Here are some key excerpts from Aravind Adiga’s excellent class revenge opus The White Tiger. On what fuels the Dickensian bitterness of the Indian underclass. How servants are kept in line:

He must have phoned his man in Laxmangarh… ‘He’s got a good family. They’ve never made any trouble… No history of supporting Naxals or other terrorists. And they don’t move about: we know exactly where they are.’

That last piece of information was very important. They had to know where my family was, at all times… What inhuman wretch of a monster would consign his own granny and brother and aunt and nephews and nieces to death?

The Stork and his sons could count on my loyalty.

How this goes on across India:

Every evening on the train out of Surat… the servants of diamond merchants are carrying suitcases full of cut diamonds… Why doesn’t that servant take the suitcase full of diamonds? … The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy. The Great Indian Rooster Coop… a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse…

… only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed — hunted, beaten, and burned alive by his masters — can break out of the coop. That would take no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of nature.

It would, in fact, take a White Tiger. You are listening to the story of a social entrepreneur, sir.

How elections are rigged:

Every now and then… a ray of sunlight will break through. All these posters and speeches and slogans on a wall, maybe they get into a man’s head… he wants to cast his vote…

When he got there, the Great Socialist’s supporters had already put up the tally of the votes… Everyone had voted for the Great Socialist…

Vijay and a policeman had knocked the rickshaw-puller down, and they had begun beating him… they kept stamping on him, until he had been stamped into the earth…

Balram Halwai is a vanished man… right?

Ha!

The police… will find me dutifully voting on election day… as I have done in every general, state, and local election since I turned eighteen.

I am India’s most faithful voter, and I still have not seen the inside of a voting booth.

The absurdity of the wealthy in Delhi:

… displaying their usual genius for town planning, the rich of Delhi had built this part of Gurgaon with no parks, lawns or playgrounds… while they walked around the apartment block, the fatsos made their thin servants — most of them drivers — stand at various spots on that circle with bottles of mineral water and fresh towels in their hands.

Petty humiliations inflicted upon drivers:

As he was getting out of the car, the Mongoose tapped his pockets, looked confused for a mment, and said, ‘I’ve lost a rupee…’

I got down on my knees. I sniffed in between the mats like a dog…

‘What do you mean, it’s not there? Don’t think you can steal from us just because you’re in the city…’

‘That’s how you corrupt servants. It starts with one rupee…’

Finally, I took a rupee coin of my shirt pocket, dropped it on the floor of the car, picked it up, and gave it to the Mongoose.

‘Here it is, sir. Forgive me for taking so long to find it!’

There was a childish delight on his dark master’s face. He put the rupee coin in his hand and sucked his teeth, as if it were the best thing that had happened to him all day.

How drivers counter with petty thievery:

1. When his master is not around, he can siphon petrol from the car…
2. … he can go to a corrupt mechanic; the mechanic will inflate the price of the repair, and the driver will receive a cut…
3. … he can sell the whiskey bottles to the bootleggers…
4. … he can turn his master’s car into a freelance taxi. The stretch of the raod from Gurgaon to Delhi is excellent for this; lots of Romeos come to see their girlfriends who work in the call centers.

Previously: Three things I liked: microreviews, To have and have not: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger