The White Tiger
Summary
The entire novel is narrated through letters by Balram Halwai to the Premier of China, who will soon be visiting India.
Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born in the village of Laxmangarh. Early on, he describes his basic story: he transcended his humble beginnings to become a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, largely through the murder Mr. Ashok, who had been his employer. Balram also makes clear that because of the murder, it is likely that his own family has been massacred in retribution.
In Laxmangarh, Balram was raised in a large, poor family from the Halwai caste, a caste that indicates sweet-makers. The village is dominated and oppressed by the “Four Animals,” four landlords known as the Wild Boar, the Stork, the Buffalo, and the Raven. Balram's father is a struggling rickshaw driver, and his mother died when he is young. The alpha figure of his family was his pushy grandmother, Kusum.
Balram was initially referred to simply as “Munna,” meaning “boy," since his family had not bothered to name him. He did not have another name until his schoolteacher dubbed him Balram. The boy proved himself intelligent and talented, and was praised one day as a rare “White Tiger” by a visiting school inspector. Unfortunately, Balram was removed from school after only a few years, to work in a tea shop with his brother, Kishan. There, he furthered his education by eavesdropping on the conversations of shop customers.
Balram feels that there are two Indias: the impoverished “Darkness” of the rural inner continent, and the “Light” of urban coastal India. A mechanism that he dubs the “Rooster Coop” traps the Indian underclass in a perpetual state of servitude. It involves both deliberate methods used by the upper class and a mentality enforced by the underclass on itself.
Balram’s father died from tuberculosis in a decrepit village hospital, where no doctors were present due to abundant corruption within all the government institutions in the Darkness. After the father’s death, Kishan got married and moved with Balram to the city of Dhanbad to work. There, Balram decided to become a chauffeur, and raised money to take driving lessons from a taxi driver.
Once trained, Balram was hired by the Stork - whom he crossed path with coincidentally - as a chauffeur for his sons, Mushek Sir (known as the Mongoose) and Mr. Ashok. Officially, Balram was the “second driver,” driving the Maruti Suzuki, while another servant, Ram Persad, drove the more desirable Honda City.
As a driver in the Stork’s household, Balram lived a stable and satisfactory life. He wore a uniform and slept in a covered room which he shared with Ram Persad. When Ashok and his wife, Pinky Madam, decided to visit Laxmangarh one day, Balram drove them there, and thus had a chance to visit his family. They were proud of his accomplishments, but Kusum pressured him to get married, which angered him since that would cede what he saw as his upward mobility. He stormed out of the house and climbed to the Black Fort above the village, spitting from there down upon the view of Laxmangarh far below.
Balram describes at length the corrupt nature of politics in the Darkness. A politician known as the Great Socialist controls the Darkness through election fraud. The Stork’s family, involved in shady business dealings in the coal industry, must regularly bribe the Great Socialist to ensure their success.
As part of these political maneuverings, Ashok and Pinky Madam made plans to go to Delhi for three months. When Balram learned that only one driver would be brought with them, he spied on Ram Persad to discover that the man was secretly a Muslim who had lied about his identity to gain employment. Once his secret was out, Ram Persad left, and Balram was brought to Delhi as the driver of the Honda City.
Balram considers Delhi to be a crazy city, rife with traffic jams and pollution, and with illogically numbered houses and circuitous streets that are difficult to navigate. Ashok and Pinky Madam rented an apartment in Gurgaon, the most American part of the city, since Pinky Madam hated India and missed New York. Balram lived in the servant’s quarters in the basement of the building. Teased and ostracized by the other servants, he nevertheless found a mentor in a fellow driver he refers to as Vitiligo-Lips, since the pigment of the man's lips is affected by the skin condition vitiligo. To escape the teasing, Balram chose to live in a tiny, decrepit room swarming with cockroaches.
After a while, the Mongoose returned to Dhanbad, leaving Ashok as Balram’s sole master in Delhi. One night, a drunk Pinky Madam insisted on driving the car, and she accidentally killed a child in a hit-and-run. The next morning, the Mongoose arrived and announced that Balram would confess to the crime, and serve jail time on Pinky Madam’s behalf. Balram was terrified by the prospect of going to jail, but was relieved when the Stork arrived and casually mentioned that they had gotten out of the incident through their police connections.
During this time, Balram's political consciousness grows more intense, and his resentment towards the upper class more violent. Much of the novel traces his growth from a meek peasant to an inflamed individual capable of murder in pursuit of his own success.
A few days later, Pinky Madam found Balram and asked him to drive her to the airport. With this abrupt departure, she ended her marriage to Ashok. When Ashok discovered that Balram took her to the airport without informing him, he furiously attacked the driver, who defended himself by kicking Ashok in the chest.
Dealing with the divorce, Ashok began to live a debauched lifestyle, frequently getting drunk and going out to clubs, while Balram cared for him like a wife. Ashok rekindled a relationship with his former lover, Ms. Uma. Their relationship grew more serious, but he remained anxious about telling his family about her. Meanwhile, on his family's behalf, Ashok frequently collected large sums of money in a red bag, using it to bribe government ministers.
Balram’s family sent a young male relative, Dharam, for Balram to care for. Dharam is a sweet and obedient companion. One day, Balram took Dharam to the zoo, where Balram observed a white tiger in a cage.
Finally deciding to break free of the Rooster Coop, Balram fashioned a weapon from a broken whiskey bottle, and lured Ashok from the car. He rammed the bottle into Ashok’s skull, and then stabbed him in the neck, killing him. He stole the red bag, filled with 700,000 rupees, and escaped with Dharam to Bangalore. In revenge for his actions, the Stork’s family likely murdered all of Balram’s family, though Balram remains unsure of their exact fate. Nevertheless, he chose to commit the murder knowing this was a likely outcome.
In Bangalore, Balram found great success. He launched a taxi service for call center workers, which he calls White Tiger Technology Drivers. By bribing the police, Balram was able to gain influence and make his business successful. Demonstrating how far he has come, he is able to cover up a fatal accident through his connection to the authorities. He considers himself to be a quintessential entrepreneurial success story that represents the future of India, and presents himself as such to the Premier.
About The White Tiger
The White Tiger, published in 2008, is Aravind Adiga's debut novel. In its first year of publication, it was named a New York Times Bestseller, and was awarded the Man Booker Prize, making Adiga the fourth Indian-born author and, at age 33, the second-youngest author overall to win the prize.
The novel explores class struggle in India at a time of modernization and globalization. Major transformations in Indian society have taken place in the last half-century, from the termination of British rule in 1947, to the end of the caste system, to the economic changes accompanying the rise of new industries such as technology and outsourcing. Adiga's The White Tiger rejects the typical "exoticized" view of India that is commonly represented in literature, with perhaps the most emblematic example being in the stories of Rudyard Kipling. Instead, the novel provides a darkly comic examination of the complications that have emerged during this period of transformation and upheaval.

Character List
Balram
Balram Halwai, the story's narrator, protagonist, and anti-hero, tells of his rise from village peasant to successful entrepreneur. He has a significant faith in his exceptionalism, thinking of himself as a "White Tiger" not tied to conventional morality or social expectations. It is through this alternate system that he is able to rearrange his life and identity. Balram's dark humor, cynicism, and perceptiveness form the lifeblood ofThe White Tiger.
Balram was born in the village of Laxmangarh, into a life he considers miserable. Despite his intelligence, he was forced to leave school early to work. Nevertheless, he continued educating himself by eavesdropping on conversations. As he progressed through the echelons of the underclass, eventually being hired as a driver for Mr. Ashok and the Stork, he developed a severe resentment against the upper classes, which eventually prompted him to murder Mr. Ashok.
His other aliases include Munna, the White Tiger, and Ashok Sharma.
Mr. Ashok
Ashok is Balram's principal master, the Stork's son, and the Mongoose's brother. Exceedingly handsome, Ashok is also generally kind and gentle to those around him. Unlike the other members of his family, he trusts Balram immensely, and the latter senses a strange, profound connection between them. Ashok is childlike, with a short attention span, and generally dislikes his family's business dealings. Ultimately, his strange connection to Balram is not enough to save his life when Balram decides to murder him.
Pinky Madam
Pinky Madam is Ashok's wife, and just as good-looking as her husband. Because of her background, she is never fully accepted by Ashok's family. She is demanding, capricious, and deeply unsatisfied with life in India, constantly hoping to return to America, and is generally cruel to Balram. She eventually leaves Ashok to return to New York, and shows a deep grief over the hit-and-run that proved the last nail in the coffin of their relationship.
Mr. Krishna
Krishna is Balram's teacher in Laxmangarh before Balram is pulled out of school by his family. He is responsible for giving Balram his first "real" name, but he generally proves himself emblematic of the corruption and inefficiency of Indian schools, since he embezzles the government funds allocated for uniforms and food.
Vikram
VikramHalwei is Balram's father, a rickshaw puller. Though he is not as attentive a parent as might be desired, he works extremely hard to provide for his family. Balram frequently thinks of his father and the sacrifices he made, and uses that resentment to inspire the murder. Vikram eventually died of tuberculosis in a deteriorating village hospital, a fate which largely motivates Balram to improve his station in life.
Balram's mother
Balram's mother died when he was very young, and her funeral is one of his most vivid early memories. Her body was swallowed up by the dark mud of the Ganga River. His mother had a short, miserable life, and Kusum frequently disrespects her memory.
Kusum
Kusum is Balram's grandmother, and the matriarch of the family, ruling through fear. Intimidating and sly, she attempts to exert her power over Balram, ensuring that he send money home once he becomes a driver, and later trying to coerce him into marrying. She has a habit of rubbing her forearms when she feels happy, a trait that Balram frequently comments upon.
Kishan
Kishan is Balram's brother, who takes care of him in the wake of their father's death. He is a strong, father-like figure who has a formative effect on Balram's own development. the Stork
The Stork, actual name Thakur Ramdev, is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. A fat man with a large mustache, he owns the river and collects taxes from fishermen and boaters. He is father to Ashok and Mukesh (the Mongoose). His highly unethical business practices involve bribing officials, evading taxes, and stealing coal from government mines. the Wild Boar
The Wild Boar is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He owns the best agricultural lands around the village. He has two protruding teeth that resemble the tusks of a boar. the Buffalo
The Buffalo is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He is considered the greediest of the four landlords. He owns and operates the rickshaws, and his son was kidnapped and killed by the Naxals, for which he visited retribution on the entire family of the servant who aided in that kidnapping. the Raven
The Raven is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He owns the worst land, the dry, rocky hillside around the fort, and charges the goatherds who use this land for their flocks to graze. He is called the Raven because he likes “dip his beak into the backsides” of the goatherds who can’t pay. (“Dipping one’s beak” is a sexual euphemism that Balram uses). the Mongoose
The Mongoose, actual name Mukesh Sir, is one of the Four Animals, the four landlords who control Laxmangarh. He is the Stork's son and Ashok's brother. A much worse man than Ashok, he does not question the family's business practices and condemns Ashok's interest in the American way of life. Mukesh is favored by the Stork and has more influence in the family than Ashok does.
Ram Persad
Ram Persad was the Stork's primary driver - and hence in charge of the Honda City - until Balram discovered that Ram was a Muslim and used that information to take control. After his secret is discovered, Ram Persad disappears without a word.
Vijay
Vijay is Balram's childhood hero, his model of a man who improved his station in life by forging his own identity. The son of a pig herder, Vijay's first success came with becoming a bus conductor. Balram and the other village boys admire his prestigious job and his uniform. Later, Vijay enters politics and quickly rises in the ranks. By the end of the narrative, Vijay is a powerful politician, just as corrupt and power-hungry as any of the rich elites in the novel.
Great Socialist
The Great Socialist is a powerful politician who controls the Darkness with the help of corruption and election fraud. He is described as having “puffy cheeks, spiky white hair” and “thick gold earrings” (86). People disagree as to whether he was always corrupt or if he began his political career with good intentions. Though his character essentially serves as an amalgam of typical corrupt Indian politicians, he is believed to be based on the actual politician Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Vitiligo-Lips
Vitiligo-Lips is one of the other drivers Balram encounters in Delhi. His lips are marked by vitiligo, a skin disease that affects many poor people in India and causes a lightening of skin pigment. Vitiligo-Lips serves as a sort of guide to Balram in Delhi, introducing him to city life, answering his many questions, and giving him access to a variety of illicit products ranging from Murder Weekly magazines to prostitutes. Since most of the other chauffeurs and servants in Delhi mercilessly tease Balram and make him an outcast, Vitiligo-Lips is crucial to Balram's survival.
Dharam
Dharam is a young relative of Balram's, sent to Balram by the family so he can be taken care of. Dharam is a sweet and obedient boy. Balram brings Dharam with him after the murder, and the two live together in Bangalore.
Ms. Uma
Ms. Uma is a former lover of Mr. Ashok's; he reconnects with her after Pinky Madam leaves. Though she begs him to marry her, Mr. Ashok is anxious about reintroducing her to his family. She is indifferent towards Balram, and ultimately plants the idea of replacing him into Ashok's head. Balram considers her a bad influence on his master.
Balram's family
Balram has countless aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews living in Laxmangarh. The family is very poor and traditional. Men and women sleep in opposite corners of the house. The most cherished member of the family is the water buffalo, who is kept fat and healthy and provides milk. Balram frequently feels guilty because Ashok's murder likely caused the death and torture of Balram's family.
Wen Jiabao
WenJiabao is the Premier of China, to whom Balram addresses the letters that narrate the story.
Dilip
Dilip is a cousin of Balram and Kishan; he accompanies them when they move to Dhanbad.
Ram Bahadur
Ram Bahadur is the Stork's head servant at his mansion in Dhanbad. A cruel Nepali with little concern for Balram, he is blackmailed into making Balram head driver after Balram discovers that Ram Bahadur must have kept Ram Persad's secret. the minister's assistant
The minister's assistant, Mukeshan, frequently takes advantage of Ashok when the latter comes to bribe his boss.
Anastasia
Anastasis is the prostitute Balram hires, hoping she will be like Kim Basinger, as Mr. Ashok's prostitute was. When he discovers that her blond hair is only dyed, he grows angry, and is assaulted by the manager. the manager
Anastasia's pimp is called "the manager." He assaults Balram after he screams at Anastasia.
Muslim shopowner
The Muslim shopowner in the secondhand book market of Old Delhi introduces Balram to Iqbal and the other great poets.
Ashok Sharma
Ashok Sharma is the final alias Balram takes for himself, after reaching Bangalore. It is obviously taken from his former master's name.
Mohammad Asif
Mohammad Asif works as a driver for Balram's company in Bangalore, and hits a boy who is riding a bike. Balram has to bribe the police to remedy the situation. the Premier
WenJiabao is the Premier of China, to whom Balram addresses the letters that narrate the story.
