, lives alone. His son, daughter-in-law and his grandson live in post southern Bombay. Masterji teaches science top up classes for children. Mrs Puri and her imbecile eighteen year old son have been close to him for years. Mr Pinto and his now blind wife live in the flat just below Masterjis. Mr Pinto and Masterji share a friendship of more than 3 decades. Yet when the offer for redevelopment is made, masterji who initially had no reason to oppose it, becomes pressurised by the constant demands of his son and members to sign the deal. Soon he finds himself to be the only man opposing the deal.
The members of the society have left no stone unturned to get a little more extra for themselves.
The builder Mr Shah- you do not know what this man is  made of. He is the most complex character in this story. He is the kind man who offers more than the market price. He is set to prove himself the best man in business. Yet his dark side leaves you wondering- is this man really the one responsible?

Rating: 4 on 5

Price: Rs 699 [INR 454/- at Flikart] /-

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

ISBN: 8172238479

First published: 2008

Pages: 328

Binding: Hardcover

Genre: Fiction

Price: INR 316

Author: Aravind Adiga

Synopsis: The divide between the rich and the poor is great. It is great enough to stop men with small imaginations and smaller ambitions. But it isn’t great enough if a man is determined to do what it takes to change his fate, if the man is a White Tiger.

UCV says: So I finally read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I finally understood what the hype was all about. And I finally know what it takes for a debut novel to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize. And those who criticised this book because they've taken it upon themselves to criticise anything that's criticiseable (I know there's no such word), well, that's just too bad! Because this book is as sharp as they can get; yessir it is!

Perhaps I fell in love with the book, but how can one help it? The book fascinates from the word 'Go!' When was the last time you saw a satirical novel written in the form of a fantastic letter addressed to the premier of China!? My jaw dropped in awe over Adiga's style of narrative at page 1 and it still hasn't closed. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps bringing up Jiabao's name, and the sense of the letter is never lost. With his ample, casual references to China, when addressing Wen (teehee, could not resist that), Adiga never forgets, nor lets his readers forget, the brilliance of his style.

The other thing about The White Tiger that has stayed with me is the bitterness. SO. MUCH. BITTERNESS.  Adiga paints such a powerfully grim picture of what he calls the Darkness, one would think he was born there, lived there, endured the unendurable there. The author cleaves the nation in two halves - into the two worlds of (to use his words) 'men with bellies' and men without them. He points to one India of the shiny, glass-walled malls and the other India of the inescapable 'Rooster Coop'.

Adiga's hero, anti-hero if you like, is Munna alias Balram Halwai, son of rickshaw puller alias Ashok Sharma, owner of White Tiger Technologies, and this is his story of crossing over from the Darkness into the Light. This is the story of a 'social entrepreneur', who seizes opportunity when he sees it, since no one will lay out golden roads for him. He kills a few moralities and people on the way, but so what? There isn't another way. Adiga delves deep into the mind of a man, who has to choose between a servile existence and becoming a master of his destiny. And the conundrum ain't easy to sort. Balram Halwai drags his readers along the gutters through the confounding streets of Delhi in a driver's seat, through the whorehouse and the servants' quarters, through a servant-turned-murderer's mind, through a fugitive's head and finally to an entrepreneur's chair, writing midnight mails to the premier of China. And he does it with so much page-turning ease!

The only place he lost me was in the protagonist's moment of resolve. Adiga's plot lost a little hold at the point when Balram decided to become his own master. There are exquisite psychological symbols of despair and agony, but his clear voice is lost among those. It seems all too sudden, when Balram strikes his master down with a surprising alacrity. Perhaps it was intended thus, since life-changing decisions don't really take place in one defining moment, as they show in the movies. A switch is flipped, unnoticed, after wounds have festered for a long time.

Adiga's pen seems to singe the paper with exactly the kind of long-suffering wounds, or perhaps he is just a super storyteller. Either way, The White Tiger is, as they call it these days, RAWRing!

