July Read: Adiga on India

This month the Booklyners will be reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize, the novel is a bleak yet humorous take on modern-day India told from the perspective of a poor, half-educated chauffeur in Mumbai. With spare and direct prose, Adiga delivers a searing perspective of social injustices and widespread political corruption in India. Not surprisingly, The White Tiger has caused quite an uproar of anger amongst many Indians upon its publication and the announcement of its selection as the Man Booker Prize winner. 

Writers and Company has published the podcast to a thoughtful interview with Aravind Adiga. The author, 33, is Indian-born, Oxford-educated and a former Time Magazine correspondent. In the interview, he discusses how his novel intentionally skews expectations of finding some innate mysticism in Indian culture. He believes that it is difficult, if not impossible, to *see* the reality of India because it is obscured by spiritual ideals. Adiga's novel explores the dissonance between the official story of India and the current reality. He claims the problem of modern-day India is that millions of people are being left to suffer in abject poverty while the middle class sit back and enjoy the fruits of economic and technological progress. The novel, he explains, tries to unravel what he calls the three great myths of India: God, Ghandi, and family.

Provocative indeed.

In "My Lost World" an essay Adiga published in Time Magazine, the writer addresses the trepidation he felt upon returning to his hometown and witnessing the incredible changes economic advances had ushered in.

"The pulse of India beats fastest in megacities like Bombay. But to understand how quickly the economic boom is creating a new country, you have to visit places that few foreigners have heard of--places like Mangalore. Back in 1991, when I left, about 300,000 people lived there. Since then its population has doubled. But that doesn't begin to describe its transformation. A decade of rapid growth has produced shopping centers and high-rise apartments--and most of the construction has taken place in the past five years. Old houses have been uprooted, replaced by bars and restaurants. The city's first multiplex cinema is about to open. A giant Smirnoff poster in the center of town announces, LIFE IS CALLING. In Indian cities like Mangalore, answering that call has brought consequences no one could have foreseen."