Glossary of Terms brahmin the highest ranking of the four varnas, or social castes, in Hindu society caste the hereditary classes of Hindu society, believed to indicate a person's destiny charpoy a bed consisting of a frame hung with tape or ropes dip one's beak into a euphemism which Balram frequently uses to describe sex ghat a flight of steps leading down to a river gulabjamun a cheese-based dessert, similar to a dumpling
Halwai
an Indian caste destined to be sweet-makers; Balram was born into this caste laddoo a ball-shaped sweet made with flour and sugar maharaja a Sanskrit title for "high king"
Mother Ganga a colloquial name for the Ganges River, the river which runs through India and Bangladesh, and which is sacred to Hindus munna a Hindi word translating to "boy"
Namaz
A Muslim prayer consisting of four units
Naxals
Naxals are militant Communist groups operating in India; they are considered to be terrorists paan a stimulating, psychoactive combination of betel leaf and tobacco or areca nut; it is chewed for a while and then spit out
Ramadan
the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed as a month of fasting rickshaw a passenger cart usually pulled by a man rupee the currency of India, currently worth 0.015 USD tuberculosis an infectious disease of the lungs caused by bacteria, and which is often diagnosed when the sufferer spits blood vada a savory snack similar to a fritter vitiligo A skin disease, common among the poor in India, that causes a lightening of skin pigment
Major Themes
Corruption in India
Throughout Balram's narrative, Adiga constantly exposes the prevalence of corruption throughout all of India's institutions. Schools, hospitals, police, elections, industries and every aspect of government are thoroughly corrupt, while practices such as bribery and fraud are entirely commonplace. Balram's approach to this truth largely involves a deeply cynical humor. However, there is an ugly component to his character arc. In order to escape the "Darkness" and enter into the "Light," Balram must himself become a part of this system. His victory is thus bittersweet; while he has succeeded in elevating his social position, he continues to live in a country paralyzed by corruption, which prevents true progress from taking place. Adiga's ultimate point seems to be that corruption necessarily breeds corruption, unless of course a greater revolution remakes society.
Globalization
The India described by Balram is in the throes of a major transformation, heralded in part by the advent of globalization. India finds itself at the crossroads of developments in the fields of technology and outsourcing, as the nation adapts to address the needs of a global economy. Balram recognizes and hopes to ride this wave of the future with his White Tiger Technology Drivers business in Bangalore, but this force of globalization has a darker component for him as well. It threatens and disenfranchises those adhering to a traditional way of life, such as his family in Laxmangarh. Hence, he must change who he is in order to compete in this new world. Adiga thus vividly conjures the tension between the old and new India, suggesting that succeeding in this world (as Balram does) requires a flurry of ethical and personal compromises.
Social Mobility
Balram frequently discusses the issues of social mobility in the new social hierarchy of India. Having idolized Vijay from childhood, Balram recognizes the possibility of moving up in the world, but has to confront the reality of such movement throughout his story. One of the big issues is how India's social system has changed. Under the caste system, people's fates were predetermined, but they were happy, believing they belonged somewhere. However, the new social structure promises the possibility of social mobility, but actually only offers two social divisions: the rich and the poor. The poor are kept in an eternal state of subservience and servitude to the rich by the mechanism that Balram dubs "The Rooster Coop." However, they are now more unhappy because there is a possibility of social mobility that nevertheless remains out of their grasp. Balram ultimately finds a way to break from the Rooster Coop, but it requires him to compromise his ethics and personality - he has to kill his master and betray his family. That social mobility is a specter captured only through such difficult means is a comment on the unfortunate reality of a world built more on limitations than possibility.
Identity
The White Tiger is largely a story of self-fashioning, as Balram undergoes a transformative journey to construct his own identity. Inspired by his childhood hero, Vijay, who also rose from a humble background to achieve success in the upper echelons of Indian society, Balram dedicates himself to self-improvement, so much so that he is willing to destroy who he once was. He sees identity as fluid and malleable, a fact articulated through the many name changes he employs throughout the story. Ultimately, he even chooses a new identity for himself in imitation of his master, calling himself Ashok Sharma. And yet the novel is full of dramatic irony revealing that Balram cannot fully repudiate the person he once was. He remains full of unresolved guilt and provincial superstitions, reminding us that while identity might be entirely fluid, it is also entirely immovable as well.
Morality
Ultimately, The White Tiger is a tale about morality, suggesting that morality can be viewed as either rigid or flexible. Balram eventually embraces the latter option. In order to justify murdering Ashok and risking his family's lives, Balram develops an alternate moral system. He reasons that the money he steals from Ashok is rightfully his, since servants are exploited by the rich, and he convinces himself of his exceptionalism as "the white tiger" in order to rationalize his decisions. Believing he is the only one who has truly woken up to the truth of the "Rooser Coop," he feels compelled to change his life. In this sense, Balram has become a version of Nietzche's "ubermensch," or over-man, who believes himself to be above the moral and legal limitations of society. Adiga poses a question through Balram: do we blame a criminal for his decisions, or do we try to understand those decisions as reactions to an overly oppressive and restrictive society? Assuming that a reader does not have a definitive answer, Adiga suggests then that morality is a fluid and unfixed concept.
Pairs and Dualities
The White Tiger abounds with instances of twinned pairs and dualities, each corresponding to one half of a central dichotomy: the rich and the poor halves of India. Balram poses India as broken up into two sections, the "Darkness" and the "Light." Examples of twinned pairs from each of these two halves include: the "men with small bellies" and "men with big bellies;" the hospital where Balram's father dies and the city hospital visited by the Stork; the beautiful blonde prostitute visited by Ashok and the uglier, faux-blonde prostitute hired by Balram; the apartment building in Delhi and its servants quarters below; and the two versions of all markets in India (one for the rich, and a smaller, grimier replica for the servants). The most significant of these twinned pairs is, of course, Ashok and Balram themselves. It is telling that Balram, the narrator, views the world as split into halves. It reveals the extent to which oppression has ruined his worldview.
Another means by which Adiga explores this theme is through the symbolic rearview mirror, which doubles everything through a reflection and hence functions as a conduit for the confrontation between Ashok and Balram. This particular image suggests that identity can be transferred across the divide - one can move from one area to another. Other instances of dualities in the text serve to further highlight the extent of Balram's transformation; for example, the two car accidents (Pinky Madam's hit-and-run and the death of the bicycling boy) demonstrate just how far Balram has come in his quest to become a successful entrepreneur. Balram was once a pawn in the game, whereas in the latter case he has found the power to be a representative of the more fortunate "Light."
Family
The extended Indian family plays an incredibly significant role in the traditional way of life in the Darkness. The family is the core social unit, so all its members are expected to act with selfless devotion to its interests. Though the poor ostensibly view this construct as a strength, Balram comes to see it as another way through which the poor are kept in the "Rooster Coop." Firstly, the expectations of family enforce limitations that can quash individual ambition (as they almost do with Balram). Further, since a servant's disobedience is visited upon his family, servants remain trapped by the whims of their masters. Social mobility becomes impossible. In order to break free and live the life of a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, a city representing a new India, Balram must sacrifice his family. This conundrum seems to suggest that in order to thrive in the modern world and embrace the potentials of a New India, this traditional attachment to the family must be relinquished in favor of a newfound emphasis on individualism.
Quotes and Analysis
1. “There’s no one else in this 150-square-foot office of mine. Just me and a chandelier above me, although the chandelier has a personality of its own. It’s a huge thing, full of small diamond-shaped glass pieces, just like the ones they used to show in the films of the 1970s. Though it’s cool enough at night in Bangalore, I’ve put a midget fan—five cobwebby blades—right above the chandelier. See, when it turns, the small blades chop up the chandelier’s light and flight it across the room. Just like the strobe light at the best discos in Bangalore. This is the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier!”
Balram, 5
In this passage, Balram introduces his audience to one of his most prized possessions, the chandelier in his office. To Balram, the chandelier, a gaudy physical manifestation of wealth, symbolizes his success at transforming himself from a peasant into a Bangalore entrepreneur. As a particularly opulent source of light, it further represents his escape from the Darkness. By chopping the light into a strobe effect using a fan, Balram provides some insight into his talent for remaking himself. He is exercising a control over light and darkness, symbolizing the way he moved himself from one realm to the other to now straddle both.
However, for all its virtues, the chandelier also represents Balram's inability to ever fully transform himself. The chandelier is laughably out of place in his small office space, and later in the novel, Pinky Madam, a true member of the elite class, remarks that she finds chandeliers to be “tacky” (71). Thus, the chandelier also demonstrates the meaninglessness of Balram’s achievement in the greater scheme of a society that continues to oppress its underclass, as well as Balram’s inability to make a full transition from his past life. His village sensibilities continue to manifest through his lingering guilt and superstitions. No matter how far he rises, he can never know whether he has definitively left the "Rooster Coop" behind. All of these contradictions are captured in the symbol of the chandelier.
2. “Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India—the black river."
Balram, 12
Balram's vision of two Indias forms the central image around which the novel is organized. The most significant of the many dualities explored in the text, the dichotomy between the Light and the Darkness frames Balram's journey. His fervent desire to enter into the "Light" of urban coastal India is the driving force behind the dramatic transformation detailed in his narrative. This passage also suggests an impenetrable barrier; in the same way that the ocean is immovable, so are the Light and Darkness necessarily distinct. That Balram is able to transcend that barrier is evidence of his unique abilities. That he remains uncertain whether he can ever fully be a denizen of the "Light" represents his belief, expressed here, that the separation is beyond any individual's control.
3. “This mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight the black mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her in. It was so thick, and more of it was becoming created every moment as the river washed into theghat. Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start licking her. And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here."
Balram, 14-15
In this intricately constructed passage, Balram uses gruesome, highly vivid imagery to depict his mother's burial. With disjointed clauses and repetition, Adiga reflects at the level of sentence structure the struggle of the mother's body against the thick mud. The mud of the Ganga River is a potent symbol for the oppressive cycle of repression that traps India's poor in the Darkness. Balram's despair at the thought of being eternally caught in this cycle forms the impetus for his journey of self-improvement. His ability to see symbols in life is largely responsible for his ability to refashion identities (think of the "White Tiger," the chandelier, or the "Rooster Coop"), and he here reveals that he had that instinct for symbolism even as a young boy.
4. “I swam through the pond, walked up the hill, went into the doorway, and entered the Black Fort for the first time. There wasn’t much around—just some broken walls and a bunch of frightened monkeys watching me from a distance. Putting my foot on the wall, I looked down on the village from there. My little Laxmangarh. I saw the temple tower, the market, the glistening line of sewage, the landlord’s mansions—and my won house, with that dark little cloud outside—the water buffalo. It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth. I leaned out from the edge of the fort in the direction of my village—and then I did something too disgusting to describe to you. Well, actually, Ispat. Again and again. And then, whistling and humming I went back down the hill. Eight months later, I slit Mr. Ashok’s throat."
Balram, 36
The Black Fort, which sits on a hill over Balram's village, serves as a significant symbol in the text, representing Balram's aspirations to escape the "Darkness" into the "Light." He leaves no ambiguity as to what the symbol represents. As a boy, he was too frightened to explore the Fort. However, here, returning to Laxmangarh after having been hired as driver, he not only approaches the Fort, but in fact spits down at his village from that vantage. It is no accident that he had to cross through water to arrive at the Fort, indicating a type of baptism into a new man. He has overcome the fears that limited him as a boy, and thereby paved the the path for his ultimate escape. He makes it clear that escape will later be facilitated both through a repudiation of his family (symbolized by his spitting here) and through his murder of Ashok. Returning later in his narrative to this same image, Balram reveals that he now imagines himself in that moment as a version of the poet Iqbal's Devil, rejecting the creation of God in order to fashion his own identity.
5. “Here’s a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life—possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life; only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth."
Balram, 39
The relationship between Balram and Ashok is fluid and volatile, constantly vacillating between love and distrust, respect and hatred, intimacy and distance. Constantly emphasized, however, is the unique bond that exists between the two: they are twinned versions of one another, one from the Darkness and one from the Light. In this passage, Balram expresses his belief that by murdering Ashok, he absorbs and comes to possess the master's identity. In other words, he sees the murder as an almost sacred event, which somewhat allows him to justify the atrocity. In describing this phenomenon, Balram repeats the macabre imagery with which he described his mother's death, which was the first moment in which he realized the oppressive nature of India. By emphasizing the first moment here, Balram further presents the murder as a spiritual event, part of a cycle that exists largely to allow the exceptional "White Tiger" to achieve his potential. Ultimately, the way Balram views the murder can be seen with horror - as he is able to rationalize such a terrible thing - or with a strange respect, since it shows his ability to remake the world into the one he needs it to be.
6. “In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.”
Balram, 54
Interestingly, Balram expresses a degree of nostalgia for the days of the old caste system in India. While the social structure was similarly rigid and people's fates were predetermined, he preferred the orderliness of the old system, which he believes made people happier by ensuring that everyone had a productive place in society. There was no real opportunity for social mobility, so everyone was satisfied. From that perspective, the oversimplified view, that the abolition of the caste system improved the social structure, is made more complicated. Balram argues that this societal shift merely further empowered the rich while trapping the poor in perpetual subservience. Worse, the new system promised the chance for social mobility, which offering no real outlet for it. As a result, the poor remain poor but are now unsatisfied. In this new India, then, the only way to take control of one's social standing and to shape one's fate is to take drastic and often ethically dubious actions, to compromise one's self as Balram does. There is no room for a middle ground - if he wishes to have a 'big belly,' he must destroy the part of himself with a 'small belly.'
7. “From the start, sir, there was a way in which I could understand what he wanted to say, the way dogs understand their masters. I stopped the car, and then moved to my left, and he moved to his right, and out bodies passed each other (so close that the stubble on his face scraped my cheeks like the shaving brush that I use every morning, and the cologne from his skin—a lovely, rich, fruity cologne—rushed into my nostrils for a heady instant, while the smell of my servant’s sweat rubbed off onto his face), and then he became driver and I became passenger.”
Balram, 94
Here, Ashok and Balram share a strange moment of intimacy, wherein Balram wordlessly understands Ashok’s desire to drive the car. Balram describes the fleeting moment in protracted detail, which is highly vivid and sensual in nature. The touching of their bodies, the exchange of scents, and the wordless communication between the pair denotes a high degree of closeness. The fluidity that exists between the two twinned characters, suggested elsewhere in the text, is thus made literal in this moment by an actual instance of physical intimacy and a symbolic interchange of physical positions. Balram's consistent ability to see the world as made of twinned images is largely responsible for his ultimate ability to remake himself, but repudiating who he is in favor of becoming someone else.
8. “I realized that this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, foreign-educated man, who would be my only master in a few minutes, when the long whistle blew and this train headed off toward Dhanbad, was weak, helpless, absent-minded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a Landlord. If you were back in Laxamgarh, we would have called you the lamb.”
Balram, 120
Though Balram's respect for Ashok occasionally wavers, it is usually quite high. At this moment, however, Balram perceives for the first time that his master is fundamentally weak. Using his usual tendency towards animal imagery, Balram positions himself, the White Tiger, against the helpless Lamb. Once Balram realizes that Ashok lacks the instincts to survive in the "Jungle" of India, his ultimate decision to assert his power over Ashok becomes inevitable. Because he sees the world in terms of fate and natural cycles, a jungle of sorts, Balram recognizes the necessity of conquering his weaker foe so that he can reach his natural potential.
