Aravind Adiga , The White Tiger or just a paper tiger?

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I must confess or admit that I was wrong! When Aravind Adiga got the Man Booker prize for his White Tiger, I was one of the millions of Kannadigas who felt extremely happy and proud about the remarkable achievement of a fellow 'KannAdiga' at the international literary scene.

It was a very proud and emotional moment for the book lovers like me.

Aravind Adiga is not the first international writer from Karnataka. In fact two of world's best English writers of the 20th century, Rajarao and R K Narayan are also from Karnataka.

Later a literary genius A K Ramanujan held Kannada and Karnataka flag very high in the West.

Adiga could be the fourth writer from Karnataka, who has made name in the west with his debut novel.

Unlike these great writers from his home state, Adiga just plays to the Western gallery.

In his desperation or eagerness to please the white people, he presents nothing new about India to Europe and America.

I finished reading White Tiger in just one day.

My enthusiasm evaporated quicker than a punctured balloon. One can read it just because it got the Man Booker prize, not because of its literary value or weight.

Like the other Booker Indians, Adiga too tries to show a degraded India to the West to market his name and novel.

As a US based writer and critic Amitava Kumar writes (The Hindu) "for a novel that is supposed to be a portrait of the 'real' India, The White Tiger comes across as curiously inauthentic. Is it a novel from one more outsider, presenting cynical anthropologies to an audience that is not Indian".

The same thought came to my mind after I put the novel down.

Adiga is not different from Rushdie, Roy, Mishra and others who thrive by selling India's negative side to the cynical west.

The 321-page novel looks artificial from the very beginning.

Adiga who worked as a business journalist with Time magazine in India knows what sells the best in Europe and America.

The narrator of the novel Balram Halwai says in one of the opening pages, "Mr. Jiabao is on a mission. He wants to know the truth about Bangalore. My blood froze. If anyone knows the truth about Bangalore, it's me."

The novel is full of such carefully written words (not spontaneous!). I know Bangalore and Karnataka (may be even India) better than Adiga.

But, I can't relate myself to Adiga's Bangalore or India, though he claims that he is telling an authentic story of globalisation.

Adiga's hero Balram Halwai tells the story of his fellow, less-privileged poor villagers living in one of the wretched villages on the Bihar - Jharkhand border. One doesn't need to read the entire novel to understand Adiga's shallow and superficial understanding of India.

Stop reading on page number 10 or 15 or may be 55. You will surely find on almost every page something that sounds false or artificial.

The White Tiger has everything about India that western readers lap up. Look at his description of India's gods and beliefs.

"I guess, Your Excellency, that I too should start off by kissing some god's arse. Which god's arse, though? There are so many choices. See, the Muslims have one god. The Christians have three gods. And we Hindus have 36,000,000 gods. Making a grand total of 36,000,0004 divine arses for me to choose from".

Nothing unsual. Nothing new in it. Almost every Indian writer who seeks the blessings of Western 'gods' to survive in the dog eat dog world of writers, writes such lines. (Please don't call me a Hindu fanatic!).

Like Adiga, I too don't care much about our gods and goddesses.

But, Adiga has cleverly packaged our 36 crores gods with India's IT revolution and the head of our mighty neighbour, China to make his novel more attractive and saleable.

He knows he can no longer sell just gods. It has to be packaged well with IT, management etc! Adiga must understand that majority of Indians prefer to 'kiss the arses of 36 crore plus local gods'. People like Adiga and his ilk religiously 'licks and kisses the arses' of the white people.

Adiga looks very cheap when he tries to present a stereotypical image of Muslims. Read this description.

"By the way, Mr Premier, have you noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It's a puzzle, isn't it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail."

I am sure he is not ignorant. But, he knows his western readers don't want to read about enlightened, educated, liberal Muslims from the East.

Adiga's protagonist Balram Halwai doesn't want to talk about the success of Muslim entrepreneurs like Azim Premji at the international level or even other Muslims who own half the shops and buildings on up market MG road and Commercial Streets in Bangalore. Because, good and successful people from the East (be it a Hindu or a Muslim) don't sell in the west!

As Amitava Kumar writes, "Adiga's villains are utterly cartoonish, like the characters in a bad Bollywood melodrama. However, it was his presentation of ordinary people that I found not only trite but also offensive."

His description of villains and feudal class of UP and Bihar is exactly the same as their description in a low budget Hindi or Bhojpuri movie. Even his comments on Bangaloreans (he claims that he knows the city best!) are derogatory and full of sarcasm.

Adiga skillfully and cleverly builds his novel, keeping western awards and rewards in his mind. He is pretentious, untrue and artificial in every page.

For me, the only small consolation is The White Tiger is a piece of fiction, not a history book like one of his runners up at the Man Booker, viz. Amitava Ghosh's The Sea of Poppies!

My dear KannAdiga, if anybody knows Bangalore and India the best, it is people like me, not people like you (I am using your own words!).

You people hate everything positive about India. We are tired of stereotypical presentation of India by the 'award centric', 'west obsessed' writers like you.

Before reading The White Tiger, I wanted to read Adiga's second novel Between the Assassinations.

I am no longer interested in reading one more piece of disappointing text.

But, I want to read his articles on India. They are very good! Sadly, he has given up journalism and taken up writing of fiction based on 'facts' and his 'study' of India.

I hope, I pray and I believe that one day, during my own lifetime some Indian will write what is good about India or at least what is real about India and will win the Man Booker.

May be a Nobel Award.

I will wait. Hope will never die. India's time will come.