The White Tiger of Indian Fiction

Recently, a disturbing video surfaced on the internet. In Una town of Gujarat, a man is seen flogging four Dalits, stripped down to the waist and tied to a vehicle, with a thick rod. Bystanders do just that - they stand by and watch, as if it is a spectacle. The four men apparently slaughtered a cow. Someone captures the blatant display of hooliganism on their smartphone. The video reminded me of an incident from Rohinton Mistry's novel A Fine Balance. Two brothers, Dalits, six-seven years of age, wistfully watch boys from upper caste families in school from a distance every day. One day, finding the classroom empty, they wander into the classroom and out of boyhood fascination, pick up chalks and slates - for the first time in their life - and begin making marks and lines. Immersed in their newly discovered adventure, the boys do not realize that the schoolmaster has arrived. Enraged at the boys for 'polluting the instruments of education', the schoolmaster strips them and flogs them with a cane, as children from upper caste families stand around and watch. The schoolmaster, of course, wishes to 'set an example' and is merciless in his beating. The book is set in 1975, this incident somewhere in 1930s. This is 2016 India - an independent, democratic, economic-superpower-in-the-making-India - seven decades later, the story is still the same. 

The beauty of great fiction writing is that it is more real than the real.

George Orwell's brilliantly haunting 1984 is a case in point. Back home,there are essays and articles galore on 1947 Partition - perhaps the single most important event in modern India's history - but none, despite their facts and figures, tell of the horrors of the time like Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan. The 1975 Emergency, touted as the 'darkest hour in India's democracy', and another major event in the history of independent India, wasn't just about opposition leaders being jailed, or the media being censored. At the whims and fancies of one man in New Delhi, the Beautification and Mass Sterilization drives of the government ravaged households, destroyed lives. Unlike the Emergency, the human suffering couldn't be revoked. No piece of news can capture the essence of Emergency's repercussions like Mistry's A Fine Balance. Because Fiction captures the stories of ordinary men and women, and how their lives are affected by the larger events and changes happening around them - events that, more often than not, they have no say in.

So who do you turn to, for stories from present day India? The bestselling Indian Fiction today is a smorgasbord of pure, unadulterated crap. The titles featuring in Amazon India's top 10 list are Can Love Happen Twice, I too had a Love Story, Life is What You Make It, Our Impossible Love, It's All in the Planets... Read I too had a Love Story? Why not go and watch some season of FRIENDS one more time?

It appears that the worst of Bollywood is being repackaged in 'contemporary settings' and dished out in paperbacks, so that, in turn, it can give more fodder to Bollywood.  Because no one understands and articulates the present day nuances of India better than Chetan Bhagat, Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Dutta and company. 

It is in troubled, famished times like these that an Aravind Adiga novel appears on the horizon and casts away the darkness. But more on that later. 

Adiga is a man widely known for writing The White Tiger. His debut novel may have won the Man Booker, but it is his lesser known second book - Last Man in Tower - that is an absolute masterclass. 

The White Tiger, an all-time personal favorite, is of course a brilliant piece of literary work set in an India caught in the throes of economic development. The book bristles with anger and dark humor, the satire is unbridled and biting. Consider these gems: 

“Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion.
These are the kinds of gods they have foisted on us Mr. Jiabao. Understand, now, how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India.” 

“We may not have sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, but we do have democracy.”

“See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.” 

And perhaps the best excerpt from the book, a metaphor that hits the nail on its head:

“Go to Old Delhi,and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.” 

Waah. The Rooster Coop as a metaphor for the rut that hundred of millions of Indians are caught in. That's genius right there, in four lines. 

In Adiga's second novel, anger gives way to angst, and from a man's ruthless quest to find his place in the world, it is about a righteous man's quest to preserve his dignity. Therein lies its superiority over The White Tiger. This, and the fact that it is set in the city of Mumbai. 

Last Man in Tower, a book that Adiga dedicates to his fellow travelers in the Santacruz Churchgate 9:02 AM local, is a story of Vishram Society - a building like the people living in it, middle class to its core. Improvement or failure, it is incapable of either extremity - and the events that follow a builder's generous offer of redevelopment. The book is a seminal study in human nature. How the promise of easy money changes the inhabitants of an old, fading building. Each of the characters has a unique story - one of everyday struggles, remorse for missed opportunities, and hopes and aspirations for the future.

Coming back to the point. 

Sometime in late December, lists on the books to watch out for in 2016, mentioned a certain Selection Day by Aravind Adiga, and this marked a visible end to the five year break post Last Man in Tower. Last week it arrived at the doorstep - a hard cover edition.