9. “We came to an enclosure with tall bamboo bars, and there—seen in the interstices of the bars, as it paced back and forth in a straight line—was a tiger. Not any kind of tiger. The creature that gets born only once every generation in the jungle. I watched him walk behind the bamboo bars. Black stripes and sunlit white fur flashed through the slits in the dark bamboo; it was like watching the slowed-down reels of an old black-and-white film. He was walking in the same line, again and again—from one end of the bamboo bars to the other, then running around and repeating it over, at exactly the same pace, like a thing under a spell. He was hypnotizing himself by walking like this—that was the only way he could tolerate this cage. Then the thing behind the bamboo bars stopped moving. It turned its face to my face. The tiger’s eyes met my eyes, like my master’s eyes have met mine so often in the mirror of the car. All at once, the tiger vanished."
Balram, 237
In this scene, Balram confronts a physical manifestation of his inner self, the White Tiger. Encountering this twinned version of himself in one of the novel's many explorations of dualities, he is overwhelmed. The spiritual nature of the encounter is further stressed when he faints and then reawakens, in a type of rebirth. The moment occurs during the psychological upheaval that precedes the murder, and is the final hurdle he must overcome to find the strength for that atrocity. Seeing the majestic, rare creature with whom he so identifies trapped in the cage finally emboldens Balram to embrace his own inner White Tiger in order to triumph over the Lamb, Ashok. Only in this way, he realizes, can he break free of the cage that is the Darkness.
10. “When the veil is lifted, what will Bangalore be like? Maybe it will be a disaster: slums, sewage, shopping malls, traffic jams, policemen. But you never know. It may turn out to be a decent city, where humans can live like humans and animals can live like like animals. A new Bangalore for a new India. And then I can say that, in my own way, I helped to make New Bangalore.”
Balram, 273
Balram ends his narrative by speculating upon the future of India. While much of his story casts the nation in a negative light, emphasizing the near-impossibility of escaping the Darkness and improving one's social standing, Balram's belief in the future potential of Bangalore infuses the tale's conclusion with a note of cautious optimism. However, given the morally dubious underpinnings of his entrepreneurial success, Balram unintentionally adds a layer of darkness here. In thinking of his story as a model for the new India, he suggests that the nation will never become a place where social mobility and dignity can be achieved without upending the established models of morality and society. He was able to remake himself, but Balram is unlikely to remake the world.
Chapter 1: The First Night
Summary
Introducing himself as “The White Tiger,” Balram Halwai writes a letter to "His Excellency WenJiabao," the Premier of China (1). The entire novel is narrated through a collection of these letters.
Because the Premier is soon to visit India to learn from the nation’s burgeoning culture of entrepreneurship, Balram has decided to share his own story of entrepreneurial success. He believes his rags-to-riches tale will show the Premier “the truth about Bangalore,” which would otherwise be obscured by propaganda and showmanship meant to impress him (4).
Balram admits that he has no formal education, but has nevertheless developed into a “self-taught entrepreneur” (4). He vividly describes the chandelier that hangs above him in his office as he pens his letter, and boasts that he operates “the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier” (5). He looks through a miniature fan as it spins, thereby seeing the flashing light of the chandelier as though it were a strobe light.
Under the chandelier's refracted light, Balram begins his story. He describes an exchange between his former employer, Mr. Ashok, and Ashok’s wife, Pinky Madam, in which they remarked upon Balram’s lack of basic schooling. Balram explains to the Premier that he, along with thousands of others in India's impoverished regions, are “half-baked,” pulled out of school after only a few years so they can work. However, Balram believes that being "half-baked" allows one to become a great entrepreneur, whereas “fully formed fellows” are destined to take orders from others (9).
As a means of introducing the basic facts about himself, Balram describes a police poster that details his likeness and information. The poster was made after what he euphemistically describes as “an act of entrepreneurship” that launched a national manhunt. The poster lists his alias as "Munna" and describes him as: five feet four inches; between 25-35 years of age; the son of a rickshaw puller; and having a “blackish” complexion and a thin, small build (10). Balram parses the poster sentence-by-sentence, expounding upon various details in order to describe his background and early life.
His parents had never bothered to give him a true name; he was simply called "Munna," which translates to "boy" (10). On his first day of school, his teacher Mr. Krishna was shocked at the boy's namelessness, and dubbed him “Balram,” after the god Krishna's sidekick.
Balram also explains that his village, Laxmangarh, is part of the “Darkness,” the impoverished part of India that stands in stark contrast to “the Light” (11). The name details how the the Ganga river, with its suffocating, noxious mud, brings “darkness” into the country distant from the ocean. Elucidating his relationship with the river, Balram recounts his mother's funeral, which occurred when he was about seven years old. Her body was dumped into the river while decorated lavishly with silks and garlands. For Balram, the grandeur of her funeral stood in contrast to the misery she experienced while alive, and he believes it indicated that his “family was guilty about something” (13). Using vivid and gruesome imagery, Balram describes the mud enveloping his mother’s corpse, which seemed to fight against its own destruction. The horrific sight caused Balram to faint.
Balram then describes the impoverished state of his village, which he notes is nothing like the idyllic image of village life that the government paints for outsiders. In truth, his entire village is dominated by four landlords, dubbed the Buffalo, the Stork (Thakur Ramdev), the Wild Boar, and the Raven. These men own the river, land and roads, residing in high-walled mansions on the outskirts of the village as they charge the peasants exorbitant fees for using their resources.
It is a miserable life, and so Balram's father - Vikram Halwei - hoped Balram would remain in school to escape it. Once, Balram refused to return to school because one of his classmates discovered his pathological fear of lizards and then held a lizard against his face to torment him. Angry, his father went to the school himself and killed the lizard for his son. His father's plans were often dismissed by Kusum, Vikram's mother and Balram's grandmother, especially since Balram's brother Kishan already worked. Nevertheless, Vikram always stood by his intentions.
Balram also mentions a man named Vijay who lived his village, but worked for the bus company. Because of Vijay's uniform and bearing, Balram idolized the man, dreaming of becoming someone who seemed equally important. Vijay came from the same place Balram did, and so his success provided a reason for Balram to hope for better.
Balram returns to the police poster details, describing through them how was employed as a driver at the time of the as-yet-identified crime, and how he was known to be carrying a bag filled with seven hundred thousand rupees in it. Luckily, the photograph on the poster was poor quality, and so nobody ever recognized him.
Unveiling the corruption endemic to the Indian education system, Balram describes how his teacher, Mr. Krishna, stole the government money allocated for school lunches and uniforms, justifying the behavior because he himself had not been paid for six months. Balram recounts an incident when a government inspector visited the school and was impressed with Balram's intelligence. He dubbed the boy a "White Tiger," a rare creature “that comes along only once in a generation” (30).
Despite his promising scholastic talent, Balram's family eventually removed him from school after one of his female relatives got married. It is traditional for the bride's family to throw a party and provide a dowry, and so peasants demand other peasant families throw lavish events, even though they often strain the other family's fragile finances. His family had taken a loan from the Stork to provide the dowry, and had to repay it. Balram had to work in a tea shop, but maintains that he received a better education there than he ever did in school. At the tea shop, he eavesdropped on conversations, always learning from his surrounding.
Balram concludes the first segment of the tale by ruminating upon a line from Iqbal, whom he believes is one of “the four best poets in the world.” Iqubal wrote “They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world” (34). Balram believes that he is different from India's other peasants; even at a young age, he saw “what was beautiful in the world,” and hence was not destined to remain a slave (35).
As evidence of this claim, he describes his childhood obsession with the Black Fort, an abandoned structure that sat at the top of a hill above his village. He was too scared to enter the fort until many years later, when he returned home while employed as a driver with Mr. Ashok. From that vantage, he surveyed his village. Eight months after that visit home, he slit Mr. Ashok's throat.
Analysis
The opening chapter of The White Tiger is quite masterful for how fully it introduces the novel. It provides crucial exposition, lays the groundwork for the novel's central themes, introduces several key symbols, and extensively characterizes Balram through both direct and indirect means.
Arguably the novel's most pronounced quality is the narrator's voice. Balram’s tone as narrator is irreverent, confident, and bombastic, thoroughly infused with an acerbic irony that lends the novel a darkly comic air even as it expounds on depressing social realities. Balram mercilessly details the corruption and abject poverty that dominates “the Darkness” with an astounding amount of insight, but his jaded nature and sharp quips add a humorous edge to his social commentary. His irreverence extends from his matter of addressing the Chinese Premier - at one point, he admits that “I consider myself one of your kind” - to his attitude on religion, about which he comments that “all these gods seem to do awfully little—much like our politicians” (2, 6). His brutal honesty and engaging persona draw the reader in, so that we are entertained even as we are disgusted, and primed to be confused when he ends the section by admitting to a vicious murder.
Establishing the stark dichotomy between the rich and the poor in India, Balram frames his entrepreneurial journey — which, by the end of the chapter, is revealed to have been catalyzed by an act of violent crime — as an escape from the “Darkness” into the “Light.” This view of India's contemporary social hierarchy is in many ways the novel's central theme. Through Balram's life story, Adiga explores the life in a post-caste system India. He acknowledges the common depiction of an exotic, idealized peasant life, but uses his story to expose a far darker, more stifled life in the nation's extensive interior. Keeping with the use of humor to undercut his social purpose, he has Balram mention that he learned about China from the obviously idealized book Exciting Tales of the Exotic East.
The opening chapter also establishes the theme of identity. In particular, the novel explores how identity is malleable enough that one can construct one's own selfhood. Balram prides himself on being a “self-taught” entrepreneur; his transformation from a tea shop worker in the Darkness to a successful businessman in the Light is accomplished wholly through his own incentive (4). He is drawn towards capitalism because it provides this very potential.
Balram’s determination to take charge of his own identity can be traced through the many names he takes on throughout his life. At first, he is nameless, known simply as “Munna." Later, he passively accepts the name Balram, which labels him as a “sidekick,” still a subsidiary of another. It is therefore a crucial moment when the inspector dubs him the “White Tiger,” not only because it evoked uniqueness, but also because it distinguished him. He accepts this name because it allows him to define himself. As he notes in the chapter, “there will be a forth and fifth name too, but that’s late in the story” (30). The idea here is that the process of forging his own identity continues over the course of the novel and his life.
Adiga expounds on his themes through frequently used motifs and symbols, many of which are introduced as early as this chapter. The chandelier is one of the first. To Balram, this gaudy fixture symbolizes both his success at becoming a wealthy businessman and his success at moving from the Darkness into the Light. When he chops the light into a strobe effect with his fan, Balram is in effect suggesting his own omnipotence. He controls light and darkness, where he once was a slave to circumstance and others. Of course, the irony is that the chandelier is laughably out of place in such a small office space. (Also, later in the novel, Pinky Madam, a true member of the elite class, remarks that she finds chandeliers to be “tacky” (71).) Thus, the chandelier also demonstrates the meaninglessness of Balram’s achievement in a society that persistently oppresses its underclass, and reminds us that he will never be truly able to transition from his past life. That the chandelier functions both literally, in the way Balram intends, and ironically, for what it reveals about Balram to the reader alone, is a mark of Adiga's talent.
The Black Fort provides another significant symbol, representing all that fascinates and appeals to Balram about the Light of urban coastal India. While his childhood fears initially held him back from exploring the Fort and breaking free of the Darkness, he ultimately overcame these hesitations. It was when he returned to Laxmangarh, now wearing a uniform as Vijay had when Balram was young, that Balram was able to visualize how far he had come. He was for the first time worthy of entering the fort.
Another symbol introduced in the opening chapter is the lizard. Balram’s paralyzing phobia marks a source of physical and mental weakness that is exploited by others. The lizard represents the fears, cultural values, and superstitions that trapped Balram in the Darkness, many of which he seems to still fear hold him back. The extent to which he protests that he has transcended the Darkness give us much reason to wonder how truly free he feels. He holds onto certain fears - of cell phones, for instance - suggesting that though he has superficially transformed his entire life, all it would take is one lizard, as a manifestation of deeper fears, for him to revert to the timid peasant he once was.

Chapter 2: The Second Night
Summary
Having confessed his murder of Mr. Ashok and admitted that the act probably led to the murder of his own family in retribution, Balram next describes his former employers. Mr. Ashok was a six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered man who was always kind and gentle to those around him. Mr. Ashok’s wife, Pinky Madam, is just as good-looking as her husband was. As the man's murderer, Balram feels responsible for, and even “possessive,” of Mr. Ashok’s life (38). Despite committing the atrocious act, he insists he would never speak ill of the man, and will always protect his good name.
Balram worked for Mr. Ashok in the coal-mining city of Dhanbad, where he went after his father died. He tells of his father's miserable death from tuberculosis, which he contracted after years of pulling rickshaws in a polluted environment. Because there was no hospital in Laxmangarh, Balram and Kishan had to take Vikram to the government hospital across the river. There, they found a decrepit building where countless ill and injured people sat on newspapers, waiting in vain for a doctor to arrive. Because of a corrupt scheme that allows doctors to make extra money at private hospitals while ignoring the village hospital, thy rarely visit. Balram’s father died on the floor of the hospital without ever seeing a doctor.
A month later, Kishan was married. Because the family was marrying off a male, rather than a female, they were able to exploit the bride's family for a dowry and gifts. After the wedding, Kishan, Balram, and their cousin Dilip moved together to Dhanbad, partly to get more work, but largely because Balram had been fired from the tea shop in Laxmangarh for eavesdropping on customers. In Danhbad, they found work at a new tea shop.
Balram explains how tea shops work. He refers to the workers as “human spiders” who crawl throughout the shops doing menial and cleaning work, but stresses that an entrepreneur can learn much by eavesdropping (43). At the shop in Dhanbad, Balram overheard two customers discussing how drivers make high salaries, and he decided to try and find work as a driver.
However, Balram soon discovered that it would cost a hefty fee to learn how to drive. He persistently begged Kulsum for the money, and she eventually agreed that Kishan and Dilip could invest in the lessons, provided Balram promise to send most of his salary back home to his family. He readily agreed.
Though Balram finds a taxi driver interested in teaching him, the man is skeptical because Balram comes from a caste expected to be sweet-makers. He does not believe members of that caste possess the aggressive attitude necessary for a driver in India's crowded streets. However, Balram quickly exceeded the man's expectations, and as a reward, the instructor bought him a visit with a Nepali prostitute.
The next morning, Balram went to from door to door, trying to find a rich household that would employ him as a driver. Even though he pretended to have four years of experience, he met only failure as the servants turned him away before he could even pitch himself to the masters. At one gate, the servant was trying to dismiss Balram when the Stork emerged from the house. Balram immediately cried out that he was from the Stork's village, Laxmangarh, and then acted submissive enough to gain the man's sympathy.
After the Stork and his son, Mukesh Sir, looked into Balram’s family background, he was hired as a driver for Mr. Ashok, the Stork's other son who had just arrived back in India from his time in the United States. It was fortunate that Mr. Ashok had just arrived, since the family already had a primary driver, Ram Persad. Balram was to drive the standard Maruti Suzuki as the "second" driver, while Ram Persad drove the more desirable Honda City (52).
Balram explains that it was to his advantage that the masters could easily locate his family, since the threat of retribution against a family usually works to keep a servant in line. As an example, he explains how the Buffalo once killed his servant's entire family after suspecting the servant was involved in kidnapping one of the Buffalo's sons.
Balram then reflects on the caste system in India. He argues that the old days of a rigid caste system were easier - everyone was “in his place, everyone happy” with the multitude of identities. However, the end of British imperial rule brought chaos, as that multitude of castes was split into two basic groups: the rich and the poor, “Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies” (54).
He returns to his story, and explains how he was satisfied with his situation as driver and servant to Mr. Ashok, Mukesh Sir, and the Stork. He was proud to have a uniform (like the one he used to admire on Vijay), and was pleased to have an ample supply of food and a covered room for shelter, even though he had to share the room with Ram Persad, who took the bed for himself and forced Balram to sleep on the floor. Once a month, Kishan visited, and took the majority of Balram's salary to send back to Laxmangarh.
Though officially hired as a driver, Balram was expected to perform a variety of household tasks, including massaging the Stork's feet in warm water. At least once a week, Balram accompanied Ram Persad to the liquor shop, to buy expensive English whiskey for the Stork and his sons. He and Ram Persad had a tense, competitive relationship, in which the latter constantly treated Balram as inferior. Naturally, Balram resented this treatment. Balram adds that he was responsible for washing and blow-drying Cuddles and Puddles, the two white Pomeranian puppies owned by Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam.
Despite the servant duties, Balram truly enjoyed his life, partly because Mr. Ashok treated him with some respect. He tells of one day when Mr. Ashok visited the room where Ram Persad and Balram slept, and was shocked to see the poor conditions in which they lived.
One day, Mr. Ashok decided that he wanted to visit Laxmangarh, his birthplace. Balram drove him and Pinky Madam there in the Honda City (the nicer car), excited to make a grand return to his hometown. During the drive, Pinky Madam complained about India, and confessed her anxiety to return to the United States. She did not believe Ashok truly wanted to return to New York, but he dismissed her concerns.
When they arrived at the Stork’s mansion in Laxmangarh, Pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok had lunch in a magnificent dining room decorated with a chandelier. Meanwhile, Balram reconnected with his family, who waited outside the mansion gates to see him. Kusum criticized him for failing to send money during the past few months, but she and everyone else were duly impressed by his achievements.
They go together to the family's house, where Kishan catches Balram up on news from the village. The Great Socialist, the corrupt politician who controls the Darkness with empty promises of equality, had maintained his power, even though Naxal terrorists were violently protesting his reign. Balram mentions that "small people" like his family were "caught in between" such struggles (73).
When Kusum announced her decision to marry Balram off, he angrily refused, and threw his chicken curry onto the floor. He explains to the Premier that he was angry about how his family had used Kishan to obtain dowry gifts, and that he feared they meant to bleed him dry until he died miserably like Vikram did. Despite Kusum's protestations, he stormed out of the house, and began climbing up towards the Black Fort.
To describe his experience at the Fort, Balram quotes another Iqbal poem, which describes how the Devil rejected his role as a servant to God. Thinking back on the experience, he envisions himself as a devil-like figure who was spitting in God's face as he viewed Laxmangarh and the Ganga from the raised vantage. After half an hour, he returned to the Stork’s mansion without stopping to apologize to his family.
He drove Ashok and Pinky Madam back to Dhanbad, zooming past the village scenery and silently pledging never to return. During the drive, Mr. Ashok admitted to Pinky Madam that he did not want to return to New York, explaining that he enjoyed his lifestyle in India and felt optimistic about the country's future. At one point, when Balram randomly touched his finger to his eye as the car passed a temple, Ashok misinterpreted the gesture as one of religious deference. Noting that Mr. Ashok appreciated his piety, Balram began to exaggeratedly perform religious gestures at various times during the drive.
On the way home, they encountered a political demonstration, wherein men in red headbands were proclaiming their support for the Great Socialist.
Analysis
The second chapter of The White Tiger contains some of the novel’s most powerful critiques of India's government. It explores the failure of government infrastructure and institutions, the pervasiveness of government corruption, and the faults of a class structure that restricts social mobility. Through Balram's story, Adiga makes a pervasive attack on a system that is rigged against the majority of its citizens.
And yet the novel remains so enjoyable because of Balram's voice. Even as he describes heartbreaking moments like his father's miserable death at the inadequately-staffed hospital, he maintains an attitude of darkly comic, jaded cynicism. For example, he wryly observes that while there is no hospital in his village, “there are three different foundation stones for a hospital, laid by three different politicians before three different elections” (39). No matter what one feels about Balram, it is obvious that he is as observant as he claims to be. He notices the way things work, and the deep divide between that and what is promised.
This combination of shrewd insight into the realities of his surroundings, combined with a deeply sardonic, often mocking tone, is in fact the defining element of Balram’s personality. While the opening chapter established this aspect of his persona, this second chapter uses more indirect means to characterize him and his contradictions. Significantly, it reveals how shrewd and manipulative he is. He consistently shapes his behavior before people in power in order to pursue his own goals. Most obviously, he feigns obsequiousness and exaggerated respect in order to ingratiate himself with rich and powerful characters such as the Stork. Though he notes that most servants employ this tactic in one way or another, his pronounced gift for it proves crucial in propelling him from his humble background to his future as a successful entrepreneur.
And yet most impressive is how much Balram reveals to the reader that is not entirely clear to himself. For instance, the fact that he never mentions his failure to send money home until it manifests in another character's critique suggests that he has an ability for self-deception. He is able to ignore his unattractive qualities while representing himself to the Premier, suggesting that he is at his core an unreliable narrator. It is less likely that he deliberately misrepresents himself, since he is so straightforward about so many other atrocious thoughts and behaviors, and more likely that he has simply been corrupted into self-delusion by a system that does not allow him to pursue his individual goals while remaining true to others. He cannot stew in his guilt in he wants to move forward in life, and yet he cannot move forward without feeling guilt.
However, the most complex manifestation of his contradictions lies in most important and most complex relationship, that with Mr. Ashok. The respect and admiration which Balram evinces for his former employer initially seems incompatible with the fact that he eventually murdered the man. His ambiguous sense of responsibility for Ashok suggests the complexities of the servant/master relationship. The men are inexorably linked, a twinned pair with each corresponding to one half of the dual India, the Dark and the Light. One instance that literally evokes this link between Balram and Ashok occurs when Ashok visits Balram’s room in the servant’s quarters. Balram recalls that Ashok “sat down on Ram Persad’s bed and poked it with his fingertips. It felt hard. I immediately stopped being jealous of Ram Persad” (67). In this moment, a strange, almost surreal confluence takes place between the consciousness of Ashok, who actually felt the surface of the bed with his fingertips, and Balram, who seems to experience Ashok’s own physical sensations and respond to them. Since the scene is recounted from Balram’s perspective, it is clear that Balram believes intuitively in a link between himself and Ashok.
Ultimately, Adiga is suggesting the perversity of such a rigid class system. That Balram can continue to love a man whom he viciously murdered is not meant as a critique on the character, but instead of the forces that pervert a man like him. He can never totally eschew his lower class roots - which taught him to be servile - even when he develops ambitious dreams of improving himself. He is ruined by his contradictions, until he violently extricates himself from them. And even then, they continue to manifest through what he communicates in spite of himself.
Finally, it is worth considering the animal imagery, which serves as a significant motif throughout the novel. From the central metaphor of Balram as “The White Tiger” to the names of the landlords (The Stork, the Wild Boar, the Raven, and the Buffalo, the Mongoose), Adiga constantly invokes animals to extrapolate character and class. Another significant animal metaphor that surfaces in this chapter is that of the “human spiders” who work in tea shops, an image that vividly conjures the dehumanizing impact of such menial labor, performed unthinkingly by unambitious men who are resigned to their place in the restrictive social hierarchy. Unlike Balram, these "spiders" do not dream of a better position in life. Along with the metaphor of the rooster coop introduced later in the novel, this animal imagery serves as a mechanism by which Balram classifies and explains the world around him, both to himself and to his audience. That he cannot stop thinking of himself as part of the animal kingdom even after he has ostensibly declared his singularity suggests how fully torn he is between his past and future.

Chapter 3: The Fourth Morning
Summary
With his trademark cynicism, Balram tells the Premier about the state of democracy in India. While government propaganda brags about the splendor of Indian democracy, the reality is marred by corruption. The disconnect is especially pronounced in the Darkness. To illustrate this point, Balram recounts an exchange he once had with a government agent, who marked the boy down as eighteen years old so his vote could be counted, even though Balram actually had no idea when his birthday was. It was important that his vote count, since the tea shop owner had already sold his employees' votes to the party of the Great Socialist.
Balram then describes the Great Socialist. People disagree about whether the politician began with good intentions and then became corrupt, or if he was “dirty from the start” (81). Regardless, it had become impossible to vote him out of power, even as his hold over the Darkness was weakening due to 93 pending criminal cases against him and his ministers, for charges ranging from murder to rape and gun-running. Despite the corrupt justice system, several convictions had already been handed down.
Balram recounts the election that took place during the year of his arbitrarily assigned "eighteenth birthday" (81). The Darkness was seized by election fever, which Balram describes as a disease that “makes people talk and talk about things they have no say in” (82). During this year, the arrangement between the four landlords and the Great Socialist had apparently fallen through, so the landlords had formed their own party, the All India Social Progressive Front (Leninist Faction). To help this new party, Vijay quit his job as a bus conductor to become an activist.
However, it soon became clear that this new party was merely a tactic intended to force the Great Socialist to bargain with the landlords. It proved successful, and the Stork was named the president of the Laxmangarh branch of the Great Socialist’s party, with Vijay as his deputy. Yet again, the common people were only pawns in the machinations. Balram recalls his father daydreaming about people in the Light who actually get to exercise their right to vote.
On the day of the election, one man “went mad” and actually tried to vote, rather than simply letting his vote be sold (84). In retaliation, Vijay and a policeman beat the man to death. Balram admits to the Premier that he is a murderer and a sinner, but insists that he is outraged to be a called a murderer by the police, who have much more blood on their hands than he ever could. He amusedly notes that even though he is a fugitive, his vote continues to be counted in the sham elections held in Laxmangarh through the present day.
Balram then returns to his main story of working for Mr. Ashok. He recounts how the Great Socialist once had a meeting at the Stork's mansion with the Stork, his sons, and Vijay. He describes the Great Socialist as having “puffy cheeks, spiky white hair” and “thick gold earrings” (86).
Later that night, Balram eavesdropped on a discussion between the Stork and his sons to learn that the Stork pays bribes so that he can take coal from government mines for free. The Great Socialist turns a blind eye to the theft, and thus has the Stork made his fortune. In the conversation, the Stork's sons insisted that they no longer needed the Great Socialist, and should not pay his bribe of a million and a half rupees. They did not want to be treated like “slaves” any longer (89). Before he could eavesdrop further, Balram was caught and reprimanded by the Nepali servant, Ram Bahadur.
The next morning, Ram Bahadur informed Balram that Ashok and Pinky Madam were soon leaving for Delhi, and would only take one driver, whom they would pay the impressive salary of 3000 rupees a month. Balram was obviously envious of the opportunity, and Ram Bahadur offered to ensure he was chosen if Balram would pay him the large sum of 5000 rupees. Balram had no idea how he could raise such a sum.
Late that night, Balram was awoken by Ram Persad, who was chopping onions. Balram lay awake, trying to understand what the other driver's secret was. He explains that Ram Persad did not eat with the other servants, and that his breath had become unpleasant. He resolved to investigate the man more closely.
After realizing that Ram Persad left the house at the same time each evening, Balram followed him one night to discover that Ram Persad was traveling to a mosque. Balram deduced that the man was secretly a Muslim who was observing the holy month of Ramadan. It was obvious that Ram Persad wanted to hide this fact from his employers, since he filled his room with Hindu icons, so many that they intimidated Balram by making him feel insufficiently pious.
With this information, Balram confronted Ram Bahadur, who would have been responsible for checking Ram Persad’s background before the driver was hired. By insinuating that Ram Bahadur was in on the scam, Balram gained the man's allegiance, and quickly rose to a position of power above the other servants. Soon enough, he was sleeping in the bed, and giving orders to Ram Bahadur. Meanwhile, his secret uncovered, Ram Persad left the Stork's service, and Balram was appointed to accompany Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam to Delhi. When he learned this news, Kishan met Balram at the gate of the Stork's mansion, overjoyed that someone in his family was making it from the Darkness to the Light of New Delhi.
Two days later, Balram drove Mr. Ashok, Pinky Madam and the Mongoose to Delhi. At one point during the drive, Ashok felt the desire to drive, and he and Balram wordlessly traded places. The Mongoose reprimanded Ashok, who then changed his mind and moved back to the passenger seat.
They reached Delhi that night. Balram warns the Premier that the rest of his story grows more complex and uncertain. He will have to “turn the chandelier up” because “the story gets much darker from here” (95).
Analysis
One of the great ironies in Indian politics that Adiga wishes to reveal is that the system purports to be democratic, while it is in fact the 'people' who suffer most under it. Balram’s description of the political process in the Darkness powerfully illustrates the debilitating effects of corruption on democracy. Though the Great Socialist is believed to be based on the actual Indian politician Lalu Prasad Yadav, he also serves a more broad characterization of a typical corrupt politician from the Darkness. His political symbol — a pair of hands breaking their shackles — is frequently mentioned by Balram, and serves as a deeply ironic image. Though he promises to break the people free from their limitations, he in fact exploits those limitations for his own gain.
What is perhaps most disheartening about Balram's depiction is that one cannot become successful in such a corrupt system without becoming as corrupt as the system itself. The opponents of the Great Socialist demonstrate this inevitable reality; in their quest to unseat the corrupt politician, they must also bribe policemen and purchase fraudulent votes, thereby becoming as corrupt as the Great Socialist himself (82). Their attempt to create a new party - one theoretically centered around the people - proves to be only a ruse worthy of the Socialist's corruption.
This process of becoming ensnared in the unethical nature of one’s surroundings is reflected on a smaller scale by Balram throughout his journey to the top. Consider how he manipulates Ram Persad in order to become the number one servant. He briefly pities Ram Persad for the difficult life he has led, having to lie about his religion and hide his identity, even changing his name, all for a job as a driver— a job which Balram freely admits Ram Persad excels at, becoming “a far better driver” than Balram would ever be (93). However, Balram quickly stifles his sympathy and looks out for himself. As he hears Ram Persad packing to leave, he chooses not to ask forgiveness - instead, he merely “turned to the other side, farted, and went back to sleep” (93). Where he once resented the way Ram Persad treated him, he soon enough finds himself treating the lower servants in the exact same way.
This is an important moment in Balram’s transformation — he is developing his own set of morals, in line with the ethically ambiguous nature of life in the Darkness. He claims to learn from the world around him, and what he has learned most of all is that improving oneself requires one to compromise one's values. The only way to escape the Darkness, it seems, is to become tinged by its dubious morality, lowering one’s self to the level of one’s surroundings in the hope of ultimately escaping them. What Adiga means to criticize is less Balram and more a world that requires such compromise in order to succeed.
However, no matter how high Balram rises, he remains ensnared by a servant mentality. Note how the mysterious relationship between Ashok and Balram is further developed en route to Delhi. The employer and his driver share a strange moment of intimacy, when Balram wordlessly understands Ashok’s desire to drive the car and they exchange places. The moment in which they trade seats is described with vivid, sensual imagery, with Balram detailing the touching of their bodies and exchange of scents over the course of the “heady instant” (94). The fluidity that exists between the two twinned characters, suggested in the previous section by an overlapping of sensations, is thus further demonstrated in this moment by an actual instance of physical intimacy and a literal interchange of physical positions. Balram's contradictions continue to manifest as the novel progresses, and he becomes more and more difficult to categorize, just like the country he so proudly aims to represent.

Chapter 4: The Fourth Night
Summary
Balram returns to a more detailed description of his chandelier and its virtues. As it turns out, he owns several chandeliers: the aforementioned fixture in his office, as well as two which are in his home, one in the drawing room and one in the bathroom. He purchased all the chandeliers at once, from a boy who was selling them in a village. Balram expresses his enthusiasm for the chandeliers, and adds that their light scares lizards away. He revels in the irony of being a man in hiding who bathes himself in light, rather than crouching in darkness. He also believes that if you have forgotten something, you can remember it by staring at a chandelier.
Balram next describes Delhi. As India’s capital, the city is often trumpeted as the nation’s pride and glory. However, the real Delhi is a “crazy city” (98). Rich people live in large housing colonies, which are impossible to navigate because the numbering systems follow no orderly system. Nobody knows the names of the roads, which are arranged in circuitous patterns. Many people from the Darkness simply live on the roadsides. Because he was unable to navigate the city at first, Balram had to weather Pinky Madam's incessant insults.
He tells of one day when he was drivingthe Mongoose and Ashok around the city while they discussed the negotiations between the Great Socialist and the Stork. The Stork was attempting to distance himself from the Great Socialist, but the Socialist was countering by demanding exorbitant sums of money as an “income tax charge” (101). They also discussed how Ashok had decided to remain in India, and had told his wife of the decision. He hoped she would enjoy living in Gurgaon, Delhi's most American section, filled with shopping malls and American corporations.
Like Pinky Madam did, the Mongoose insulted Balram for his driving skills, but Mr. Ashokdefended him. Switching to English, the Mongoose seemed to suggest that they fire Balram and hire a new driver local to Delhi, but Mr. Ashok refused, insisting that he trusted Balram.
Balram explains that drivers were not allowed in the malls, so they would congregate together outside the complexes while their masters shopped. One day, while Pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok shopped, another driver began to talk to Balram, calling him “Country-Mouse” (102). Balram refers to this man as Vitiligo-Lips, since his lips suffered from vitiligo, a common disease amongst India's poor. It causes one’s skin color to change from brown to pink, and gave Vitiligo-Lips a grotesque, clown-like appearance.
The other driver gave Balram advice about surviving in Delhi. He described the corruption amongst the police, and the hard-partying lifestyles that most masters live, thereby making life difficult for servants. He also explained that servants like to read magazines like Murder Weekly, an inexpensive and sensational rag that tells stories of violence and brutality against women. Balram explains to the Premier, however, that the stories are actually moralistic - the murderers are always deranged figures who are either eventually captured by honest police officers, or punished by the families of their victims or by their own suicides. In other words, the stories subtly enforce discipline amongst servants, rather than resentment.
During the conversation with Vitiligo-Lips, Balram played the part of a highly loyal servant, refusing to disclose information about his master. When Vitiligo-Lips offered to procure illicit good - like foreign wine of prostitutes - for Balram's master, Balram insisted that Mr. Ashok was a good and moral man. Balram also asked Vitiligo-Lips several questions about city life, learning thereby about the call centers where women work late hours and make large sums of money.
After Pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok left the mall, Balram drove them to their new home in a grandiose apartment building called Buckingham Towers B Block. He did not enjoy their new apartment, which was on the thirteenth floor, nearly as much as he did the spacious mansion in Dhanbad. Because the Stork did not allow them to take Cuddles and Puddles to Delhi, Mr. Ashok had hung a large framed portrait of them above the couch.
In the new building, Balram lived in the servant’s quarters in the basement, along with all the other servants. From their lodging, a large room which they all shared together, the servants could hear an electric bell which rang when a master needed his servant.
The other servants relentlessly teased Balram, mocking his country naiveté and even his uniform, which he considered a point of pride. Eventually, Balram moved into an unpleasant empty room on the other side of the quarters. Though the room crawled with swarms of cockroaches at night, he valued the privacy it afforded, and hid inside a mosquito net to shield himself from the roaches.
Every morning, Balram meticulously cleaned the car, and then waited until his services were needed. One morning, he drove the Mongoose and Ashok to the Congress Party headquarters. Because Delhi's air is highly polluted, Balram enjoyed being separated from it in the car, which he compares to a dark egg.
Next, he drove the brothers to the President’s House. While waiting for hours in the car, Balram grew both impressed by and intimidated with the formality of his surroundings. When the two men eventually returned, Ashok was in a sullen mood. On their way home, when they passed a statue of Ghandi, Ashok lamented the irony of passing the symbol of unity after having just bribed a government official.
The party got caught in a traffic jam, not uncommon for Delhi. While Ashok complained about the poor road planning, Balram noticed the masses of malnourished, grimy people from the Darkness, who huddled on the streets at the edge of the traffic. He vividly perceived the coexistence of two different Delhis, “inside and outside the dark egg” (116). Though he was inside the car, he related deeply to those on the outside, and thought of himself as living in both cities at once.
When they got home, the Mongoose discovered that he has lost a rupee, a trivial sum of money. He cruelly forced Balram to crawl through the car looking for it, until Balram finally dropped one of his own rupees and pretended to discover it.
Later that evening, Balram prepared a solitary dinner for a clearly upset and emotional Ashok.
The next morning, Ashok informed Balram that the Mongoose was leaving the city by train. As he was generally only privy to snatches of conversation, Balram was unsure why the Mongoose was leaving alone. On their way to the station, the Mongoose expressed his distrust of Balram, and warned him to follow the rules. Mr. Ashok again defended the driver's trustworthiness. It was at this moment that Balram realized that Ashok was weak, helpless, and absent-minded. He smiled to think that his new and sole master lacked the qualities that made a successful landlord.
With the Mongoose gone, Pinky Madam began to wear extremely revealing clothing. This distracted Balram, who found himself attracted to her despite the fact that he should see her as a mother-figure. To avoid getting erections while driving, Balram would avert his eyes from the rear view mirror.
One night, after getting paid, Balram bought and drank a cheap bottle of whiskey. Hungover the next day, he disgusted Pinky Madam, who saw him scratching his groin with his left hand while making her tea with his right. She harshly criticized him for his slovenly appearance, paan-stained teeth, and crude country mannerisms. The next day, she and Ashok, who had been fighting, mocked Balram for his inability to pronounce the word “mall” (124).
While Pinky Madam and Ashok shopped, Balram and the other chauffeurs watched a poor man try to enter the shopping mall. The guards refused him entry because he was wearing sandals, a mark of his low class. The man grew angry, crying “Am I not a human being too?” (125).
Balram explains that though the hours of waiting could lead to boredom, he capitalized on this free time as an opportunity to think. That day, he developed a plan. He had noticed that Mr. Ashok wore a mostly-plain t-shirt with a small design in its center. That night, he bought a similar shirt at a local market, as well as some black shoes and toothpaste. He had decided to stop chewing paan, ostensibly because of Pinky Madam's insults, and also to stop compulsively scratching his groin.
The next morning, while his masters shopped, Balram changed into his new t-shirt and shoes, and entered the mall by the back entrance. Despite his nervousness, the disguise was effective, and he walked around the mall a while before returning to the car and changing back into his uniform.
Delhi's traffic jams continued to get worse. One day, Pinky Madam threw a tantrum, accusing Ashok of having lied to her by claiming they would leave India after three months. Balram could tell that their marriage was having trouble, but he insists to the Premier that Ashok was a good husband who only wanted to make his wife happy.
On Pinky Madam’s birthday, Ashok ordered Balram to dress in a maharaja costume and serve them pizza. They mocked Balram for his inability to pronounce the word “pizza,” although Balram notes that Pinky Madam mispronounced it as well (131).
That evening, Balram drove them into the city, and waited for them outside in the freezing cold. The other drivers stayed warm by burning cellophane bags in a makeshift bonfire, but Balram knew he would be tempted to chew paan if he congregated with them. After Balram declined Vitiligo-Lips's invitation to join them, the other drivers mocked Balram for being a snob and for wearing the maharaja costume. Alone and resentful, he wandered to a construction site, where a wealthy man, apparently not realizing Balram was a servant due to his maharaja tunic, engaged him in conversation about the future of Delhi. The two men both noted how quickly Delhi was being overbuilt.
When Balram's employers returned to the car, they were drunk and giddy. On the way home, Pinky Madam demanded to drive the car, but Ashok protested. When a child approached the car selling a large statue of Buddha, Balram looked closely at it, and Pinky Madam mockingly called him a connoisseur of fine art. She then demanded Balram get out of the car, insisting he must spend the night out on the road with the Buddha.
Balram defends Mr. Ashok to the Premier, insisting that the man would not have stood for such cruelty if he had not been so drunk. Nevertheless, Pinky Madam drove the car away, leaving Balram alone. Soon enough, she made a U-turn and came back for him.
However, she kept driving, speeding recklessly, until she ran over a child in the road, presumably killing him or her. Balram quickly retook the driver's seat and brought the shocked couple back to their building. After leaving them upstairs, he scrubbed the car thoroughly, removing all traces of blood and flesh from its surface.
While he was cleaning the car, Mr. Ashok joined him. He was comforting himself by reflecting that the child was likely homeless and would not be missed. Balram reassured him as well, and then, feeling he had respectfully performed his duty, went to sleep.
The next morning, the Mongoose arrived in Delhi. Balram was called upstairs, to find only the Mongoose and a lawyer waiting for him. Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam were in their rooms. The Mongoose greeted Balram with uncharacteristic warmth and pressured him to take some paan. The lawyer then gave Balram a paper to sign. It was a confession; they wanted Balram to take full responsibility for the hit-and-run. The Mongoose informed Balram that he had already explained the situation to the servant's family, and that Kusum had agreed to serve as witness to the document.
Balram concludes this section of his narrative seething with violent rage. He expresses disgust with the circumstances in India, where servants are frequently framed for the crimes of their masters, and the servants' families are so deluded that they actually brag that their boy has been so "loyal" (145).
Analysis
In this chapter, Balram's complicated relationship to his landlord grows deeper, while his resentment of the class divide in India grows sharper. The reader can begin to see how these contradictions in Balram will lead him towards the mental instability that allow him to not only commit but also to justify cold-blooded murder. In particular, he finds himself more deliberately pursuing a lifestyle in imitation of a class he also despises.
The symbol of the chandelier remains a great symbol for Balram's complicated relationship with wealth, and the extremes that obsession drive him to. In the discussion that opens this chapter, it becomes clear that Balram’s fixation upon chandeliers is linked to his belief that he is unique and exceptional among his peers. Balram considers them to be “unsung and unloved” objects, and believes that others do not appreciate their utility and beauty to the extent that he does. “I don’t understand why other people don’t buy chandeliers all the time, and put them up everywhere,” he states, somewhat condescendingly adding: “Free people don’t understand the value of freedom, that’s the problem” (97). Balram’s belief in his own exceptionalism is crucial to his development of an alternate system of morals. He is an iteration of the Nietzchian “over-man,” a literary echo of Crime and Punishment’s RodionRaskolnikov, especially considering that the murder Balram commits also necessitates the murder of his family.
However, this alternate system of morals is crucial towards his self-improvement. As a means of moving himself along to the path to this destiny, Balram’s efforts at self-improvement and self-fashioning are becoming more overt. His newfound determination to break uncouth country habits, such as chewing paan and compulsively scratching his groin, represents a concentrated attempt to prepare himself for life outside of the Darkness. Spurred by Pinky Madam’s harsh criticisms, these developments demonstrate Balram’s willingness to take his fate into his own hands. That he would refashion himself on the criticisms of a woman he despises, however, give this story a twisted edge that conflict with the admiration the reader might also feel for him.
The relationship between Ashok and Balram is even more complex. The physical link that exists between them is further established in this section, as Balram finds himself also coveting Pinky Madam. Meanwhile, Balram notes a growing sense of respect between him and Mr. Ashok, who constantly defends Balram's loyalty. Meanwhile, Balram frequently expresses his esteem for Ashok in the present tense, making the murder all the more perverse.
However, we come to understand their disconnect when Balram recognizes Ashok’s weaknesses. Despite the loyalty he feels, he takes a step towards feeling superior to the man. Balram sees himself as a powerful “White Tiger,” more like the Mongoose or the Stork in terms of ambition and shrewdness.
Meanwhile, Adiga continues to ruthlessly expose the shortcomings of government infrastructure and institutions in India. The rampant pollution and debilitating traffic jams that paralyze Delhi are tangible symptoms of modernization gone awry. More heart-wrenching is Adiga’s exposé of how servants are forced to do prison time for their masters. This detestable practice is enabled by a corrupt judicial system that ignores the blatantly forced confessions, and by a perverted cultural attitude that demands servility and loyalty among the servant class.
Finally, Adiga develops the motif of the lone protestor within this section of the novel. The man who tries to enter the shopping mall despite his lower-class attire, and then cries out against injustice when denied entry, is a reflection of the man who attempted to exercise his right to vote and was subsequently murdered for his failure to comply with the Great Socialist’s election fraud scheme. Just as the man at the voting booth was attempting to claim his basic rights of participating in India’s democracy, the man at the shopping mall is attempting to assert his own right to take part in its modern, Westernized commercial culture. While neither of these protestors are successful, it is clear that Balram is taking note of their efforts, silently preparing for a moment in which he, too, can break free of the limitations placed upon him by the Darkness.

Chapter 5: The Fifth Night
Summary
Balram begins this letter to the Premier by introducing the metaphor of the “Rooster Coop” (147). As he explains, a rooster coop traps hundreds of hens and roosters tightly together in foul-smelling wire-mesh cages. Above them, a butcher slaughters other chickens, so that those still trapped are bathed in the blood and organs of their slaughtered brethren. Even though every rooster knows he will soon meet an equally vicious fate, none of them ever try to escape.
Balram considers the rooster coop an adequate symbol for the situation of India's underclass. Even though servants have frequent opportunities to cheat their masters or escape their situations, they remain subservient rather than taking these opportunities. As example, he notes how often deliverymen protect their masters' large quantities of cash rather than stealing the money.
The "Rooster Coop," then, is a servant mindset which Balram believes enslaves the underclass. He explains how the Indian family ties people to the coop, since they know that any disloyalty could harm their families. As a result, Balram reasons, a few men in power have condemned 99.9% of the Indian population, who are otherwise equally qualified, to a state of eternal servitude. Only someone willing to see his family tortured and murdered would be able to break out of the Rooster Coop; Balram says that it would take a “freak, a pervert,” a “White Tiger” such as himself, to take such a risk (150).
Balram then returns to his story, describing his terror in the wake of the forced confession. After signing the paper, he hid alone in his room, and was not summoned at all. He spent an entire day worrying about jail, until Vitiligo-Lips appeared to tell him that the bell was ringing for him.
Full of dread, Balram went upstairs to find the Stork waiting to speak with him. Though Balram hoped that the Stork might have found a way to spare him jail time, the older man simply asked him to massage his feet as he often did in Dhanbad. Though Balram fulfilled the request, he first urinated in the tub while filling it with the warm water, a small act of retribution.
During the massage, Mr. Ashok was in the room, but mostly ignored Balram until a disheveled and distraught Pinky Madam entered to ask if they had told Balram the news. Acknowledging that "we should tell him," Mr. Ashok then explained that they had exploited a connection with the police to avoid reporting the incident (151). As a result, Balram's confession was no longer necessary.
Overcome with relief, Balram accidentally overturned the tub of water, earning him a smack from the Stork. Moved by the scene, Pinky Madam surprised Balram by exhibiting her shame over the incident. The Stork then revealed that Pinky Madam had wanted to located the child's family, to compensate them for their loss. Her request had been denied.
The Stork remained in Delhi for several more days, and Balram massaged his feet each morning. One day, the Stork suffered a slight stomachache, and so the Mongoose had Balram drive him to a luxurious private hospital in a gleaming building, an obvious contrast to the abysmal hospital where Balram's father died.
The next day, he drove the Stork and the Mongoose to the rail station, and they left Delhi. Later that night, Pinky Madam appeared in Balram’s room and asked him to drive her to the airport, no questions asked. At the airport, she gave Balram an envelope containing 4700 rupees. It was then clear that she was returning to America, thereby ending her marriage to Ashok.
The next morning, after determining what had happened, Ashok was furious with Balram, and pinned him against the apartment balcony rail, threatening to push him over. In self-defense, Balram kicked Ashok in the chest, and then protested that he did not realize what Pinky Madam intended. Mr. Ashok broke down into tears, and Balram rushed back to his room in the servant’s quarters. Down there, Vitiligo-Lips fished for gossip about the divorce, but Balram insisted that Pinky Madam was coming back, wanting to protect the family’s reputation.
With Pinky Madam gone, Balram felt responsible for Mr. Ashok, and vowed to take care of his health as though he were the man's wife. One evening, he entered the apartment to find Ashok passed out, having drank nearly an entire bottle of whiskey. Balram carried Ashok to his bed. The same routine continued for two days until Mr. Ashok one night asked Balram to drive him somewhere — anywhere — in Delhi.
In the car, Ashok questioned the point of living, and admitted that he should have followed his father's advice and married within his own caste and religion. Balram, pitying Ashok for his weakness and pathetic state, comforted the man by sharing some village wisdom. He admits that he was uncertain of his true feelings towards Mr. Ashok - though he felt tenderness and respect, he was also confused by the hatred engendered by the Rooster Coop.
After a week, the Mongoose arrived in Delhi, shattering the newfound intimacy that was growing between Ashok and Balram. In the car on the way home, Balram eavesdropped to learn that Pinky Madam had no intention of returning. As they drove past a slum, they saw a family huddled together under a tent, and Mr. Ashok expressed his newfound appreciation for the value of family.
Later, during dinner, the Mongoose told Balram that Kusum had sent him a letter. The Mongoose then read it aloud despite Mr. Ashok's insistence that Balram deserved his privacy. The letter begged Balram to send more money home, and asked him to consider marrying. She argued it was selfish to refuse marriage.
Later, Balram found Mr. Ashok massaging his own feet in the apartment. Considering it madness that a master would service himself in this way, Balram cried out and tried to force his hands into the water to take over. However, Mr. Ashok angrily refused his help and insulted him before asking to left alone.
That evening, Balram drove Mr. Ashok to the mall, while lost in thought about the letter from Kusum. He knew that the letter was sent to the Mongoose as a veiled threat - if he did not obey, she would reveal that he had been failing to send money home. He also considered the benefits of marriage, which include sexual satisfaction and the dowry from the girl’s family. However, he had no interest in having children who would then be raised into the Rooster Coop.
While waiting for Mr. Ashok, Balram sat in the lotus position in the car, meditating. After a while, the other drivers noticed him, and mocked him through the windows. Balram identifies such mockery as part of the Rooster Coop mechanism — servants keep other servants in line, punishing any behavior considered innovative or out of the ordinary. The coop is thus “guarded from the inside” (166).
Balram abruptly ends the letter, telling the Premier that an emergency has taken place.
Analysis
The image of the Rooster Coop is one of the novel's central metaphors, as well as the most pointed animal imagery that Balram uses to make sense of his world. In giving his description of the Rooster Coop, Balram clearly expresses his world view. The metaphor explains the divisive class elements he recognizes in society, as well as his view of himself as exceptional. In many ways, this depiction of the Rooster Coop allows him to justify the murder he eventually commits, but the way in which it also conforms to the depravity of India's underclass also makes it resonate in a more objective way as well.
The metaphor of the White Tiger is also further developed in this section. In this chapter, Balram mentions that above the cage of the White Tiger in Delhi's National Zoo, a sign reads: “Imagine yourself in this cage” (150). Balram has no trouble doing that — both because he considers himself to be trapped in the metaphorical rooster coop, and because he considers himself to be a White Tiger, a unique and exceptional creature. He is both trapped and yet poised to escape. The contradiction implicit in this understanding ultimately propels the novel to its climax, the murder of Mr. Ashok. He cannot prove his exceptionalism without breaking free. He has to be willing to repudiate the expectations of those around him - as he does when he meditates - if he is to truly break free. The Rooster Coop will never be bested by chickens - it will take a White Tiger.
In this chapter, Balram more openly addresses the ambiguous nature of his relationship with Mr. Ashok than he has previously. Here, he explicitly admits his uncertainty over how to feel about the man. He often expresses anger and resentment about Mr. Ashok, even admitting violent instincts. At other times, his deep respect for Ashok is palpable. Balram demonstrates a deep-seeded desire to serve with utmost loyalty, as evidenced by his instinctive response when he finds Mr. Ashok massaging his own feet. Further, he even thinks of himself as a wife to Ashok after Pinky leaves, further developing the homoerotic overtones of the relationship. Balram attributes this uncertainty to the mental effects of being trapped in the Rooster Coop, which causes those trapped inside to be “made mysteries to ourselves” (160).
Ashok is similarly inconsistent in his attitude towards Balram, sometimes expressing his trust for his driver, while at other times abusing him alongside others. Perhaps most grievously, Mr. Ashok does not interfere with the plan to send Balram to prison, and even holds off telling him the news. This is a sign of the weakness that Balram noticed in the previous chapter, and which helps him justify his ultimate murder. As a result of these inconsistencies, the relationship between Ashok and Balram is constantly in flux. This volatility erupts in the first overt instance of physical violence between the two, when Balram kicks Ashok in the chest in self-defense, foreshadowing the ultimate violent act which will end Ashok’s life.
Once the seemingly simple complement to her husband, Pinky Madam’s character becomes considerably more complex in the wake of the hit-and-run. Prior to the developments in this section of the novel, Pinky Madam mostly served as a straightforward antagonist to Balram. She was snobbish, promiscuously dressed, constantly dissatisfied, annoying and capricious, even if she was also fascinating and attractive. In the wake of her reprehensible actions in the hit-and-run, however, Pinky demonstrates a surprising level of shame, unmatched by anyone else in the Stork’s family, including Ashok. She demonstrates an unprecedented resolve in choosing to leave Ashok, and her decision to leave money for Balram demonstrates that she is not as single-mindedly contemptuous of him as previously indicated. That Balram notes her complexity ultimately shows his observant nature, but her deepening character is hardly enough reason for his ever-increasing resentment towards the upper class to subside.

Chapter 6: The Sixth Morning
Summary
Apologizing for his sudden departure, Balram explains that he was called away because of a serious incident in which a man lost his life (he is quick to insist that he is not responsible for the death). He turns on his chandelier and continues telling the Premierhis story, explaining that this section of his tale concerns itself with his corruption from a naïve village boy into a debauched, depraved city resident. Balram insists that this change in himself followed a similar change that occurred in his his master Mr. Ashok.
After the Mongoose returned to Dhanbad, Ashok began to dress differently and changed his cologne. One night, he had Balram drive him to a discotheque at a mall, and then to the Sheraton Hotel. At one point, both men lustily admired a woman walking by, and then their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Both were ashamed but, feeling as though they shared a body, Balram became sexually aroused, attributing this to Ashok’s own state of arousal. Finally, he reached the Sheraton Hotel, ending the tense car ride.
While waiting outside at the hotel, Balram chatted with Vitiligo-Lips, who reiterated his prior offer to procure illicit goods for Balram’s master. When Balram declined, Vitiligo-Lips shared that his own master had a preference for Mumbai film actresses.
The servants read Murder Weekly together, and then Balram asked Vitiligo-Lips what his future will be like as a driver. Vitiligo-Lips answered that the best-case scenario was that Balram could save enough money to buy a small house in the slum and send his child to university. At some point, he would be too old to continue driving.
After a while, Mr. Ashok left the hotel with Ms. Uma, a woman whom Balram identified as a Nepali. Mr. Ashok was holding her around her waist, behavior Balram disapproved of. Mr. Ashok instructed Balram to drive them to the PVR Saket, a cinema complex.
While they were inside, Balram went into to the “second PVR,” a smaller, grimier version of the market, meant for servants (173). There, he bought some food and acted condescendingly towards a knife-grinder who approached him while he ate. He insulted the man, using an insult Mr. Ashok once directed at him: “How stupid can you people get?” (174).
After eating, Balram approached a man selling books written in English. Though the man did not know the language, he distinguished the books by their covers. Balram enjoyed standing around the books, feeling as though his brain was buzzing from their energy. He thought about Pinky Madam's parting gift of 4700 rupees, a strange amount that suggested she likely planned to give him more money but continually kept larger increments for herself, in the stingy manner of all rich people. He reasoned that they must have owed him more money if she was willing to part with that much.
Conversing with the bookseller, Balram marveled over the expensive magazines that the rich buy, and then expressed his frustration with India's socioeconomic conditions. The bookseller argued that the current situation would eventually change because of the growing power of the Naxals and the Chinese interest in encouraging a civil war in India. Their conversation was interrupted when the bookseller had to wait on a gang of rich kids. Balram left, knowing he would soon have to pick up Mr. Ashok and Ms. Uma.
During the drive home, Mr. Ashok and Ms. Uma kissed and canoodled in the backseat. Balram grew indignant to observe this, given that Ashok was still legally married. Later, back in his room, Balram rebelled by donning the maharaja costume and driving the car around the city by himself, playing music and blasting the air conditioning. When he returned home, he spit on the seats for good measure, but then wiped them clean.
The next morning, Balram felt guilty over his joyride and considered confessing. He eavesdropped on a conversation between his master and her lover to discover that she was not a random pickup, but rather a woman Ashok was in love with before he left for New York. Balram felt guilty for doubting his master's morality.
Meanwhile, Ashok received a phone call from his family in Dhanbad, instructing him to bribe another minister. He expressed his discomfort with such shady dealings to Ms. Uma, who encouraged him to leave the family business and find a new line of work. He countered that the situation was more complicated.
Mr. Ashok asked Balram to drive Ms. Uma home, but she was embarrassed to be alone with him, worrying that village men like Balram consider unmarried women like her to be whores. She further worried (correctly) that he would think her a Nepali because of her appearance. Mr. Ashok insisted that Balram was part of the family, but she countered that he needed to be less trusting. Balram overheard the entire conversation.
That evening, Balram drove Mr. Ashok to the minister's house, stopping at several ATM's along the way so that Ashok could make withdrawals for the bribe. For the first time, Balram entirely understood the nature of Ashok's duties in Delhi. At the minister's house,the minister's assistant and Ashok exited together, and the former insisted they go out on the town. As they rode around, Balram poured whiskey for the men, who eventually asked to go to the Sheraton hotel. Balram eavesdropped on their conversation, which was about the coal business, Ashok’s impending divorce, and the volatile political situation in India. At one point, the minister's assistant offered to buy Ashok a prostitute, but Ashok refused, explaining that he is seeing someone. Eventually, the minister's assistant's demands wore Ashok's protestations down, which disappointed Balram. However, he insists upon the man's honor to the Premier, noting that Ashok was corrupted by the Delhi elite.
The minister's assistant directed Balram to a brothel, where they picked up a tall, beautiful blonde prostitute from the Ukraine. She looked like Kim Basinger. Balram then drove them to a hotel, hoping all the while that Ashok would change his mind. However, they all went into the hotel together.
After about an hour, Mr. Ashok left the hotel, and Balram drove them home. He then drove immediately back to the hotel, hoping to see the woman leave. He felt strangely obsessed with her. However, when a police officer noticed him sitting alone in the car, Balram wisely left.
He drove alone through Delhi, imagining himself in conversation with it. He observed men in the streets, and pondered the prospect of civil war in India. When he returned to the apartment building, he found a strand of golden hair on the seat cushion. He still has the hair, and keeps it in his desk.
Analysis
For several chapters of the novel, the device of the Premier mostly disappears. It remains a wonderful way for Balram to express himself openly, but also to hide his inner demons, revealing them more through suggestion and dramatic irony than open admission. However, the transition between the fifth and sixth chapter reminds us that Balram does have a life from which he writes this story. There is a business in which he is involved, and the interruption both raises questions to whet the reader's curiosity, and reminds us that the Balram in his story (the one still a driver in Delhi) is a work in progress, a man in the process of becoming something different.
And this idea of becoming something different ties into the underlying motif of dualities and pairs, which is significantly emphasized throughout this chapter. The central dichotomy between the Darkness and the Light in India is illustrated continually throughout the text, with examples of pairs that reflect it. The “men with big bellies” and “men with small bellies,” the rich man’s market and the smaller, grimier version for servants, the gleaming city hospital and the village hospital: all are examples of things from the “Light” half of India and their distorted, inferior reflections in the Darkness. The rearview mirror, emphasized at length in this section, brings the most significant of these Light/Darkness pairs - Ashok and Balram - into an uncomfortable confrontation with one another, causing embarrassment and awkwardness for both men.
Brought into sharp relief by the mechanism of the mirror, the connection between the paired Ashok and Balram, subtly suggested throughout the text, now takes on a newfound overtness. Balram openly expresses his belief in a physical link between the two, explaining that “master and driver had somehow become one body that night” as he shares Ashok’s feelings of sexual arousal (169). The bond between the two characters is further established by Balram’s conviction that his own moral corruption took place only as a direct result of that of his master — after all, “Once the master of the Honda City becomes corrupted, how can the driver stay innocent?" (167).
With the two characters firmly established as a linked pair, the narrative builds anticipation for a moment of confrontation between Balram and his counterpart. This suspense is further nurtured by yet another instance of Ashok defending Balram’s trustworthiness when another character suggests replacing him. These moments are laced with a tense irony, as the reader is painfully aware of Ashok’s naiveté. We know that Balram will eventually murder him.
The suggestion of this duality, however, is more than personal. It is also political. The more linked Balram feels to his master, the closer he comes to the rage that will lead him to atrocity. Similarly, Adiga's suggestion is that the more that the Darkness infiltrates the Light, with poor people flooding into the streets of Delhi, the closer the country comes to civil war. Because they are two halves of the same coin, the underclass becomes progressively more aware of what it is not. And as this awareness grows, so too does the rage that might lead to violent upheaval. Adiga then uses Balram as a metaphor. As he becomes more aware of how fragile the separation between himself and his master is, he also begins to note the reality of the depravity that the poor suffer. He feels a connection to the city, to its aspirations and inherent violence both.
