The White Tigress - Anyone?

Couple of days back we read the news of another Indian making us proud on the global literary stage. To be honest, I am not a big fan of these awards and the juries that hand out these awards– whether in movies or books. I feel they are too elitist and the books/movies that win these awards are not always the best in their category if you consider taste of a common mortal like me. I tilt more towards authors who carve a niche of their own but also cater to the masses (Chetan Bhagat comes to mind instantly...ok..I’m not a fan but I don’t detest his English either).
So, with this general attitude towards prize winner books and remembering the un-palatable stuff (for me only of course) for which Ms. Arundhati Roy had won the Booker couple of years back, I thought I’d only check the review out of ‘The White Tiger’ (only to sound updated in morning office chit-chat). I was just glancing my way down the review when words like ‘bottom-up story’, ‘dark side of India’, ‘story of Balram Halwai’ caught my attention. These were not the kind of words I was expecting in a Booker prize winner book review. I was expecting arcane, sedate or obscure stuff...you know the kind of books that make you open the dictionary on every 3rd para or do a Google or Wikipedia check every page. I thought the story of a son of a rikhshaw wallah – a driver living in Gurgaon winning a Booker award can be something I’ll be curious to read. Plus I read a little about the author – Arvind Adiga and somehow developed a liking for this guy who left a cushy job at a leading newspaper and came to India to work on his own book. I always admire people who take risks to follow their own heart (ok...I’m not totally gullible and know that such stories are carefully crafted to boost image...but I’ll give him the benefit of doubt for now). So, this book was at least worth the risk of Rs. 325/- of my hard earned money, I decided.
Now, I think you would have guessed by now (or I would have definitely told you if we have talked in last one week) that I’ve fallen in love with this book. After a long time, I am reading something that is original. After I’ve started reading this book I have thought for the first time about the perspective a driver or my maid or the roadside vendor has. These are people surrounding us most of the times but if you think about it, they are as good as invisible to you. You would have never stopped and thought about what any of these persons is thinking.
In most of the books we hear about India from one lens and that is the lens of someone born privileged, someone born in a city, someone convent-educated. What about the other side? What about people born in villages (which the author calls darkness) and moving to cities in search of better lives? The book is especially appealing because it is written in first person and it is as real to reality as it can possibly be. I think I’ve seen all that is described in the book in my own surroundings but up till now I’ve never cared to look.
I will not divulge more details of what is there in the book and I’ll strongly urge you to get a copy for yourself. Now that I am about to finish this book I am getting my own ideas like the protagonist – Balram Halwai of this book gets at 3.AM looking at his chandelier. How about writing a book about a story of a small-town girl? I’ve not read a single book in this chic-lit category which has talked about travails of someone born and brought up in a male dominated, family protected conservative culture trying to make it big in the big-bad metro world. From confusion on differentiating between a friendly remark and a pass to learning the nuances of socialising with strangers, there’s a long road that is travelled between a small town and a big city.
I think as a step towards that...I will start sharing some of my thoughts on this from my next blog...any ideas..?

Welcome Welcome

First post on the blogspace! Wow! Have been thinking of getting here for long and now have finally taken the first step. The big question is what will I be writing here? I think the name I chose gives the spirit of things to expect from me. It'll be totally non-conformist everything-under-the-sun kind of rubbish. Everything that concerns me or I feel might concern a soul reading it might come out of my jumbled-mumbled mind on this blogspace. So...keep watching this space... to gobble up the musings of this gook!