Balram Halwai is the consummate entrepreneur, an unapologetic “white tiger” who has hoisted himself out of a life of servitude using nothing but his own ingenuity and ambitious spirit—and seven hundred thousand rupees stolen from his murdered master. Balram’s improbable success story begins in a poor village in rural India, where he works in a tea shop and dreams of nothing more than wearing a khaki uniform like the local bus driver. His fortunes seem to be on the rise when he lands a job as a chauffeur for a rich man in New Delhi, but as his experiences in the Indian capital awaken him to the fundamental injustices of one man serving another, he begins to plan his great escape. Through the eyes of his wise-fool hero, Adiga crafts a scathing portrait of modern India as a nation whose true entrepreneurs are forced to cheat, steal, and even kill to overcome the nearly insurmountable barriers of social stratification.
Book Review by Anna Ziajka
