The White Tiger from a Slum of the Republic of India

If you are puzzled over the title that I have given to this post, I assure you it's not as illogical as it might perhaps sound. Here, I am writing briefly about three topics...

1) The White Tiger (The book that won last year's Booker Prize, by Aravind Adiga)
2) Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle’s latest flick, popular globally)
3) Republic of India (our country is going to celebrate 60th Republic day today)

If you haven't read "The White Tiger" (TWT), I strongly recommend you to read it. It is a good read and will serve as an eye opener. An amazing book, written in fairly simple language, with subtle sense of humor, questioning some of the fundamental practices in our country and exposing some of the dark sides. This book captures the reason for typical behavior amongst some sections of our society. No one can repent reading this book.

Slumdog Millionaire (SM), do I need to write anything about this movie. Even before it released in India, it had made a big name winning so many Oscar nominations. A well made movie, which should not be taken too seriously but should be appreciated for it's creativity and various performances.

I see a lot of similarities between TWT and SM.

Both TWT and SM deal with similar subject, from Rags to Riches. In TWT, the protagonist, Balram Halwai, a servant in Laxamangarh, who becomes a driver in Dhanbad and eventually goes on to become an entrepreneur in Bangalore. While Jamal Malik in SM, a product of a typical Mumbai slum, manages to become a Chai wala and goes on to win 20 million rupees in a game show.

Both TWT and SM invited a fair amount of criticism by many Indians. The common reason was, critiques claimed that both TWT and SM sold the poverty porn of India to the west.

I beg to differ with such critiques. Firstly, I felt that both the stories mainly focused on the hardships that the respective protagonist underwent. In this process both the stories had to show the darker sides of our country. Secondly, I ask honestly, doesn't poverty exist in India? Had India been a self-sufficient country with absolutely no issues concerning poverty and bias against the weaker sections, I would give it to the critiques. But the bitter truth of this matter is that there still exist a lot of poverty, inequality and injustice in our country. It may hurt, but that's the way it is.

The people who do not accept this, are either the top 10% of India, whose life is so deeply buried in the comforts that they cannot recognize such a sad state or those people who want to criticize everything and appreciate nothing. The weaker sections in our country still lag a lot of resources. The biggest problem in our country is un-uniform distribution of wealth. The rich of our country, when they criticize such portrayal of our country, show the same attitude as that of Marie Antoinette, the French queen in 18th century, who once said, "If you don't have bread, eat cake" Such people would want to portray India as a super rich country, which probably builds better brands for their businesses in the west.

In TWT, Aravind Adiga goes on to write something like this… “Sir, I don’t envy the rich in the US and the UK. They have not seen comforts of having a servant or anything close to it”. Having lived away from India, I totally understand what he ment by those words.

If we can't recognize wrongs, fine, at least let us not criticize the intellects, who are able do so. But it would do no harm in appreciating the merits of such artists. After all they are bringing name, fame and glory to our nation. Aren’t they?

On the 60th Republic day, I wish all my Indian brothers and sisters, a very happy Republic day. Let's hope that our country continues to develop rapidly. Proud to be an Indian. Jai Hind!