What comes next for me? I know that's what you're wondering.
Let me put it this way. This afternoon, driving down M.G. Road, which is our posh shopping road with lots of American shops and technology companies, I saw the Yahoo! people putting up a new sign outside their office:
HOW BIG CAN YOU THINK?
I took my hands off the wheel and held them wider than an elephant's cock.
"That big, sister-fucker!"
I love my start-up-this chandelier, and this silver laptop, and these twenty-six Toyota Qualises-but honestly, I'll get bored of it sooner or later. I'm a first-gear man, Mr. Premier. In the end, I'll have to sell this start-up to some other moron-entrepreneur, I mean-and head into a new line. I'm thinking of real estate next. You see, I'm always a man who sees "tomorrow" when others see "today." The whole world will come to Bangalore tomorrow. Just drive to the airport and count the half-built glass-and-steel boxes as you pass them. Look at the names of the American companies that are building them. And when all these Americans come here, where do you think they're all going to sleep? On the road?
Ha!
Anywhere there's an empty apartment, I take a look at it, I wonder, How much can I get from an American for this in 2010? If the place has a future as the home of an American, I put a down payment on it at once. The future of real estate is Bangalore, Mr. Jiabao. You can join in the killing if you want-I'll help you out!
After three or four years in real estate, I think I might sell everything, take the money, and start a school-an English-language school-for poor children in Bangalore. A school where you won't be allowed to corrupt anyone's head with prayers and stories about God or Gandhi-nothing but the facts of life for these kids. A school full of White Tigers, unleashed on Bangalore! We'd have this city at our knees, I tell you. I could become the Boss of Bangalore. I'd fix that assistant commissioner of police at once. I'd put him on a bicycle and have Asif knock him over with the Qualis.
All this dreaming I'm doing-it may well turn out to be nothing.
See, sometimes I think I will never get caught. I think the Rooster Coop needs people like me to break out of it. It needs masters like Mr. Ashok-who, for all his numerous virtues, was not much of a master-to be weeded out, and exceptional servants like me to replace them. At such times, I gloat that Mr. Ashok's family can put up a reward of a million dollars on my head, and it will not matter. I have switched sides: I am now one of those who cannot be caught in India. At such moments, I look up at this chandelier, and I just want to throw my hands up and holler, so loudly that my voice would carry over the phones in the call-center rooms all the way to the people in America:
I've made it! I've broken out of the coop!
But at other times someone in the street calls out, "Balram," and I turn my head and think, I've given myself away.
Getting caught-it's always a possibility. There's no end to things in India, as Mr. Ashok used to say. You can give the police all the brown envelopes and red bags you want, and they might still screw you. A man in a uniform may one day point a finger at me and say, Time's up, Munna.
Yet even if all my chandeliers come crashing down to the floor-even if they throw me in jail and have all the other prisoners dip their beaks into me-even if they make me walk the wooden stairs to the hangman's noose-I'll never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my master's throat.
I'll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant.
I think I am ready to have children, Mr. Premier.
Ha!
Yours forever,
Ashok Sharma
The White Tiger
Of Bangalore
[email protected]
About the Author
Aravind Adiga was born in Madras in 1974 and was raised partly in Australia. He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities. A former correspondent in India for TIME magazine, his articles have also appeared in publications like The Financial Times, The Independent, and The Sunday Times. He lives in Mumbai.
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The White Tiger Page 24