The White Tiger Summaries & Thoughts

The First and Second Night

Summary: Born into what he calls ‘darkness’, Balram explains to Mr. Premier (Mr Jiabao) how he escaped the darkness into the light. Balram lived the typical life of the common Indian; living in poverty, suppressed by corruption, manipulated by politics, and in all efforts trying to escape the darkness. Balram’s father, a hard working rickshaw driver, urges Balram to continue school believing that it is a step into the light but, in desperation, his grandmother forces Balram to work at the tea stall to repay the dowry of his cousin-sister’s wedding.  Soon after, Balram’s father dies of tuberculosis. Balram quickly looks for work while still working in the tea stall. Fortunately Balram finds an opportunity to learn how to drive and to later become a driver. As if fate was in his side, he starts working for his very own landowner, Mr Ashok.

These two chapters are definitely an eye-opener. Poverty was always present in my stay in India but to live as one in this book was a whole new discovery in itself. Everything that I have only recently understood such as gender inequality, corruption, politics manipulation, rape and poverty was introduced into the story like it was the norm. I found it difficult to realize that in the, ‘darkness’ everything we know as crime was inevitable and was considered normal. It’s interesting to also find that everyone seems to believe that education is a step to escape poverty but seeing the status of public education it’s impossible to receive a proper education which only creates an endless cycle of poverty. Corruption also ties into the cycle which explains why a majority of the population of India is living below the poverty line and that a very few escape from it, Balram being one of them.

The Fourth Morning and Night

Summary:  The election week was coming closer and Balram explains how much politics were emphasized in Laxmangarh, in fact, he was given an age and nickname ‘The White Tiger’ because of it. He takes great effort in explaining the great socialist party and its opponents by eavesdropping political arguments and conversations in the tea stall. Although Balram goes through a thorough explanation of the politics, it seems that he is not as interested and only looks at it in the eyes of a bystander rather than taking sides. Moreover, in this chapter (Fourth Morning), Balram also finds out that Ram (the number one driver) is a Muslim and knowing the fact that Mr. Ashok’s family disapproves of this religion, Balram takes advantage. Ram is given no choice but to leave the household, making Balram the number one driver for Ashok’s family. On the chapter of the Fourth Night Balram is taken into Delhi, a place he finds much too complicated and confusing for him to drive in. Because of this confusion Pinky Madam, Mr. Ashok’s wife, complains about him which further leads her into an argument about India. As Balram tries to adapt into the new city he meets other fellow drivers but since he came from the darkness (which showed quite obviously) everyone mocked and abused him. Towards the end of the chapter, Balram picks up both Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam in an intoxicated state and just for their entertainment Pinky Madam decides to drive leaving Balram behind. After a few minutes of drunk driving they commit a hit and run on a child. Unfortunately Balram is put to blame and was prepared to go to jail.

In this chapter there was a series of events that significantly changes Balram. It’s like these two chapters was dedicated to discovery both about himself and his view of the ‘light’. Onto the transition from the darkness to light, Balram and the audience realize that it’s not really a better place as he had previously imagined. It seems that this is only the start to Balram’s life which later, I believe, will change his mindset. 

The Fifth Night and Sixth Morning

Summary: In the beginning of the fifth night chapter, Balram vividly explains the function of Indian society compared to a rooster coop where servants are like the rooster in the cage which are all destined to die helplessly in the hands of the rich. This situation of the hit and run case can be related to the rooster coop where Balram feels like he is trapped in a cage and is being sent off to die in their place. Terrified, Balram doesn’t know what to do as he is told that he will go to jail. Fortunately the Storks negotiate with the police and gets Balram off the hook. Although the case was solved, Pinky Madam feels great guilt and decides to go to the airport and go back to America. With Pinky Madam gone, Mr. Ashok goes through depression and relieves it by going to the club and drinking almost daily. This makes Balram feel responsible to support Mr. Ashok in his most troubled times. Balram later discovers Mr. Ashok meeting a Nepali Girl which angers Balram knowing that Mr. Ashok is still officially a married man. But later he finds that the Nepali girl was an old lover. Moreover, Mr. Ashok meets a political assistant after work and decides to have fun. They both drink whisky and pick up a blond whore from Ukraine. Mr. Ashok says he does not need a whore and slips out of the situation but Balram was attracted to the blond.

These chapters truly shows how Balram, from an innocent village boy, became a corrupted city man. His depiction of the rooster coop and Indian society proves that his mindset has changed, discovering that people from the darkness cannot go into the light to become rich. And he also notices that he loses his own dignity and honesty as he becomes corrupted by Delhi and its people.  Balram has become a different person.

