The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

I recently read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. It is a great work of fiction that exposes some of the worst aspects of life in rural and urban India. In particular, it describes what the author calls the “Rooster Co-op,” which is a trap in which you fall when you are born (you have no choice) and it is extremely hard to break free from it. The narrator of the story, a character called Balram Halwai, hails from a village somewhere in India referred to as Darkness and finds himself stuck in the rooster co-op. The only way he is able to break free is by committing murder.

It is a very interesting account of his journey from the rags of the village to the riches he enjoys as a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, the hi-tech capital of India. Those of you who have seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire can easily relate to the accounts in this book. The book made me realize that there is a reality in India totally different from what I experienced in my middle class upbringing. I highly recommend it to everyone.