Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger (2008)

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A rich man's body is like a premium cotton pillow, white and soft and blank. ''Ours'' is different. My father's spine was a knotted rope, the kind that women use in villages to pull water from wells; the clavicle curved around his neck in high relief, like a dog's collar; cuts and nicks and scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist, reaching down below his hip bones into his buttocks. The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.

Aravind Adiga
Neither. I am just one who has woken up while the rest of you are still sleeping.

Aravind Adiga
The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave.

Aravind Adiga
With their tinted windows up, the cars of the rich go like dark eggs down the roads of Delhi. Every now and then an egg will crack open—a woman's hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road—and then the window goes up, and the egg is resealed.

Aravind Adiga
Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many, Mr. Jiabao. A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent—as strong, as talented, as inteligent in every way—to exist in perpetual servitude; 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.

Aravind Adiga
I was looking for the key for years But the door was always open

Aravind Adiga
The great man folded his palms and bowed all around him. He had one of those either/or faces that all great Indian politicians have. This face says that it is now at peace—and you can be at peace too if you follow the owner of that face. But the same face can also say, with a little twitch of its features, that it has known the opposite of peace and it can make this other face yours too, if it wishes.

Aravind Adiga
It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.

Aravind Adiga
Iqbal, that great poet, was so right. The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave. To hell with the Naxals and their guns shipped from China. If you taught every poor boy how to paint, that would be the end of the rich in India.

Aravind Adiga
Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.

Aravind Adiga
You ask 'Are you a man or a demon?' Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.

Aravind Adiga
The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read. Instead of which, they're all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements.

Aravind Adiga
Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion. These are the kinds of gods they have foisted on us Mr. Jiabao. Understand, now, how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India.

Aravind Adiga
Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life—''possessive'', even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life, only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth.

Aravind Adiga
Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, ''does'' have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs—''we'' entrepreneurs—have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.

Aravind Adiga
By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you ever noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It's a puzzle, isn't it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail.

Aravind Adiga
Mr Premier, Sir. Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

Aravind Adiga
The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor—they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor.

Aravind Adiga
The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy.

Aravind Adiga