The Sixth Night

Summary: As Balram is consumed by corruption, he searches ways to scrape money using the car that he drives for Mr. Ashok. Doing this Balram realizes that he had been ripped off by Mr. Ashok and that he deserved more than he had received. As he does this he feels more rage than guilt which leads him to find a prostitute to relieve him from his stress. He specifically asks for a blonde girl but he is later disappointed as he realizes that he had been cheated and that he cannot refund his money. Anyhow Mr Ashok is found as being depressed with his life, surprisingly leading him to live the life of the driver. Eating the food Balram eats and staying where Balram rests. Interestingly, Mr. Ashok feels intrigued by the experience. Moreover Mr. Ashok handles some business bringing a red bag full of money along with him. Balram looks at the rear mirror with temptation saying, “In your heart you’ve already taken it” (p. 245) Balram realizes that the cash in that bag can lead to a new life, a better life for Balram. Fighting his own consciousness, Balram becomes stressed because he knows that Mr. Ashok is an honorable and good man but if he decides to take the money his family will be at risk. In internal conflict leads him to go to the older parts of Delhi, particularly in an old book shop. He learns a new poem saying, ‘You were looking for the key for years when the door was always open!’ This saying makes him think about his decision that would change his life. Quite randomly, a boy called Dharam meets Balram saying that he is his nephew and that he was sent from the family as a kind of message to still care for the family. Apart from that he takes Dharam to the zoo. In the zoo he meets the White Tiger thinking, ‘the moment you recognize the beautiful in the world, you stop being a slave’. Trapped in his own thoughts he faints. Next day he firmly makes his decision.  He prepares a broken thick alcohol bottle in the car and goes out for a drive with Mr. Ashok. Poorly acting like there was a puncture in the tire, Mr. Ashok takes a look and at that moment Balram takes the bottle and kills Mr. Ashok.

This episode is the climax of the story where Balram makes a firm decision that he will release himself from the rooster coop. A series of things make him create this decision such as the quotes that were emphasized in the chapter; ‘You were looking for the key for years when the door was always open!’, ‘the moment you recognize the beautiful in the world, you stop being a slave’. Now he is a free man.

The Seventh Night

Summary: Balram plans his escape to Bangalore taking Dharam with him and his red bag of cash. For weeks he is haunted by the murder but he decides that he needs to live on. He starts slow but as he starts catching on, creating connections with taxi services and the police (by bribery), he begins to establish a new taxi service that becomes big. He later says that every man must find his own Benaras, in other words freedom. In this state of the book the story is back to the present as Balram explains that he had become Ashok Sharma instead and he had become a murderer, entrepreneur, servant and philosopher.

This final chapter is an interesting twist to the story because I find this particular scene ironic. Balram has become what he had earlier despised. He uses corruption as a tool to his success and he started practicing the ways of the rich. Also another interesting theme of this chapter is that it can be a possible cycle (years later Balram becomes a landlord and he hires a driver as he loses sight and the exact same scenario can happen to him).  It’s like he gets himself freed by the rooster coop and he creates one. Balram says towards the end, ‘every man must find his own Benaras’. It’s quite a statement, seeing that it had cost him to murder another being to gain his own Benaras. Overall this whole story is quite an eye-opening story of the darker side of India which I had thoroughly enjoyed reading. 

Response to Sophia's Blog

Sophia's Blog: An adventure in pursuit of happiness.

