The book of two Indias. Goa, India.

I read recently the novel from Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger. The White Tiger is a book of two Indias. The first is a country of light, the necklace of relatively prosperous cities near the ocean. The second, into which Balram is born, is “the Darkness”, whose presiding deity is the mud of the Ganges in which little flourishes and from which nothing escapes. On the run after committing murder, Balram spends his nights writing to the Chinese premier, who is about to visit India. His intention is to correct misconceptions about his country. But what he offers is no bloodless sociology lesson. Everything worth knowing about the “new” India is in the story of his life, from village teashop boy to Bangalore entrepreneur. Like the white tiger, Balram is a creature that you might meet once in a lifetime. The son of a rickshaw driver, he defies the expectations of his caste to become chauffeur to a corrupt local landlord. From here, it only needs a little blackmail before he finds his way to Delhi, driving his boss’s son. Adiga’s portrait of the Indian capital is very funny but unmistakably angry. Above all, it’s a vision of a society of people complicit in their own servitude. But the tiger refuses to stay caged. Balram’s violent bid for freedom is shocking. What, we’re left to ask, does it make him – just another thug in India’s urban jungle or a revolutionary and idealist? It’s a sign of this book’s quality, as well as of its moral seriousness, that it keeps you guessing to the final page and beyond. This photo was taken in the south of the Goa Province in India, and it expresses the atmosphere of Balram’s words in the book.