The White Tiger

By: Aravind Adiga

Narrated by: Kerry Shale

Meet Balram Halwal, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells his story....

Born in a village in the dark heart of India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a tea shop. As he crushes coal and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape, of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga, into whose murky depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations.

His big chance comes when a rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur for his son, his daughter-in-law, and their two Pomeranian dogs. From behind the wheel of a Honda, Balram first sees Delhi.

.The city is a revelation. Amid the cockroaches and call centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls and the crippling traffic jams, Balram's reeducation begins. Caught between his instinct to be a loyal son and servant and his desire to better himself, he learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India.

As the other servants flick through the pages of Murder Weekly, Balram begins to see how the tiger might escape his cage. For surely any successful man must spill a little blood on his way to the top.

The White Tiger is a tale of two Indias. Balram's journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.

©2008 Aravind Adiga (P)2008 Orion Publishing Group

Reminds me of all of Delhi's facettes

it sheds light on how people are treated in india in a very smart and cheeky manner, allowing this one character to escape his fate, without justifying his means. and still you feel empathy and range at the same time towards this person. loved it.

What a firework!

Excellent read. So many layers that keep sparking. Brilliant and fun. One of my favourite novels and probably the best read I have heard read.

Good Story and Narrative !

Great story , you really tend to see the prospective of the narrator . The thick Indian accent draws me more towards the story and is quite funny .

Highly entertaining read

This was a highly entertaining read, read as such by the performer. I thoroughly enjoyed it without missing the complexities of the social commentary.

I finally got a good picture of contemporary India

This book was a revelation to me. I asked an Indian friend of mine to recommend a book about India that would illustrate how the caste system is perceived today. This book did the job brilliantly. It is entertaining, ironic, and full of information. I started with the audiobook (the narration is excellent - I love the accent!) and soon after I bought the paper book because I wanted to underline so many things! I would highly uggest it, even to high school students!!! Thank you Aravind Adiga and Kerry Shale!!!

What does the future hold for Adiga’s India?

Kerry Shale’s colourful narration brings even peripheral characters to life in Aravind Adiga’s Booker prize winner about the perpetual hopelessness of corruption in India. First published around 2007/8, it seems topical in my August 2020 book club as Lebanon crumbles under the weight of corruption.

Our Indian book clubber tells us this rags-to-riches tale is a fair reflection of Indian society and that young educated Indians don’t want to live in that corrupt society or become politicians themselves in order to make a change. There’s a phrase she uses, which translates: “Why muddy your hands when you’re cleaning your house.”

If decent successful Indians continue to relocate to countries they can trust, eventually what will remain? Only the poor, the corrupt and the coerced?

The speaker skip several sentences

The problem with the speaker in an audiobook is heavy because I’m lost the reading….

Skip the sentence

I found so many sentences that didn’t read by voice actor. It’ll affect your company’s name value.

Annoying if lively narration

Unnecessary cut and narrated with annoying embellishments. Why do a booker-award-winning novel and then cut it to the bone?