The White Tiger

A foil to Balram, Mr. Ashok transforms once he flies to India from America. He frustrates his wife Pinky Madam by reneging on his promise to return to America, seeing potential in India that he can’t imagine in New York. Educated in America, he bemoans Balram’s lack of education. Critical of parliamentary democracy and hostile to the corruption in Delhi, Ashok often compares India to China, favoring China’s relative order (which Balram comments on as well). Yet, by marrying Pinky Madam, he disrupts his family’s order, their objections to her religion (Christianity) and caste. After she leaves Ashok, he reunites with a Nepali woman whom he once loved. Balram also refers to Ashok as his ex, due to their long history.

As Ashok becomes frustrated with his father, the Stork, as well as the rampant corruption and loss of traditional values in India, he grows closer to his brother Mukesh Sir, the Mongoose—wounding Balram who hates the Mongoose. Ashok romanticizes servants and their supposed “simplicity,” confusing poverty with morality. He endangers himself by treating Balram with both condescension and familiarity, unlike his father and brother who create clear boundaries with Balram. His memory haunts Balram, who eventually takes Ashok’s life and name.

Ashok’s wife, Pinky Madam is a Christian woman who belongs to a different caste than him. She doesn’t like India and accuses Ashok of breaking his promise to return to America. The novel’s symbol of Western values, Pinky Madam plays badminton wearing sunglasses and refuses to leave her room in Dhanbad—embodying leisure and luxury without purpose. She initially seems shallow and self-absorbed, intent on leaving India and often shocked by Indian practices. However, she changes after she accidentally kills a child while driving drunk. Pinky Madam is wracked with guilt, which is compounded after the Mongoose forces Balram to sign a false confession on her behalf. Unable to cope with her guilt and the shifting nature of India, she ultimately leaves for America and divorces Ashok.

The opposite of his brother Ashok in terms of personality and mental counterpart to their father, the Stork, Mukesh Sir is described as “small, and dark, and ugly, and very shrewd” (64). He chastises Ashok for his criticisms of Indian society and politics, and criticizes Ashok’s wife, Pinky Madam, for her entitlement. The Mongoose doesn’t trust Balram, questioning his caste and giving him a list of rules concerning his conduct and the Stork’s cars. Unlike Ashok, the Mongoose embraces tradition from the start, marrying “a homely wife who was turning fat on schedule, after having two children, both boys” (64). While he doesn’t share the Stork’s looks, he “had his father’s mind. If he ever saw me waste even one moment, he would shout, ‘Driver, don’t loiter there! Clean the car’” (65). Following Pinky Madam’s accidental murder, he treats Balram better to force him to sign a false confession on Pinky Madam’s behalf. He explains away his father’s corruption and political ties, and accepts bribery as a fact of the family’s existence. Balram heavily implies that the Stork and the Mongoose killed his family following Ashok’s murder.

A fellow driver and mentor to Balram, “Vitiligo-Lips” has vitiligo, a loss of pigmentation: Balram describes him as “look[ing] like a clown at the circus with painted lips” (103), and while he finds the other driver’s visage unnerving, they remain friends. Like Balram, “Vitiligo-Lips” comes from the Darkness and teaches Balram how to navigate Delhi. Involved with the smuggling of foreign wine and other imported goods, he also helps procure women for his employer. He remains a constant for Balram—raunchy and gossipy, friendly but always looking to make money through information, objects, and women.

Balram’s grandmother Kusum remains an antagonistic force in his life long after he leaves Laxmangarh. She remembers Balram’s mother fondly but changes her attitude whenever she wants to criticize Balram. Although she can’t write, her letters, which she dictates, continually push him to support the family with money. Kusum wants him to marry, knowing he will receive a dowry to exploit. Opposed to Balram’s schooling, she would rather he get a job, which he’s forced to do after the Stork demands repayment of a loan. She pays for Balram’s driving lessons, but like all her help, the money comes with strings attached. Kusum demands he send money often, and when the Mongoose visits to gain her support for Balram’s false confession, she complies. While it’s unclear what she gets for supporting the confession (other than maintaining the “natural” order), her love is transactional, as she always prioritizes the family’s overall survival.

Balram’s father, Vikram Halwai belongs to the caste of sweet-makers (as implied by his surname “Halwai”) and proves a noble, respectable man. He pulls a rickshaw to his physical detriment, as he has tuberculosis and eventually dies from it due to inadequate medical treatment. Balram notes that his father doesn’t work within his caste, that he probably owned a tea shop before it was seized by corrupt police officers. Vikram invests in Balram’s education, standing up to both Kusum and the classroom lizard that his son fears. Even after he dies, Vikram inspires empathy in his son, as Balram often sees his father in the less fortunate.

Dharam is a young relative of Balram’s sent by Kusum because of Balram’s refusal to send money or get married. Balram recognizes Dharam’s intelligence and takes the opportunity to act as a father. After Balram kills Ashok, he takes Dharam to Bangalore, where the boy, spoiled by Balram’s success, changes: Balram describes him as a “little blackmailing thug” who “is growing up with no morals at all” (271). He assumes Dharam knows about his murder because the boy demands ice cream among other things. As a symbol, Dharam represents the negative aspects of globalization—specifically, the belief that personal desires take precedence over rules.

One of the four landlords who control Laxmangarh, the Stork takes advantage of the fishers and boatmen who use his river. He owns homes in Laxmangarh and Dhanbad, the latter being where he hires Balram as a driver; the elderly man is cruel and insists on leg massages from Balram. Despite being the father to both Mukesh Sir (the Mongoose) and Ashok, the Stork favors the Mongoose due to their shared sense of business and politics. Like the other three landlords, the Stork is animalistic, greedy, and obsessed with traditions—fixating on castes and harboring hatred for Muslim people. Balram heavily implies that the Stork and the Mongoose killed his family following Ashok’s murder.