Honestly, I have never enjoyed reading a blog as much as I enjoyed reading Sophia's "I'm taking a gap year". As I read through Sophia's blog I realized that she views the world in a different light, which I think is a rare talent in itself. Her tone throughout her posts makes me question myself, "Am I living the life I want? or am I just following the herd? Am I in the right path to my personal success of happiness? Am I even happy right now? As I indulge myself into her writing I asked myself more and more deeper questions.
Her post: Facebook Persona, is one of my favorite written works from the seven posts. The reason being that she responded to judgments with ease. In my blog post: High School: The Realm of Countless Judgement I bluntly claimed that everyone is surrounded by inevitable judgments and that we are all victims and culprits to this unfortunate factor. But, in response, Sophia expanded my viewpoint on this topic. She answered every judgement (party goer, rich traveler, creative, strange music, free, and too open) with reasoning. Her replies were simple and honest. Initially, I had believed that people should avoid making judgments all together but Sophia presents another solution; Honesty. Her simple reasoning made me realize that this issue can be solved, probably even more effectively, through Honesty. Honesty influences people to think differently, a different mindset, that is vital in trying to change people and ultimately preventing judgments. Sophia's insight in this post made me see these kinds of problems into an interesting perspective.
Another Post: QB Short Story. I enjoyed this personal post as it showed me a 'slice of Sophia's life'. I have to say, I acknowledge and envy the fact that she has the courage to post personal posts like these. It is difficult to share personal stories online (especially with people reading it as an assignment). I chuckled a few times when the said, "Ah Sofi! Mountain girl came down from de mountains", and "It's not a Korean School darling, there just happens to be a few around." But the one quote that sticks to me is when she responded to the statement 'you don't need to go to college' saying "No, I do. There's no point in me wasting all that time in the Himalayas then". My initial impression of this quotation made me question whether if she thought WS or even education was a waste of time but later I realized that she was being more serious than I have previously thought. I think this because the statement was that she didn't need to go to college but she responded (she interrupted her own thoughts) with a no. If this was a just-an-ordinary friendly chat she could have easily said, "I know right? I should just quit" basically cracking a joke but, the fact is, she didn't do that when she could have easily agreed. Her tone throughout the post tells me, as reader, that she had put in a considerable amount of time into this thought. Knowing her as a friend, I know that she disliked being in WS, or in an educational system in general, for a very long time because it made her feel trapped into something she didn't believe and enjoyed. But as time passed I saw her grow out of it and accepted what was given to her but what I still admire most is that she will never change character despite the contradictions. She is open, brutally honest and distinctive in her way of thinking (she's proud of this, and I think that she should be. She shouldn't be judged for it rather we should learn from it). Through this post I strongly believe that in this vast ocean people we all should learn to accept that there are people, unique people, that we all could learn from. 

Why Education Reform?

One can say I come from an interestingly diverse background. I'm born in Korea, living in Egypt and studying in India. Even before Egypt I used to live in Lancaster, England and Manila in the Philippines. People like me, who have traveled and lived in different countries, are commonly labeled as TCK (Third World Kid). We TCK's have something in common that make us think slightly differently than others. It's that, as students, we are educated in so many different schools from different countries with various unique education systems; learning, understanding, interpreting and experiencing differently.

I was educated in the Philippines where there were no standards of any sort; no tests, quizzes but rather conversations. We talked about what we learnt, we questioned and receive insight from others (Grading was based upon the participation throughout the week in accordance with the relative topic). In England I was educated in the British System which is closely correlated to the American Education system but in the particular school I was enrolled in, we had classes such as general knowledge class, dance class, public speaking class which are not general classes in the common education system. In Egypt school ended early and we were to participate in real life experience part time jobs of your passionate choice (experience was the primary purpose of this enrichment). And last but not least, Woodstock School in India which have enrichment programs that go on throughout the week (similar to the 'part time job' idea). But several questions came up to my mind every time I studied through different education systems. Why are there standard education systems (relative to the widely used American Education System) designed to make students better fit for what society needs/demands? If individuality, freedom of choice and expression is so promoted and encouraged why are students not given the option to learn what they are passionate about in school? Why are subjects like the arts avoided by students in fear of being 'unsuccessful'. Why are students only limited to certain subjects and why are they the only subjects accepted in society? 

With these questions in mind, I came to the conclusion that the current education system is outdated and unfit for the society. 

Devotion: Character

Morning, I am Daniel for those of you who don't know and I am going to talk about character. Every single one of us, today, are in the process of building character. A character in which is so unique to its roots that no-two-persons among our population of 7 billion can have a character in which is exactly the same making each and every one of us special. The common understanding of character is that it determines how we live our lives. The dictionary definitions said character is a "complex of mental and ethical traits" and that those traits, or qualities, are "built into an individuals life." It is those character qualities, those character traits, that determine a person's response in any given situation. Character is, as Abraham Lincoln quotes, "like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing". We often intertwine the two ideas; character and reputation, but it is not the same. We all have a reputation, good or bad but most of us will agree that reputation does not define who we really are. Reputation is always and only a shadow. Now the reason I 'm talking about character today is that many of us have forgotten the qualities of character of an individual and instead only see the reputation that is shrouded around it. We need to understand that reputation is not who we are but rather a false image. There is more to a person than his/her reputation. Just because a person has a bad reputation doesn't mean that the same person has a bad character. Same goes for people with good reputations. We need to become more compassionate for each other rather than judging each other. So remember today's devotion that there is always more to a person that what meets the eye. 

