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.