Summary:
Balram starts telling in this chapter with writing about a special Indian invention: it's neither the Internet nor spaceships, it's the Rooster Coop. The Rooster Coop is a cage, where roosters get caught for being sold at the market. The birds are close to each other and in a miserable situation, but they do not try to get out.
This is also how the Indian system works: a handful of men is reigning the other people. Like the roosters, no one is trying to get out. The reason is, that only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed (tortured) can break out of the coop.
"It would, in fact, take a White Tiger. You are listening to the story of a social entrepreneur, sir."
Balram lies in his bed worrying about his future when he is called upstairs. The Stork is now with his two sons in the room and Balram has to massage his feet. While doing this, they tell him, that there was no crime reported and he has not to sign the statement.
The next three days, he has to massage the Storks feet until he gets ill and he has to get him to a famous private hospital. The day after he drives the Mongoose and the Stork to the railway station and after that, he's going into a Hanuman (-> links) temple to say prayer of thanks.
At the early morning of the next day Pinky Madam wakes him up. She wants him to drive he to the airport and because he is not allowed to contradict he drives her. This is how Mr Ashok's marriage comes to an end/ she leaves him. Short before leaving she gives Balram an brown envelope filled with 4700 rupees.
Mr Ashok is at first very angry with him because he thinks Balram's guilty for her leaving, but at last he goes depressive and drinks a lot for a few days. In this time, Balram gets close to Mr Ashok and for a short time, theres a very good master to servant realtionship, Balram makes him feel better. After a week passes like this, Mukesh comes to visit his brother and the situation gets normal again.
Balram gets a letter from his grandmother Kusum: she does'nt order him to marry, but she tries to convince him again and asks for some money. The next day he drives Mukesh back to the railway station. Coming home again, he sees Mr Ashok massaging his own feet and tries to do this on his own, but Mr Ashok shouts "No!" and wants him to leave.
Waiting in front of the mall once more, he's doing some yoga as seen on tv. Opening his eyes, he sees how other drivers stand around the car and make fun of him.
"The rooster coop was doing his work. Servants have to keep other servants from being innovators, experimenters, or entrepreneurs."
My opinion:
A thing that i find really interesting in this part is the rooster coop. It is the result of the caste system in India, altough it is forbidden. But theres a difference: in the caste system, the priests was on top. That means that religion was very important. But nower days, the religion was replaced by money. On top of the system are now the rich people: politicians, entrepreneurs and police inspectors for example. The system was unalterable before. But since it was forbidden, theres always blood and fights because of people want to get to the top or stay on the top.
This is something interesting to think about: Does freedom make people fighting each other?
Links:
- http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordhanuman/a/hanuman.htm
2010-09-28
2010-09-18
Page 97-146: "The Fourth Night"
Balram's job as driver isn't getting easier in Delhi (marked on the map): the houses are not sorted by numbers or letters and even the inhabitants don't know their streets names. That's why he gets lost in the city every now and again. While Mr. Ashok defends him, Mukesh Sir and Pinky Madam are charging him. In a conversation between the brothers, he hears out that their father, the Stork, is trying to distance himself from the Great Socialist.
When he's waiting in front of a shopping mall for his masters, a driver with a skin disease starts talking to him. He gives him some basic tips on how to survive in Delhi & tells him about a magazine called "Murder Weekly". It is very popular reading among all the servants. It tells a story of a murder killing an woman and getting busted by police, but no one wants to be like him because he is constituted as an idiot. Balram asks him about an office-building and he tells him, that his master's daughter starts working there at 8 p.m., leaves at 2 a.m. and is earning there a lot of money.
As the three leave the mall, Balram drives them home to their apartment in the Buckingham Towers B Block, which is a noble and new apartment building settled in a location with other noble and new buildings. Balram sleeps in the servants' quaters in the basement of the building. He has to sleep in a room with all the others and they hoax him because of he said something stupid. He doesn't like to sleep in there and because of there's an other room where nobody wants to sleep so he switches in the second night.
