Book Name : The White Tiger
What is it about : Coming across a piece of news over the TV, our bottom-of-the-heap man from the Darkness (poor, under-developed and rural areas) Balram Halwai (The Lowly Sweet Makers caste) found out that the Chinese Premier, Wen Jia Bo would be paying a visit to India and was especially keen to meet a few of the famous Indian self-made entrepreneurs in Bangalore. So, over a period of seven nights, Balram regaled in a long letter to The Chinese Premier, how he too became one of these entrepreneurs; firstly, by being the smart guy in his class, like the legendary White Tiger which only appeared once in a generation; secondly Balram became the Primary Driver for a local rich family in the Light (flourishing corrupted Bourgeoisie and upper castes) by ousting the original driver over a nasty ploy and then, through tenacity, grit, brown-nosing, shamelessness, the murder of his American-educated mean master, and eventually through bribing the local police chief, our man Balram rose to become a respected member of the Bangalore business community and operated his own White Tiger Drivers Services.
Some thoughts after having read the book : Extremely entertaining, dark humour, cynical, downright ugly even, when the low-down's of India were given to the readers in a bare-knuckled and full-frontal assault style. Full of intriguing insights from the India's perspectives - especially the often-mentioned competition and comparison with China "... we may not have sewage, drinking water and Gold medalists, but we do have democracy ..."; "... parliamentary democracy, we will never catch up with China for this single reason ..."; " ... in Beijing they've got a dozen ring roads, here we have one and nothing is planned ...".
Would I recommend this book to you : One hundred percent YES - especially if your career would involve nasty business, shady deals and murder. See how a lowly Indian driver whose job profile included performing foot massage for his masters, fighting with other lowly drivers in the queue to fetch whisky from the liquor shop, being scapegoated for a hit-and-run traffic incident and generally being 24x7 available to his master's every whim to, become a master himself, through murder, paying off road victims, bribing officials and thence, the very quintessential streetwise Indian entrepreneur !