My Facebook

Life online

As you click your own profile and scroll down a few pages, you can't help but facepalm yourself and wail wwhhhhyyy. I've been using facebook for about seven years now and the stupid things I've done just stacks year after another. Honestly though, I feel that they were all great memories. Memories in which I wouldn't want to forget, ever. The friends, pictures, posts, status's, links, chats, likes they were all pieces of whom I really was. Although, that would only apply to myself. Only I would know who I am best and only I would understand how my profile was constructed. Facebook doesn't define who I really am but, it plays the avatar of myself. Agreeably, people can assume the person I am by the construction of my profile but that wouldn’t define me as a person. I believe human characteristics cannot be computed in any way because human behavior and mind is far more complex than the cyber world can portray. That is what separates us from the cyber world and reality. Another reason why my FB profile wouldn’t satisfy my true identity is that people have different ways of viewing things, in this case facebook profiles. My parents would view my profile completely differently from those of my close friends. For example my parents would not be able to understand some of the things I like as such as online jokes whereas my friends would and vice versa. I feel that the social networks should push toward never allowing people to put their full identity of themselves on social websites. Simply because it is dangerous. It will make you vulnerable to the infinite network of the cyber world. The cyber world is growing big and fast dangerously and we must be aware of this when we create our profiles. Facebook profiles may include parts of our identity but we must be aware of the fact that profiles are only profiles… avatars… masks nothing more…

High School: The Realm of Countless Judgments

As negative as the title sounds it is unfortunately true. High School is the period of our lives where we show our true characters for the first time in which makes every individual unique but unfortunately we are judged for it. We are in a time where we live in a bigger community which consist of different genders, countries of origin, cultures, sexual orientations, religions, beliefs, intelligence, experiences and the list goes on almost endlessly. With these differences within one society, it seems that being judged is inevitable. It is the idea of judgement that creates conflicts within our character. Bullying, Depression, Status, Sensitivity, Unstable Emotions, Trust issues, and so on are lists of common factors of judgments in a typical high school. Judgement is simply the root of all character conflicts within a high school. But I strongly believe that it isn't inevitable, the whole concept of judgement can be removed from the picture. Unfortunately the magnitude of this issue is just not emphasized enough for the audience to understand the whole picture (especially for those who judge teenagers by their behavior and character also to make things worse by making the typical excuses such as 'the rushing hormones of a teen'). In my view, the judgement issues that lies in high school is no different to the outer world, its just that the scope is much larger. Thieves, gangs, terrorists, criminals or even ordinary citizens who like to emphasize their character (hippies, gays, transgenders etc.) are similarly molded by judgments. This is why we must remove 'judgement' from the picture from a young age (as in high school) because we grow to become these kinds of people. If we had respected each others characteristics and complimented them instead of judging them, I believe that it would be a step in making the world a better place to live in. 

Response to McLuhan's concept of Media

How does some of the new media we use everyday affect our society?

In this decade, media has become as ubiquitous as physics, science and mathematics in society. Today media is considered as an essential factor to every individual's life within a community. Media comes in many forms in which some we don't even recognize. The classic examples are the TV, radio, internet, phones, magazines, and newspapers in which people use often use to know what is happening around them. But some examples are ignored as simple as local street performers playing the guitar, singing or even acting. We are constantly exposed to media that it alters our view of society. We watch the local news, hear about the latest gossips, buy new technologies, wear the trending styles, watch the most views videos, sing the latest hits, the list is endless. We, as the audience, are so entrapped by media that we are not even aware of it. We flow according to the direction of media. It seems that we do not control media but rather it controls us. This is how Media affects our society.

Do you think media and technology are moving our society in a positive direction, or negative direction? Why?

I believe this is not a matter of choosing a side whether media and technology is going in a positive or negative direction. It is a matter of how we, as the audience, interpret the given media that forms our opinion. I strongly believe that media is essential to a community, it is what builds a society, but to decide whether it is positive or negative is wholly determined by ones opinion, and I think that is what makes media incredible. Media is most definitely a flexible concept in which consists of countless opinions making it significant to society.

How do you think media shapes your own personal identity?

As mentioned above media is ubiquitous also making it inevitable. I have been exposed to various kinds of media even from different countries (societies). My identity is developed through a mix of all the different media I have experienced. Media has also allowed me to create a distinct world view that follows my identity. I believe through both of these concepts my view and opinion of everything has ultimately changed. This is how media shaped my personal identity.