The next day he has to drive his masters to the Congress Party Headquarters and after that to the President's House. In a conversation afterwards, Mr. Ashok says to Mukesh Sir: "We're driving past (a statue of) Gandhi after just having given a bribe to a minister."
Slide-in: Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi was a Indian lawyer and the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, which caused the end of the british colonial rule with his non-violent withstood.
When Balram drives them home, they chat about the bad situation of the traffic system in Delhi. As they arrive at Buckingham Towers B Block, Mukesh said he's missing a rupee. He blames Balram for stealing it as he can't find it. He drops one in the car and gives it to the master and his mood changes.
Later in the apartment, noone wants to eat something except Ashok and Balram has to cook some food for him. As he looks at Ashok, he is on the verge of tears. As a driver you never see the whole picture of your master, so he knows something must be wrong. His opinion is prooved, when he has to drive Mukesh to the railway station. From now on, Ashok is his only master.
Pinky Madam wants him to make a tea and while he starts, she shouts at him because of his bad condition: His head is spinning from last night's whiskey, his teeth are covered, rotten & black of red paan and his clothes are dirty, all in all he looks fucked up.
The next day he drives Ashok and Pinky Madam to the mall and watches, how a poor man is stopped in front of it because of his condition and Balram recognizes that he's in the same one. At night he goes out to the market and buys himself some new clothes and his first toothpaste. Later he thinks about why his father has never stopped him scratching his grain or made him using toothpaste. "Why had he raised me to live like an animal?...If only a man could spit out his past so easily (as toothpaste)."
The next day, when he drives with his master to the mall, he goes with an a little insecure feeling into the mall. He has no problems with coming in because of his new look. As he goes back to the other drivers, he wants to tell them about this, but there is an other driver who got a phone from his master (which might be something more interesting) and he keeps it to oneself. Back in the apartement he hears from the text room, how Mr Ashok slaps his wife and Balram goes downstairs to the servat's quarter. Just an hour later he is ringed by his master to drive him and Pinky Madam to the city. They end driving at a nightclub and Balram has to wait outside. They come out when he was already sleeping and wake him up, both are drunk. On the way home, Pinky Madam wants him to stop and leave the car because she wants to drive. Mr Ashok sais nothing to stop her and she drives away leaving Balram. A short time later when the car has done an illegal U-turn, it comes back and Balram gets on the backseat. They make another U-turn and Balram watches this helpless, both others are having fun. As she goes really fast, a black thing jumped on the street and they hit it. She comes to stop a few hundred meters later and starts screaming. Mr Ashok puts one hand on her mouth and moves her to the backseat, while Balram enters the drivers seat and drives them home. He cleans the car a few times because it is full of blood and flesh. Later, Mr Ashok comes down and tells him to say nothing to anyone and Balram waits till the next evening in his room, when Mukesh calls him up. He sais to him that he's a part of the family and the same, Mr Ashok already has said to him. An hour later he is called up again and this time, there is an advocate waiting for him with Mukesh. They say to him, that he has to sign a letter on which he confesses to be the only person at the car and to hit that person.
Balram tells Mr Jiabao, that prisons in India are full of servants because they're taking the blame for their masters, that their masters own them and adds "... we all live in the worlds greatest democracy (India). What a ... joke."
My opinion:
Balram makes at this point another change: he distances himself from his past ("If only a man could spit out his past so easily"). On the surface he's doing that with toothpaste and stopping using paan, but in depth he's more and more distancing from his family and Laxmangarh and gets more into his new life with working for Mr. Ashok.
Links:
- http://www.mkgandhi.org/bio5000/bio5index.htm (A page about Gandhi)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paan (about paan)
2010-09-14
Page 79-96: "The Fourth Morning"
Intro: This chapter is called "The Fourth Morning" because of Balram's heard a radio show about Fidel Castro, Cuba's communist leader, and he started writing afterwards.