While The White Tiger dealt in anger, and Last Man in Tower in angst, the overriding theme of Selection Day is fear. The underlying story though is again of aspirations, except this time, the aspirations are forced on the protagonists - two brothers batting day in and day out to get out of the Rooster Coop. The book is set in the world of cricket in Mumbai. Mohan Kumar, their domineering father, is obsessed with cricket and has a secret contract with the cricket god, their local deity, that his two sons will be the two best batsmen in the world. And so, he moves his family from their village in the western ghats to a slum in Dahisar, and subjects them to a punishing training schedule from their youngest days.

Cricket in Mumbai has a rich and storied legacy, and Adiga's book beautifully captures the delights of the game in the Maximum City. An old man, who might have played cricket for Mumbai but no one was sure when, speaking at the start of Harris Shield exhorts the young boys - 

'Gharana'

'We call it the Mumbai Gharana. A school of music. A school of music of cricket. You know the names. Ajit Wadekar, who led us to our first series win in England in 1971; Farokh Engineer and Vinoo Mankad; Eknath Solkar, the finest close-in fielder this country has seen; the two gems of Indian batsmanship, Sachin and Sunny; and the two Dilips, Vengsarkar and Sardesai. All of them were local boys like you; they learnt to play at the Oval and Azad Maidan. Like you, they took the trains and buses; like you they played in the Kanga League in the rain and in the Gymkhana in the heat. Now what are the characteristics of this Mumbai school of music expressed in the form of cricket? All-round defensive and attacking stroke play; a strong back foot; the skill to survive the moving ball and turning ball alike. When he stands at the wicket, a young batsman must bring to his technique all the toughness of our city. He must bat selfishly. Must humiliate the other side, particularly if it is Delhi. He must hoard runs for himself. But he must also bat selflessly. Sacrifice himself when the team needs it. Scoring a century or double century isn't enough: it has to be the right century or double century. It takes more than just success to join the hundred-and-fifty-year-old gharana of Bombay batsmanship. So, boys: Play hard. But play within the rules. And may the spirit of Vijay Manjrekar and Vijay Merchant shine upon you...'


At the centre of cricket is my favorite character from the book. Tommy Sir, originally Narayanrao Sadashivrao Kulkarni, is built from the old world values of principles and righteousness. Naturally, he fails to 'succeed' in the modern world. A passionate lover of the game but one who refuses to acknowledge that cricket still smells good in India, he could have run a profitable coaching academy for rich and fat mummy's boys, but instead he spent his days in the sun, at Oval Maidan, Azad Maidan, Shivaji Park, Bombay Gymkhana or any place where boys in whites gathered, in his quest to discover the next Sachin Tendulkar in the maidans of Mumbai and crack the mystery of mysteries - what makes a great batsman great? He writes a weekly column on Mumbai cricket called Some Boys Rise, Some Boys Fail. 'Sport alone isn't enough today. People want sport and a story'

Tommy Sir has the history of Mumbai cricket in his head, and he recounts the legendary anecdotes to spur the boys from time to time: the 1968-69 Ranji final between Mumbai and Bengal, where Mumbai needed to bat and take a vital lead with tailenders to follow. Solkar, overnight on six, lost his father. In the morning, he performed the last rites of his father, took a train to Brabourne and scored the match winning runs for Mumbai.

Adiga's writing on the cricket games is vivid As he describes the games, you feel like you are at the maidan and you hear the sweet sound of the bat hitting the cricket ball. In a stunningly poignant moment, two boys batting for their school in Harris Shield bat and bat and break the city record for the highest partnership. And as the partnership continues, one of them walks down the middle and says to the other - 'only one of us can be Tendulkar, the other has to be Kambli'

If you love cricket, this is one book you just can't miss. 

And there's the quintessential Adiga satire.

'As I often ask my wife, Asha: what are Indians? To which I give the answer: Indians, my dear, are basically a sentimental race with high cholesterol levels. Now that its hunger for social realist melodrama is no longer satisfied by the Hindi cinema, the Indian public is turning to cricket'

'Nothing is illegal in India. Because, technically, everything is illegal in India... See how it works?'

'Revenge is the capitalism of the poor: conserve the original wound, defer immediate gratification, fatten the first insult with new insults, invest and reinvest spite, and keep waiting for the perfect moment to strike back'

And a comment on Indian literature:

'What we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. What are we, then? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten. Keep this in mind before you do any business in the country'
 
The beauty of great fiction writing is that it is more real than the real. 

Step aside, Bhagat and company. The white tiger of Indian fiction is here.