Rating: 4/5

The White Tiger - Arvind Adiga

AUTHOR -Arvind Adiga, is an Indian writer and journalist. His Debut Novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.


BEST-SELLERS -

* The White Tiger: A Novel: Atlantic Books, Ltd (UK), Free Press (US), 2008

*Last Man in Tower: Fourth Estate (IND), 2011


SYNOPSIS – In the most amusing manner of narration to the chinese premier from an anonymous speaker,this book unfolds its satirical story of irony present in Indian society by highlighting the day today instances to point out gap between master and servant class.

Balram, the protagonist, lived in the village of Laxmangarh, Bihar, a community deep in the "Darkness" of rural India. The son of a rickshaw puller; his family is too poor for him to be able to finish school. Despite being clever and being promised a scholarship, Balram instead is forced to break coals and wipe tables in a tea shop. After learning how to drive, Balram gets his break when a rich man from his village hires him as a chauffeur for his son, Ashok, who lives in the city of New Delhi, Having recently returned from a stint in America, Ashok is conflicted by the corruption and harshness of life in India, and has to deal with his family’s unhappiness with his foreign marriage to his current wife, a member of a different caste.

The city from behind the steering wheel of his honda city car is a revelation for Balram. As he drives his master and his wife to shopping malls and call centers, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, and the contrast between the master and servant classes. Through these experiences, Balram becomes increasingly worldly and ambitious.

The book's title, The White Tiger, is the protagonist Balram's nickname, which he earns by being deemed the smartest boy in his village by an education inspector. With a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.

QUOTES -

"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."

"To break the law of his land-to turn bad news into good news- is the entrepreneur prerogative."

"I don't keep a cell phone, for obvious reasons- they corrode a man brain,shrink his balls and dry up his semen as all of us know."

"To sum up-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."

"These are three main diseases in this country: cholera, typhoid and election fever. The last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in."





PULKIT SPEAKS -


story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narration

It is a very different kind of novel, it added a quite illuminating 21st-century perspective to my emerging image of country. Is it accurate? Hard to decide. Its unreliable narrator, the White Tiger of the title, a poor village boy, servant, driver, murderer, and now self-made entrepreneur in the boom city of Bangalore, certainly has a nasty story to tell, which he does in a series of unsolicited letters of advice to the visiting Chinese prime minister Jiabao.

I almost came to like or at least respect him for his honesty and decency within all that even greater depravity surrounding him. Although our country has a democracy, this book bravely shows by the media of a tight face pace thriller, how our culture apparently has become the one where lower class is pushed off in a chain of continual servitude at every sphere of their life no matter what changes occur otherwise.

This book doesn't shove itself in your face- but it politely intrudes into your life and leads you through the dark thought process of a man desperate to break away from himself and his fate. You justify his actions as he justifies them; you can't help but celebrate his victories and root for him to have courage. It's dark, it's hilarious, it's real and it's just so terribly satisfying.

I might actually read it again and I never read a book twice; this might be the first time I want to revisit a character just because he was so strangely likable and cunning and hilarious without directly trying to be. You talk of two cynics and how they enjoy each others hatred for the world, I guess that’s what it is between me and Balram.

I respect this young writer for pulling off this unflinching, brave book about India beyond the glossy brochures, the government doublespeak, and the common stereotypes repeated in the media. Not only that, I also found it a hell of a read. Miss it if you are too afraid to see the life beyond your world of twitter,M tv and facebook, or if you lack the sense of humor that misery gives to someone’s life. A must must recommendation to everyone, one of the best read books of all time on my charts.


RATING – 4.9/5.

PRICE - Rs 540.

Hardcover edition

HarperCollins Publications

purchased from Landmark bookstore,@ wave mall, Lucknow


PS – Gifted to me by my elder brother, Piyush Tiwari. Photo credit - Me, from my Nokia 5130 2Mp cam.