Another irony that emerges within this chapter is a new side of Balram’s character: his traditional moral beliefs, seemingly incompatible with his growing individuality and eventual decision to commit murder. Balram’s attitude towards Ashok’s new love demonstrates a village sensibility that includes an adherence to a distinctly old-fashioned moral code. This traditionalism is further emphasized by his adherence to village wisdom, such as the belief that penetrating a virgin cures all diseases. The fact that Balram is, in his heart, a traditional village boy demonstrates just how much he must transform in order to eventually embrace an alternate system of morality that allows him to justify murder and a betrayal of his family. Or, put another way, simply murdering his master does not make him a master. Instead, because the two classes are linked as a pair, each contains the other. Balram might change his circumstances, but there is an extent to which he can never change himself. Even in his current situation, with the gall to write directly to China's Premier, he cannot totally repudiate his village sensibility. Again, seen from a political lens, the suggestion is that civil war might disrupt a social order, but it will never alter the inexorable way in which the upper and lower classes are natural reflections of one another.

Chapter 7: The Sixth Night
Summary
Balram explains how the rich of Delhi exercise. They walk laps around their apartment complexes, while the servants stand along the path bearing water and towels. Because he could recognize Mr. Ashok's scent, Balram always knew when the man was approaching. He also explains how Mr. Ashok was in terrible shape during the period of his debauched lifestyle.
One day, after Ashok finished exercising, Balram lied and told Vitiligo-Lips that his master wanted to hire a prostitute with golden hair.
Balram then diverts into what he describes to the Premier as a “sidebar," listing various minor ways that drivers can cheat their employers (194). These techniques include: siphoning petrol; taking the car to corrupt mechanics who inflate the price and receiving a cut of the money; reselling empty liquor bottles to bootleggers; and using the car as a freelance taxi.
Lying in bed one night, Balram convinced himself that his employers owed him enough money to hire thousands of golden-headed prostitutes. Over the next two weeks, Balram employed several of the techniques to steal money from his master. The more he stole from Ashok, the more his resentment and feelings of vindication grew.
After raising enough money, he brought Vitiligo-Lips an envelope of cash and revealed that the prostitute was not for Ashok, but for himself. Proud of the boy, Vitiligo-Lips drove him to a hotel and introduced him to the manager, who then brought him toAnastasia, a blonde prostitute waiting in a room. When he realized that Anastasia was not nearly as pretty as the Kim Basinger lookalike, he grew resentful that the rich always get the finest things.
Including a “working-class surcharge,” he paid 7000 rupees for twenty minutes (198). After the manager left, Balram and Anastasia talked for a while, after which he climbed on top of her, only to shriek and recoil upon discovering her hair was not naturally blonde, only dyed. Angry, he slapped her, and the manager suddenly reappeared. Balram demanded his money back, but was instead beaten up and ejected from the hotel. Vitiligo-Lips was not waiting for him, so he had to take the bus home.
Back in Balram's room, Ashok was waiting on the bed under the mosquito net. Apparently, Vitiligo-Lips has lied to Mr. Ashok and told him that Balram has been offering prayers for his master’s health at the temple. Shocked at the appalling state of the servant's quarters, Mr. Ashok offered Balram some money to find better housing. He also asked about the red spots on Balram's hands, and the servant explained that he suffered from a skin disease common amongst poor people. Ashok had never noticed them before, and he offered to pay for treatment in a hospital. He was amazed to see the squalor in which the poor lived, and he asked Balram to take him to dinner at a commoner’s teashop. There, Ashok remarked loudly on the quality and low price of the meal.
Later, the Mongoose visited Ashok in Delhi. On the way back from the train station, Balram eavesdropped on their conversation. The Mongoose insisted that Ashok remarry, and that he allow the family to pick the girl this time. He also gave Ashok a red bag, explaining that it was bribery money for Mukeshan, the minister’s assistant. They owed more because of the upcoming election season.
At one point, while the car was stuck in a traffic jam, Balram rolled down the window and gave a beggar a rupee. The Mongoose was offended and incensed by the gesture, and he and Ashok discussed loudly how they did not owe anything more to the poor, considering how high taxes already were. For the first time, Balram admitted that his master shared some ugly similarities with his father, the Stork.
The next morning, Balram brought the red bag down from the apartment to the car to wait for Ashok. While alone, he opened it to marvel at the large quantity of cash within it.
Driving Mr. Ashok through the city, he eyed the man through the rearview mirror, thinking of himself as a cat watching its prey. He reasoned that he personally had rights to the money, since it was a bribe meant to avoid taxes, which were meant to be paid for the welfare of the poor, of whom he was one. As he drove, he constantly saw signs which he interpreted as assurances that he should steal the bag. To himself, he weighed the pros and cons of stealing the money.
After bringing Ashok to a hotel, Balram drove to the train station, planning out a possible escape route in case he decided to steal the money. There, he put a coin in the fortune-telling machine, and received a printed fortune insisting that he respect the law. Cynically, he interpreted this message as the Rooster Coop's final attempt to keep him from freedom. Despite these feelings, he also worried about what would happen to his family if he ran.
That Sunday, Balram told Ashok he was going to the temple, but instead traveled by bus and jeep-taxi to Delhi’s red-light district. However, realizing that the Nepali girls are simply caged animals like himself, he is not attracted to them. Worked up with resentment, he kicked at a paan-seller in a random outburst of anger, and was chased from the street by pimps.
He then went to the huge Darya Ganj secondhand book market in Old Delhi, where he flipped through books without paying for them. There, a Muslim shopowner read him a line of poetry: “You were looking for the key for years/but the door was always open!” (216). Theshopowner also taught him about the four great Muslim poets, by recounting a romanticized version of the history of poetry. Balram asked the Muslim shopowner if a man could make himself disappear through poetry, but quickly retracted the question, worrying he was being too indiscrete.
Next, Balram strolled to the butcher's quarter. There, without any directions from a human, a buffalo was pulling a cart filled with buffalo skulls. Balram imagined the skulls were those of his own family, and imagined the buffalo shaming him for allowing their murder.
The next morning, a guilty Balram almost confessed his murderous thoughts when Ashok entered the car. He stumbled to speak, and Ashok assumed he was asking for money with which to be married. He gave Balram a hundred rupee note towards wedding expenses, but Balram also noticed the man deciding not to give him more.
The next day, Balram wandered to the horrific slums, where families lived in tents surrounded by sewage and broken glass. There, Balram tossed Ashok's hundred rupee note into a black river of sewage where children were playing, and watched them scramble for it. He then joined a line of slum dwellers who were defecating in the open.
When he returned home, he found a boy waiting for him in his room. The boy introduced himself as Dharam, the fourth son of one of Balram’s aunts, and gave Balram a letter from Kusum, in which she criticized him for failing to visit and send money, and insisted that he prepare to be married to a woman they have chosen. She also demanded he take care of Dharam, and make sure the boy learned to drive. When he finished the letter, Balram viciously slapped Dharam down onto the bed.
That evening, Balram told Ashok that his family has sent him a helper, and Ashok welcomed the boy. Noticing that Dharam was obedient and polite, Balram felt guilty for hitting him. He brought the boy to a tea shop, where Vitiligo-Lips demanded 500 rupees he still owed from his night with Anastasia, and threatened to tell Mr. Ashok if he did not pay.
That night, Balram woke Dharam by shrieking when a gecko landed in the bed. Surprised by his uncle’s intense fear, Dharam easily disposed of the lizard. Repeating the line of poetry he learned earlier, Balram then lulled himself to sleep.
Two days later, Balram eavesdropped on a conversation between Mr. Ashok and Ms. Uma as he drove them to the mall. Their relationship was becoming more serious, and she pressured him to tell his family about their wedding plans, while he insisted he still needed time to get over the divorce.
Much as Pinky Madam would, Ms. Uma switched to English when she wanted to talk about Balram. However, he could tell she was suggesting Ashok replace Balram with a local driver. Balram was perturbed to notice how Mr. Ashok avoided making eye contact with him in the mirror after this.
Instead, they listened to election results on the car radio, to learn that the Great Socialist’s party had swept into power, largely because of the votes from the Darkness. On the way home, the car passed through throngs of the Great Socialist's supporters.
That night, a distraught Mr. Ashok asked Balram to drive him to the Imperial Hotel. On the way, he placed many frantic phone-calls, lamenting that their “income-tax mess” would only get worse (231). After a meeting with two politicians at the Imperial Hotel, Mr. Ashok asked Balram to drive two men around town, while Ashok stayed behind. One of the men was Vijay, Balram’s childhood hero, who had risen in the political ranks. In the car, Vijay and his colleague drank Ashok’s whiskey while laughing about the bribe he was to pay them.
Back at the apartment, Balram kept the empty bottle of Johnny Walker Black, expecting to give it to Vitiligo-Lips, who could resell it to bootleggers. However, he instead decided to smash the bottle and fashion a weapon of jagged glass from one of the shards. All the while, he repeated the line of poetry to himself.
Balram requested the next morning off, to take Dharam to the zoo. Before he left the apartment building, he spied on Ashok to discover a planned meeting with another servant, whom Balram assumed was to be his replacement.
He and Dharam took a bus to the zoo, a place Balram genuinely appreciated for its beauty. While there, he stared at the Old Fort in the distance, remembering a line from the Iqbal poem which stated that one ceases to be a slave when one discovers what is beautiful in the world. At the White Tiger's cage, Balram made eye contact with beast, thinking ahead to making eye contact with Ashok before the murder. Overcome with feelings, he fainted.
That evening, he narrated a letter for Dharam to write to Kusum, as though it was his own (Dharam's) letter. The letter explained what happened at the zoo, but then claimed that, upon regaining consciousness, Balram delivered a raving speech directed towards Kusum, apologetically explaining, “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny. I’m so sorry” (239).
After lunch, Balram repeatedly dropped a rupee coin on the floor, insisting each time that Dharam pick it up. Each time, he looked closely at the top of the boy's head. After a session of meditation, he gave Dharam ten rupees before heading upstairs to meet Ashok.
He then drove Ashok to several banks, where, as usual, the man filled the red bag with money from the ATMs. Balram knows from eavesdropping on Vijay’s conversation that the sum was to be 700,000 rupees, enough for Balram to start a brand new life.
Once they left the main city, Balram stopped the car, claiming that there was a problem with the wheel. After standing outside a few moments, he asked Ashok to help him lift the wheel from the mud. The man hesitated to leave, but Balram coaxed him out with a subtle threat: he mentioned that the wheel has been imperfect since their visit to the hotel in Jangpura, which is where Ashok had hired a prostitute.
Ashok finally trusted Balram enough to step out of the car and kneel before the wheel to inspect it. Balram then repeatedly rammed the broken bottle into Ashok’s skull. Though he could have left Ashok stunned but unconscious, Balram decided to kill him, reasoning there was always a chance that he could recover and foil Balram’s escape. Furthermore, Balram knew that Ashok’s family would demolish his own family, so killing Ashok gave him “revenge in advance” (245). Finally, he killed Mr. Ashok by stabbing him in the neck.
Balram dragged the body into the bushes, wiped himself clean, and changed his clothes. He then drove to the railway station, but began to feel guilty about leaving Dharam behind. If he did return for the boy, Dharam would go to jail as an accomplice, but Balram was hesitant to compromise his escape by heading back. Cursing himself, he decided to return for Dharam.
Analysis
This rambling, wide-ranging section of the novel is organized so as to reflect Balram’s mental state as he becomes increasingly certain of his decision to escape the Rooster Coop through such vicious means. While Balram frequently wavers, at moments almost confessing his plans, he becomes progressively more determined and single-minded as the chapter progresses. Similarly, the narrative itself turns from disorganized descriptions of Balram’s wanderings into a direct, focused description of the murder. What is happening is that Balram's intention transforms from a mindless rage to a much more sinister rationalization.
As Balram’s plan crystallizes and he becomes more certain of his actions, Adiga uses color imagery to reflect the development of this crazed fixation. Reflecting his newfound obsession with the red bag, Balram begins to observe the color red everywhere in his surroundings, including in the “red light,” “red puddle,” “red lightbulbs,” “red claws” and the “red-light district” (208-213). Through this imagery, Adiga vividly captures the escalating tension and nearly psychopathic delusion which culminates at the chapter’s conclusion.
Further escalating this sense of tension is yet another highly meaningful exchange between Balram and Ashok in the rearview mirror. Watching his own reflection in the mirror, Balram experiences a moment of dissociation from his own features, seeing himself as the White Tiger, “a cat watching its prey” (208). Simultaneously, Balram convinces himself that the money is rightfully his. This moment is arguably the first in which he fully commits to his plan. What Adiga suggests is that the rage born of fear and resentment would never have overpowered Balram's traditional morality, which the reader knows continues to resonate within him. Instead, he had to rationalize the murder, to fit it within his moral framework.
Further, this moment continues the motif of dualities. At the characters see each other in the mirror, their roles reverse. Ashok is no longer the stronger, richer, more elite version of the poor, uneducated servant Balram. Instead, the White Tiger has gained dominion over his weaker, inferior double, the Lamb. It is appropriate that this reversal takes place while out in the Indian capital, since Balram has established it as a city of dualities, uniting both parts of India. As Balram observes, “The Light and the Darkness both flow into Delhi” (215).
Paralleling the way Balram is torn between the "Light" and "Darkness" within himself, Adiga makes a subtle acknowledgement of the way that a rigid class system eventually infiltrates everyone's psyche through his characterization of Mr. Ashok. Throughout this chapter in particular, Mr. Ashok slowly loses his sympathy and pity for Balram, becoming a more cold-blooded rich man. His recognition of the depravity in which the poor lives is perhaps noble but also somewhat disingenuous; he had never noticed any of it before, and is openly patronizing about their food. Similarly, Balram then begins to notice how the man deliberately chooses how much to give to the poor. The fact that Mr. Ashok would indeed have replaced Balram as driver suggests that the man's initial sympathies were eventually going to be swallowed by the impossibility of crossing the class divide in such a system.
Balram faces this divide, too, in trying to hire a prostitute like the Kim Basinger lookalike. That he has money and opportunity does not mean he can cross a border into what rich people enjoy. The misery and disappointment he feels on that occasion is crucial towards his decision to break from the Rooster Coop with such vicious certainty. He will never be able to remake himself unless he destroys what he is and creates a new identity. He must tear himself from the world he knows, and that requires (in his mind) something as vicious as murder.
Keeping with the highly symbolic landscape that Adiga uses to characterize Balram's mental state in this chapter, two central events here have a strong symbolic significance. First is Balram's trip to the national zoo, where he confronts another of his doubles: the actual White Tiger. This almost spiritual experience emboldens Balram to embrace his White Tiger identity and triumph over Ashok, the Lamb. It is telling that he has a mini-resurrection, losing himself and then waking with an unshaken certainty. It is a type of re-birth, exactly what he needs to truly achieve the luxury and respect that he dreams of.
A second crucial event that compels Balram to finally act is his introduction to poetry, in particular the line “You were looking for the key for years/but the door was always open!” (216). Balram frequently refers to verses and poems throughout his letters to the Premier, and it now becomes clear that poetry was instrumental in encouraging him. Much as he did with his rationalization of deserving the money, Balram uses the poetry to justify what he otherwise would condemn as an atrocious act.
