After my retirement, I slowly started weeding out my books. This is as a result of the realization that some of the books were simply dying out, becoming a prey to silverfish and other tiny insects. Further, I realized that I may never open some of these books and so thought either they had to be weeded out or the ones in good condition to be gifted to friends and relatives, who would love receiving them.Even after all these, I still have about 3000 books. I find it difficult to part with most of them.
Then I thought at least I should write about them in my blog - at random. Where to begin or with what to begin, was a difficult decision. So finally I have decided to select the books at random.
The first book that has come into my hands on random selection is 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga. I bought this book during one of my visits to Chennai at Moore Market and have completed reading it on March 22, 2009. (I have this habit of signing on the last page with date when I finish a book). Sometimes I record the date and place where I bought a book with its price. In this book there is no such entry. I must have forgotten to record them.
The White Tiger is a debut novel of Aravind Adiga and it won him the Man Booker Prize in 2008. It is a tale of Balram Halwai, the son of a rickshaw-puller from a remote village and his life's journey upward. The disturbing element in the story is Halwai gets away with a murder and goes scot free. "Truth alone triumphs or falsehood and evil always lose; however clever may be the perpetrator of evil gets caught and punished at the end". This is what I have been taught and novels highlight this truth. Nowadays books like The White Tiger, probably reflecting the times, end with the evil-doer or wrong-doer going scot free. All these things happen in 'Kali Yug'. The other book that follows this type of thinking I have read is Paulo Coelho's 'The Winner Stands Alone'. For old fashioned people like me this trend is extremely disturbing.
Otherwise, the narration flows freely and holds one attention. It has been reviewed and discussed widely and has won name and fame for author. As such my writing anything further would only be superfluous.
For an article on The White Tiger from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Tiger
Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