Now i will tell you about what happens on the named pages.
Summary:
Balram starts telling today with a little flashback: It's election time at his former hometown Laxmangarh.
The opponent parties, the Great Socialist's party, the All India Socialists Front (also called Leninist Faction, a party by Laxmangarh's landowners) and some others compete against each other. They try to get votes by posters and people on trucks, shouting their slogans with megaphones. A government-member comes to the town to count people beeing able to vote. Balram don't knows his age and the man determined his age to be 18 (as he does with every boy so their vote can be counted). On the election-day, just one man goes to the booth to vote, but he is beaten up till death and the commissioner announces, that everybody votes for the Great Solicist's party (which made a deal with the landowner's, the Stork's now the president of the Laxmangarh branch of this party). The explanation for that ist the corrupt system in India. The people don't go out to vote, but their votes will be selected by the people with the most influence ("Jungle law replaced zoo law"), if you try to vote despite, you will get killed.
Slide-in: Is the Great Socialist a real person?
I don't think so. I searched for a solution at the internet and the best answer i found is "(The Great Socialist is probably) ...a product of various Indian politicians with dubious moral quality."
Back to the main story: Balram's working for the Stork.
The Great Socialist visits the Stork's home and they're talking about a deal. Balram couldn't find out, what exactly they are talking about but afterwards, he hears about Mr. Ashoks plans leaving Dhanbad and going to Delhi. Only one driver can be taken to Delhi and there would be more wage. Balram finds out, that Ram Persad is a Muslim and because of the Stork's family hates Muslims, Balram has something to set him under pressure and finally gets this job.
The part ends with Balram driving Mr. Ashok, Pinky Madam and Mukesh to Delhi. They passed a lot of these buses, the workers from the countryside use to get to the cities trying to earn some money before the rains (see link).
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_India#Monsoon (A text about the monsoon ("the rains"))
Now i will tell you about what happens on the named pages.
Summary:
Balram starts telling today with a little flashback: It's election time at his former hometown Laxmangarh.
The opponent parties, the Great Socialist's party, the All India Socialists Front (also called Leninist Faction, a party by Laxmangarh's landowners) and some others compete against each other. They try to get votes by posters and people on trucks, shouting their slogans with megaphones. A government-member comes to the town to count people beeing able to vote. Balram don't knows his age and the man determined his age to be 18 (as he does with every boy so their vote can be counted). On the election-day, just one man goes to the booth to vote, but he is beaten up till death and the commissioner announces, that everybody votes for the Great Solicist's party (which made a deal with the landowner's, the Stork's now the president of the Laxmangarh branch of this party). The explanation for that ist the corrupt system in India. The people don't go out to vote, but their votes will be selected by the people with the most influence ("Jungle law replaced zoo law"), if you try to vote despite, you will get killed.
Slide-in: Is the Great Socialist a real person?
I don't think so. I searched for a solution at the internet and the best answer i found is "(The Great Socialist is probably) ...a product of various Indian politicians with dubious moral quality."
Back to the main story: Balram's working for the Stork.
The Great Socialist visits the Stork's home and they're talking about a deal. Balram couldn't find out, what exactly they are talking about but afterwards, he hears about Mr. Ashoks plans leaving Dhanbad and going to Delhi. Only one driver can be taken to Delhi and there would be more wage. Balram finds out, that Ram Persad is a Muslim and because of the Stork's family hates Muslims, Balram has something to set him under pressure and finally gets this job.
The part ends with Balram driving Mr. Ashok, Pinky Madam and Mukesh to Delhi. They passed a lot of these buses, the workers from the countryside use to get to the cities trying to earn some money before the rains (see link).
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_India#Monsoon (A text about the monsoon ("the rains"))
2010-09-12
Page 37-78: "The Second Night"
Summary:
The second chapter starts as thrilling as the last ended: Balram's father Vikram is very ill and he takes him with his brother Kisham to a hospital. The conditions in this hospital are very bad, e.g. people have to sit on the floor and patients with different diseases sit in one room together. A men tell's him the reason theres no doctor in this hospital: Usually there's a doctor once a day, but because of corruption there's often no doctor like this day. His father died of tuberculosis finally.