Even as Balram’s determination grows, however, a strong element of chance, contingency, and fate are instrumental to his success. Balram’s fashioning of the murder weapon from a broken bottle of Johnny Walker Black, for example, seems to be the result of a subconscious urge. Balram insists to the Premier that was carrying the bottle to sell to Vitiligo-Lips, and that he smashed it without any conscious design, with only the line of poetry echoing in his head. Similarly, even moments before Ashok’s death, Balram appears ready to abandon his plan when Ashok doubts his story about the wheel. The significance of contingency reinforces Balram's belief in his exceptionalism, his belief that he has a separate fate as one who has awoken while the rest of society is asleep.
The final duality, though, is within Balram himself. No matter how fully he commits to his rationalization, he ultimately cannot convince himself to leave Dharam behind. Though he already justified leaving his family to be massacred, he nevertheless feels compelled to stand up for at least one of them. That he remains torn between his guilt and his certainty is clear throughout the narrative, and this moment reminds us that he faced that conflict from the moment of the murder.

Chapter 8: The Seventh Night
Summary
Balram informs the Premier that this will be his final letter, and that he will explain how he transformed himself from a fugitive into a successful entrepreneur.
After returning for Dharam, Balram traveled to Bangalore via an indirect route, frequently switching trains to avoid being tracked. Once, at a tea shop in Hyderabad, Balram saw the police poster with his image, but he was able to talk freely about it with another patron. Since the photo could be of “half the men in India,” he was never identified through it (252).
Balram admits that it took several weeks for his nerves to calm after he arrived in Bangalore. He was eager to experience life in in the South, which is culturally distinct from the North. The cuisine and language there were different, and the poor people in Bangalore drank coffee rather than tea. Further, Bangalore is full of outsiders, which made it easier for Balram to blend in.
To learn how to best succeed there, Balram listened to the “voice” of the city, eavesdropping on street conversations (255). Through this process, he determined that he should get involved in the outsourcing business. Learning that call center workers trade shifts at 3 am, which made transportation difficult and dangerous, he decided to start a taxi service to transport these workers. As a first step, he contacted a Toyota dealership to rent a fleet of cars.
Unfortunately, when he offered his driving services to the outsourcing companies, he learned that they already had taxi companies on hire for their workers. Using a lesson he learned during his time in Delhi, Balram then bribed the police to shut down the other taxi services by raiding their offices and penalizing them for hiring unlicensed drivers. As a result, his company - White Tiger Drivers - became successful amongst the outsourcing company employees, eventually using 16 drivers and 26 vehicles to meet demand.
Now, Balram is worth 15 times the amount of money he stole from Mr. Ashok. Furthermore, he has adopted a new name: Ashok Sharma, taken from his former employer. He treats his employees professionally, not like servants, but does not get to know them personally. He enjoys the new lifestyle of a man of wealth, often consorting with prostitutes in five-star hotels.
Balram then discusses the future of India. He does foresee an Indian revolution, but believes that the Indian people err in expecting it to come from elsewhere. Instead, he argues to the Premier, it must come from within themselves. He suggests that the age of the white man is drawing to a close, and that the “yellow men and brown men” will rule the world within twenty years time (262).
Next, Balram explains why he had to abandon his narrative so suddenly on the fifth night. One of his drivers, Mohammad Asif, had accidentally hit a boy riding on his bicycle. When Balram received the call, he abandoned his letter to the Premier, told Mohammad to call the police, and rushed to the scene.
There, Balram met a police officer whom he knew, as well as the dead boy’s brother, who was screaming at Mohammad. Balram secured the driver's release, explaining to the brother that he would take responsibility as the vehicle's owner. At the police station, however, Balram's allies - including the assistant commissioner - helped Balram cover up the crime, assuring him they would silence any story the victim's brother tried to tell through the media.
Later, Balram visited the victim’s family to apologize, offering as restitution 25,000 rupees and a job for the surviving son.
Balram then reflects upon his family's fate. He is uncertain who, if anyone, might have survived the Stork's vengeance, and adds that survivors would have been banished by the village anyway, for compromising its reputation. Considering that they would then have to live as beggars in a city, Balramdoes not necessarily hope they survived. He admits that the Premier might view him as a monster for sacrificing his family, but he maintains that the only difference between him and anyone else in the Darkness is that he has woken up, while the rest are still sleeping.
Dharam is doing well, receiving a good education at an English school in Bangalore. He has more or less deduced what happened, and sometimes uses it to subtly blackmail Balram into giving him freedom.
Balram also admits that he misses Mr. Ashok, and that the man did not deserve his fate. He wishes sometimes that he had killed the Mongoose instead.
Balram concludes his final letter by speculating about Bangalore's future, a future he feels he is helping to create. He reasons that everyone with power has killed someone on their way to the top. He plans to soon enough sell his “start-up” to move into another line of business, possibly real estate (274). Eventually, he hopes to open a school for poor children in Bangalore, to train the next generation of White Tigers.
While he is frequently convinced that he has successfully broken out of the Rooster Coop, he is also frequently aware that he could still be caught. Regardless, he refuses to regret having killed his master.
Analysis
Balram’s transformation, which has been unfolding over the course of the entire novel, is now complete. The preternatural connection that existed between Ashok and Balram, which involved their fluid and shifting identities, has now reached its logical conclusion: Balram has made himself into Mr. Ashok (or a form of him). He even uses a form of the man's name. Only by murdering Ashok and repudiating his former self could Balram transcend the Rooster Coop and earn a place in the Light.
Balram’s journey of self-fashioning has thus drawn to a close. He powerfully demonstrates the possibility of forging one’s own identity as he transforms himself from a poor village dweller into a successful entrepreneur. However, his success has required him to commit to an entirely alternate sense of morality. Though he (and the reader) can certainly attribute this necessity to the limitations enforced by society, it is also true that he has had to take responsibility for those decisions. In taking on his final name, Ashok Sharma, Balram commits fully to this alternate system of morality - he has become someone else.
A key part of this transformation connects Balram to the novel's social themes, as he embraces the corruption he has viciously resented for so long. The only way to become successful in a society paralyzed by corruption, it seems, is to enter into the same questionable practices that reinforce the limitations of the Rooster Coop. Balram's masterful use of the police corruption show not only that he has changed, but also that he has paid close attention to the way the world works.
However, there are indications that Balram is striving to set himself apart from men like the Stork. He treats his employees fairly and demonstrates a strong conscience, as indicated by his compassionate treatment of the dead boy’s family. Ultimately, then, the novel’s conclusion challenges the reader to consider the grey areas of Balram's morality. In what circumstances can murder be justified? Must an individual be willing to sell others out in a world that otherwise prohibits success? Balram’s charisma and humor goes a long way towards humanizing his behavior, but the most compelling argument is his success. That he has succeeded suggests that he might unfortunately be correct, that a poor man can never rise without violently extricating himself from the moralities, laws and expectations that otherwise limit him. He certainly believes he has discovered a new way of life; not only does he see Dharam as a pupil, but he dreams of opening a school that can spread his philosophy on an even greater scale.
In considering the future of Bangalore and humanity as a whole, Balram brings his narrative full-circle to some of his opening remarks to the Premier. He believes that the era of the yellow man and brown man is approaching. In other words, he is attempting to tell a larger story through his own tale. He hopes his story foresees a future in which the larger global strictures of the Rooster Coop might be destroyed. Now more than ever, his unusual decision to address his entire tale to Wen Jiabao makes sense, as a seeming overture to a possible future Sino-Indian alliance in a globalized society. Ultimately, then, Balram ends his tale as a conflux of fascinating personalities: a charmer, a psychopath, a businessman, and maybe even something of a seer.

Nietzche’s “Ubermensch” In Literature
Balram Halwai can be understood in the literary tradition of the Nietzchean “ubermensch,” and as such, it is useful to understand the nature of that trope.
Nietzche’s concept of the “ubermensch,” usually translated as “super-man” or “over-man,” is a central concept of Nietzchean philosophy, most significantly discussed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra(1883-85). Nietzche’subermensch is a man of superior potential who has thrown off the shackles of the traditional Christian “herd morality,” instead constructing his own moral system. Having moved beyond the confines of moral thought, the ubermensch furthers the interests of humanity by pursuing the realization of his own singular moral code, and hence acting as a model for those who follow.
Nietzche’s superman has figured prominently in literature. The most famous iteration of the “ubermensch” in literature is found within Fyodor Dostoevky’s Crime and Punishment. RodionRaskolnikov, aspiring to be an “extraordinary” man unbound by ordinary morality, commits an act of murder.
Like Raskolnikov, Balram’s actions in The White Tiger can be understood within the framework of the Nietzcheanubermensch. Balram considers himself to be superior to his fellow men, an extraordinary and rare “White Tiger” in the jungle of the Darkness. He believes his fate to be separate from others of his background, since he has awoken while they remain sleeping. Accordingly, he breaks free of the system of morality that binds the other people of the Darkness to the Rooster Coop. He constructs his own system of morals, in which theft, murder, and a deadly betrayal of his family become acceptable and justified actions. Finally, he rationalizes his choices by believing that he will serve as a model to those who follow.

Suggested Essay Questions
1. What is Balram's attitude toward religion? How does this develop throughout the novel?
Balram is cynical and sarcastic when it comes to religion, not terribly afraid of blasphemy. And yet there are also signs that he is deeply spiritual, that he has internalized many of the religious sensibilities and superstitions of rural Indian village life. He definitely believes in the presence of deities, but is unafraid of them. That he persists with his murder despite this belief system shows how fully he develops his own moral code in order to justify his behavior. Religion is just one of many things that he decides to dismiss in the pursuit of his own ambition.
2. Is there a way to justify Balram's decision to murder Ashok and thus sacrifice his family?
For most readers, Balram's willingness to kill and to sacrifice his entire family will initially seem monstrous and unforgivable. However, over the course of the novel, Adiga provides a convincing case for the justifiability of Balram's actions. In the context of the oppression and injustice of a social system defined by what Balram terms "The Rooster Coop," Balram's actions are much easier to understand. Of course, he is presenting his own side of the story, and his engaging, charismatic personality goes a long way towards gaining a reader's sympathy. Ultimately, the question is layered enough that a grey moral area emerges. In this world where Western ideals of self-improvement and independence clash with India's social rigidity and family-based mentality, it is easy to see how Balram's perspective could be so extreme, and yet defensible.
3. How does this portrayal of India differ from more typical literary depictions of India?
For many readers, much literature about India exoticizes and idealizes the nation, portraying India as a foreign, tantalizing "other." The classic example of this portrayal of India can be found in the stories of Rudyard Kipling. Adiga's account of India diverges significantly from this mode, depicting the unglamorous realities of the country in an intimate and direct manner. Writing in the tradition of the social exposé, Adiga ruthlessly uncovers India's shortcomings while simultaneously conjuring a vivid and genuine representation of its beauty. Both literary modes provide a depiction of the country that is not entirely "real" or "authentic," and the extent to which approaches such as Adiga's are "superior" is a hotly contested question in the literary world.
4. What is Balram's view of the caste system?
Balram holds a positive view of the caste system, which has traditionally been prevalent in India. He expresses a significant degree of nostalgia for life under the caste system, praising the sense of orderliness that pervaded the nation when one's fate was determined at birth by the position of one's family. In his mind, people were stuck where they were, but they understood that as natural, and so there was a general sense of satisfaction. Balram's meditation on the caste system makes a powerful point about the state of social mobility in post-caste India, which seems to have preserved the worst elements of the caste system while dispensing with the emotional safety it provided. Naturally, there are plenty of ways to argue that the caste system carried its own systemic flaws, but Balram does not focus on those. Instead, he sees the current age as one which promises social mobility but which cannot provide it for the underclass, causing an anger which he exploits in himself and foresees as the eventual birth of a new revolution.
5. How does The White Tiger compare to other works of social commentary and other exposés?
The novel is written in the tradition of exposé writing, pioneered by authors such as Charles Dickens. This type of novel uses its plot as a means to examine social institutions and constructs in a journalistic way. Like Dickens, Adiga's background is in journalism, a field dedicated to exposing social ills through media. However, the high degree of cynicism and dark humor that pervadesThe White Tiger differentiates this novel from some other more earnest examples of exposé writing. Balram's darkly comic edge provides an ironic and yet emotional edge that transcends the a direct, documentary-style exposé.
6. Why does Balram choose to address his narrative to the Premier of China? How would the story have been different without this framing device?
By having Balram address his narrative to the Chinese Premier, Adiga comments upon India's future in the globalized world. Balram's attitude towards the Chinese Premier indicates his belief in the likelihood of Sino-Indian alliance, and allows him to meditate upon what he believes is the white man's waning power. On a smaller scale, this narrative device adds a sense of pomp and grandiosity to Balram's narrative, since he is addressing a powerful world leader. This only exacerbates his bombastic, overconfident character, and the extent to which he has rationalized the choices he has made. Finally, one could see Balram's choice as a suggestion that he does not actually plan to send the letters, a decision which would of course lead him to his arrest.
7. Discuss Balram's many names throughout the novel, and how each one represents an aspect of him.
Over the course of his narrative, Balram transforms from Munna to Balram to the White Tiger to Country-Mouse and, finally, to Ashok Sharma. He begins his journey as a blank slate, the nameless "boy" who, by virtue of this omission, is free to ultimately craft his own identity. Some of the names he comes to possess are simply bestowed upon him: "Balram," for example, designates him as the subsidiary sidekick of the teacher Krishna. Other identities are given meaning by Balram himself. The "White Tiger," a name first envisioned by the government inspector but seized upon and fully embraced by Balram, is the formative identity which empowers him to escape from the Rooster Coop. With the final name, Ashok Sharma, Balram completes a climactic fusion between himself and his former employer Ashok, definitively staking out a space for himself within the Light.
8. Balram considers family to be one of the major mechanisms trapping people in the Rooster Coop. What is Adiga's overall message about family?
While traditional family values are one of the only redeeming qualities about life in the Darkness, Adiga avoids idealizing these values, as is commonly done in literary depictions of India. In contrast, Balram must shake off the restrictive yoke of family in order to escape the Darkness. He has to literally sacrifice them in order to realize his own potential. Thus, Adiga's message in The White Tiger links modernization to individualism. The ideal of the individual, so fully embraced in Western society, is depicted as fundamentally incompatible with traditional Indian values. The esteem placed upon the Indian family thereby becomes a barrier to modernization and a tragic martyr in the quest for a new India.
9. What does Balram's experience in Bangalore reveal about the Indian economy in an increasingly globalized world?
Balram's new life as an entrepreneur in Bangalore demonstrates the increasingly interconnected, international scale of the Indian economy. His experience sheds light on how the country is adapting and evolving in a new global environment. Balram is explicit about this connection. His quest to create a business is indicative of both massive future potential, but also of the growing pains of the new sectors of technology and related fields emerging in the Indian economy. And finally, the extent to which he goes in order to compete on this scale shows how fundamentally disconnected the majority of Indian citizens actually are to that.
10. How does Balram's personality affect the reader's interpretation of events?
Balram's cynicism, darkly comic tone, and bombastic overconfidence serve as an engaging narrative strategy. At the same time, however, the colorful and obviously opinionated nature of his prose provokes a certain degree of distrust in the reader, with Balram functioning as an unreliable narrator, a common literary trope. Together, these two forces create a relationship between reader and narrator that is uneasy and complex, reflecting the moral grey areas and contradictory characteristics of the protagonist himself.