Saudi author Rajaa Al-Sanea’s book “Riyadh Girls” is a novel with a difference. It is a compilation of e-mails between friends in the form of a novel. 2008 Man Booker Prize winning Indian author Aravind Adiga shares Al-Sanea’s fascination with e-mails. Adiga’s hero Balram Halwai learns about Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s plans to visit Bangalore, the business hub of postindustrial India and fears that the premier could be misinformed by the ruling-class sponsored media and government public relations managers; hence decides to write directly to the Chinese Primer using e-mails. Seven e-mails through seven nights complete the novel.
Winning the Man Booker has made Adiga’s novel “White Tiger” an international bestseller. He was brought to the attention of literary critics and discerning readers. Adiga is accused of marketing India’s poverty to gain recognition in the Western world. His parochial critics go on to question the literary merit of the novel itself and even doubt the intentions of the prize committee in recognizing Aravind Adiga.
The novel’s central character — Balram Halwai — is a poor boy from an impoverished feudal village in Bihar. He was taken out of primary school and put to work in a teashop by his shrewd grandmother. The teashop provides him a bird’s eye view of the world of riches. He understands the mediocrity of the moneyed class and their megalomania. There he learns that it is ignorance, servitude and casteism, which condemn him and his class to poverty. He decides to break the vicious circle by hook or crook and enter the world of rich. He learns to drive and soon finds employment as a driver in a rich household. His master Ashok is Western educated and married to a girl outside his caste and religion. Ashok is moved to Delhi to bribe politicians to gain undue privileges for his family’s illegal mining business. Balram regularly makes trips with his master Ashok who carries huge currency bundles used to bribe powerful politicians. Balram scrupulously plans and murders his master one day to escape to Bangalore with a large sum of money. There he starts a small business to provide transportation to IT industry employees, soon he grows into a corrupt rich businessman like his previous master. He never regrets his crime and instead justifies his action by blaming the upper class including Ashok for keeping him and his likes in perpetual poverty.
Adiga discards the conventional stereotypes of a Bihari villager who is regularly depicted as ignorant and foolish. His hero Balram is intelligent, shrewd and even able to poke fun at the cravings of the rich and influential. He pretends to be foolish and naïve to please his masters but often exploits their weaknesses. The first person narrative through e-mails creates a kind of intimacy between the reader and the text and personalizes the narrative language. Anger against the prevailing Indian reality is the underlying current below the dark humor of Aravind Adiga.
It is naïve to accuse Adiga of portraying India’s poverty to endear himself to the Western literary establishment. Doyens of Indo-Anglican literature like Mulkraj Anand, Raja Rao, RK Narayan and Bhavani Prasad all made use of such life in India. Their contemporaries in Indian languages are no different. Adiga is more daring as he pokes fun at the Indian political, religious and social establishment. This has annoyed those parochial elements that wish to hide under the carpet of the filthy gutters of Indian society. Aravind Adiga is to be commended for his forthright transparency in admitting light onto the darker shades of Indian reality.
It is true that politics is woven into the narrative in a derogatory form. Adiga’s hero never considers his political options for the emancipation of his class and has only indifference and contempt for it. He makes use of it for his entry to the world of the privileged. His indifference and lack of remorse about the murder and theft he commits is certainly disturbing but it is a strong pointer toward the emerging realities and the expanding bandwagon of the new rich in the third world.