Kishan married after the cremation and because he was the boy, they got dowries this time and screwed another family. Only two weeks after the wedding, Balram, Kishan and a cousin are packed off to Dhanbad (marked as A in the map below) to work in a tea shop.
Balram doesn't like the work and because he hears there's more money to earn as a driver, he wants to make a drivers license. The man he asks, doesn't want to teach him driving because he hasn't got the correct religion and cast rank, but with giving him a little more money convinces him. After Munna attained the driving license, he goes from door to door asking for a job and finally after 2 weeks he found a man letting him in. He was asked, which rank in the cast system he has and he answers the truth: "Bottom, sir.". He had luck, the man gives him the job regardless.
His new employer was the Stork (Yes, one of the landlords of his hometown) and his two sons, Mukesh Sir and Mr. Ashok.
Slide-in: cast system
The narrator describes the cast system (graphic above and link at the bottom) as an ordely zoo, everyone in his place, everyone happy. But when Britsh left India in 1947, the cages was opened and the jungle law replaced zoo law. That meant for his family, they lost their work as sweet-makers (Halwai = "sweet-maker") and became rickshaw-pullers which meant they became poorer.
Balram sleeps in one room with the number one driver named Ram Persad, and has to sleep on the floor while Ram Persad sleeps in a bed. Both have not only to work as a driver, but also as a servant for the family. E.g. Balram has to clean their dogs, massage the Stork's feet and play cricket with Mukesh Sir's son. The family has two cars, a noble one and a cheaper one, the second one has Balram to drive.
As Mr. Ashok wants to visit Laxmangarh (his birthplace), Balram shall drive him whith the noble car. He visits his family, but when his grandmother Kusum plans to make him marry, he left home and went up to a Fort, frow where he has a look all over the town. At this place he vomits and faints the second time.
He never visits his home again.
My opinion:
In the situation standing at the fort, Balram faints the second time. I think he does so, because he realizes in this situtation, how lucky he must be escaping from this town. His situation turned from extreme poverty at home to a very noble situation at the landlords building.
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_System_in_India (about the cast system in India)
The second chapter starts as thrilling as the last ended: Balram's father Vikram is very ill and he takes him with his brother Kisham to a hospital. The conditions in this hospital are very bad, e.g. people have to sit on the floor and patients with different diseases sit in one room together. A men tell's him the reason theres no doctor in this hospital: Usually there's a doctor once a day, but because of corruption there's often no doctor like this day. His father died of tuberculosis finally.
Kishan married after the cremation and because he was the boy, they got dowries this time and screwed another family. Only two weeks after the wedding, Balram, Kishan and a cousin are packed off to Dhanbad (marked as A in the map below) to work in a tea shop.
Balram doesn't like the work and because he hears there's more money to earn as a driver, he wants to make a drivers license. The man he asks, doesn't want to teach him driving because he hasn't got the correct religion and cast rank, but with giving him a little more money convinces him. After Munna attained the driving license, he goes from door to door asking for a job and finally after 2 weeks he found a man letting him in. He was asked, which rank in the cast system he has and he answers the truth: "Bottom, sir.". He had luck, the man gives him the job regardless.
His new employer was the Stork (Yes, one of the landlords of his hometown) and his two sons, Mukesh Sir and Mr. Ashok.
The narrator describes the cast system (graphic above and link at the bottom) as an ordely zoo, everyone in his place, everyone happy. But when Britsh left India in 1947, the cages was opened and the jungle law replaced zoo law. That meant for his family, they lost their work as sweet-makers (Halwai = "sweet-maker") and became rickshaw-pullers which meant they became poorer.
Balram sleeps in one room with the number one driver named Ram Persad, and has to sleep on the floor while Ram Persad sleeps in a bed. Both have not only to work as a driver, but also as a servant for the family. E.g. Balram has to clean their dogs, massage the Stork's feet and play cricket with Mukesh Sir's son. The family has two cars, a noble one and a cheaper one, the second one has Balram to drive.
As Mr. Ashok wants to visit Laxmangarh (his birthplace), Balram shall drive him whith the noble car. He visits his family, but when his grandmother Kusum plans to make him marry, he left home and went up to a Fort, frow where he has a look all over the town. At this place he vomits and faints the second time.
He never visits his home again.
My opinion:
In the situation standing at the fort, Balram faints the second time. I think he does so, because he realizes in this situtation, how lucky he must be escaping from this town. His situation turned from extreme poverty at home to a very noble situation at the landlords building.
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_System_in_India (about the cast system in India)
2010-09-07
Page 1-36: "The First Night"
Summary:
The story starts with Balram "Munna" Halwai (the story is told in his view) writing a letter to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, because of Jiabao's visiting India, where Balram is living. Balram is a entrepreneur, who hasn't graduated school and raised up in a poor environment, but still had a successful career.
In the radio it says: "Mr.Jiabao... wants to know the truth about Bangalore." and meet some entrepreneurs to hear their story of success. Balram answers that with saying, that he knows very much about that town and as said, he is also an successful entrepreneur.
He starts his own story, with telling the Premier about a poster the police made for him. On the poster, it basically reads some rarely precise facts (e.g. age: 25-35) about him and that he is searched for questioning.
Balram gets his real name from his school teacher, because his family only named him Munna (translated as "boy").
He is born in Laxmangarh and lives at the time he writes the letter in Bangalore. He describes his birth town as laid in the "Darkness". India is devided into two parts:
India of Light: Places near the ocean which are well off.
India of Darkness: Everywhere the Ganga (as described: the river of death) flows is called the Darkness.
Balram remembers one day, when he went to the Ganga for burrying his mother on the river and she was set on fire and absorbed by black mud. In this moment, he fainted for the first time.
Balram raises up in the city of Laxmangarh (near Delhi, marked on the map as A). He describes the area as poor with defunctional electricity poles, broken water taps and children being too lean and short for their age. The most important member of his family is the water buffalo, because if she's is very fat, the family can get her milk and sell it to have a little more money. The buffalo gets the most of their food, that's why it is the fattest family member.
The women and the men sleep in different corners of the family's house.
Balram's father, Vikram Halwai, has to work very hard as a rickshaw puller near a tea shop, where the buses stop and the rickshaw pullers are trying to get some work. The area around Laxmangarh belongs to four landlords (The Stork owns the river, the Wild Boar owns the good aricultural land, the Raven.owns the worst land and the Buffalo who owns the streets containing the rickshaws). If one wants earn something on their land, he has to pay taxes like fishs, goats or money.
Each year, all the men go to Delhi, Calcutta and Dhanbad and try to earn some money. They come back a month before the rains to work for the landlords as soon as it begins raining, but his father chooses not to work for them. All his hopes are lying in Munna, that's why he wants him to go to school. Balram's scared of lizards and when he saw one at school, his father has to kill it for making Balram go back to school.
His schoolteacher steals every school fund they get from the governement. One day a inspector comes to his school and finds out, that Balram is a very intelligent boy and wants to send him a scholarship and to go to a better school. He thinks Munna is like a white tiger, because he grades him much higher than the other kids.
The inspector says: ("The white tiger") "That's what you are in this jungle."
Short after that things turned bad because a cousin-sister of him married and his family have to give dowries and spend a expensive wedding which ruins them financially. The family takes a big loan from the Stork and as he wants to have his money back, Balram is taken out of school by his brother Kishan to work with him. They have to work in the tea shop by breaking coals or wiping the tables.
In the end of this chapter Balram gives a reason for the police to search for him with the poster: he says he killed his last employer Mr. Ashok by slitting his throat.
My opinion:
1. The reason for the books name is what the inspector calls Balram. He says he is "the white tiger in this jungle". White tigers are very seldom and that is what makes Balram so important: he isn't one in a million, but the one in a million. This is what might makes the book very interesting.
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganga (Some more information about the ganga including a map of the course)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry (A page with information about dowries)
The story starts with Balram "Munna" Halwai (the story is told in his view) writing a letter to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, because of Jiabao's visiting India, where Balram is living. Balram is a entrepreneur, who hasn't graduated school and raised up in a poor environment, but still had a successful career.
In the radio it says: "Mr.Jiabao... wants to know the truth about Bangalore." and meet some entrepreneurs to hear their story of success. Balram answers that with saying, that he knows very much about that town and as said, he is also an successful entrepreneur.
He starts his own story, with telling the Premier about a poster the police made for him. On the poster, it basically reads some rarely precise facts (e.g. age: 25-35) about him and that he is searched for questioning.
Balram gets his real name from his school teacher, because his family only named him Munna (translated as "boy").
He is born in Laxmangarh and lives at the time he writes the letter in Bangalore. He describes his birth town as laid in the "Darkness". India is devided into two parts:
India of Light: Places near the ocean which are well off.
India of Darkness: Everywhere the Ganga (as described: the river of death) flows is called the Darkness.
Balram remembers one day, when he went to the Ganga for burrying his mother on the river and she was set on fire and absorbed by black mud. In this moment, he fainted for the first time.
Balram raises up in the city of Laxmangarh (near Delhi, marked on the map as A). He describes the area as poor with defunctional electricity poles, broken water taps and children being too lean and short for their age. The most important member of his family is the water buffalo, because if she's is very fat, the family can get her milk and sell it to have a little more money. The buffalo gets the most of their food, that's why it is the fattest family member.
The women and the men sleep in different corners of the family's house.
Balram's father, Vikram Halwai, has to work very hard as a rickshaw puller near a tea shop, where the buses stop and the rickshaw pullers are trying to get some work. The area around Laxmangarh belongs to four landlords (The Stork owns the river, the Wild Boar owns the good aricultural land, the Raven.owns the worst land and the Buffalo who owns the streets containing the rickshaws). If one wants earn something on their land, he has to pay taxes like fishs, goats or money.
Each year, all the men go to Delhi, Calcutta and Dhanbad and try to earn some money. They come back a month before the rains to work for the landlords as soon as it begins raining, but his father chooses not to work for them. All his hopes are lying in Munna, that's why he wants him to go to school. Balram's scared of lizards and when he saw one at school, his father has to kill it for making Balram go back to school.
His schoolteacher steals every school fund they get from the governement. One day a inspector comes to his school and finds out, that Balram is a very intelligent boy and wants to send him a scholarship and to go to a better school. He thinks Munna is like a white tiger, because he grades him much higher than the other kids.
The inspector says: ("The white tiger") "That's what you are in this jungle."
Short after that things turned bad because a cousin-sister of him married and his family have to give dowries and spend a expensive wedding which ruins them financially. The family takes a big loan from the Stork and as he wants to have his money back, Balram is taken out of school by his brother Kishan to work with him. They have to work in the tea shop by breaking coals or wiping the tables.
In the end of this chapter Balram gives a reason for the police to search for him with the poster: he says he killed his last employer Mr. Ashok by slitting his throat.
My opinion:
1. The reason for the books name is what the inspector calls Balram. He says he is "the white tiger in this jungle". White tigers are very seldom and that is what makes Balram so important: he isn't one in a million, but the one in a million. This is what might makes the book very interesting.
Links:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganga (Some more information about the ganga including a map of the course)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry (A page with information about dowries)
2010-09-06
Introduction
in the next few weeks I will read the book "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga.
I will give you a comprehensive summary of the part I read every other day.
I hope you enjoy my entries, please feel free to leave a comment.
Kind regards
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