Friday 25 March 2016

Mass media plays an important role in the life of society. Most people agree that the 21^st century can be called the “age of media”, which is quite true as the world of media influences us in different ways. However, some of these bring benefits for us, there are also bad points. Since the advancement of technology, people today are getting attached to television and films, books also make its passion to stand at the top of media list.

Mass Media includes various types of media such as television, radio, newspaper and magazines. Reading newspapers and magazines, watching TV, listening to the news on the radio are our main means of getting information. Mass media bring to millions of homes not only entertainment and news but also cultural and educational programmes. If you watch TV and listen to the radio, you can improve your knowledge of history, , biology, literature or even learn a foreign language by radio. Media is one of the most useful hearts of human life. We are overfull with all these letters, sounds and films, headlines. Media change our modern life in nearly every way. Main work of media is to inform the people. Media is the most powerful tool of communication. It helps promoting the right things on time. Nothing is possible without media.

Development of Mass Media

Western mass communication scholars have identified a development progression cycle call ESP i.e. Elite Popular Specialization this cycle holds that all media develop in three stages:

Elite: Media appeals to the affluent. Affluent are considered as the leaders of cultural and social trends.

Popular: When the notions break through the barriers of literacy and poverty, it enters the popular stage and reaches the mass culture.

Specialization: There is ‘de-massification’ of the mass media due to information explosion and advancement in the communication technology.

Media is consumed by highly fragmented segments of population each with his own interest and cultural activities.

Example- Cartoon channels, Sports channels, News channels, Movies.

Attraction with Media

In Modern society, people are influenced by mass media. Although traditional television watching and newspaper reading are no longer as popular as before, people spend more time in front of computers listening to music and radio, reading news and information interacting with other people in social network and watching television programs and films. The developing technology of mobile phone allows people to do almost everything they can do with the computer. Now days, people are living in a world by media sounds and images. People cannot live a day without mobile and computer. Cultural values and lifestyle have changed over time by use of television and internet. So in one way, it may change people’s opinions for the better, but in another, it may impact the social system of a whole population. More and more, people all over the world use the same exact piece of clothing. Due to watching it on television, the dress code is blue jeans, t-shirt and shoes. Television can be a great teacher. Some public television programs encourage visits to the zoo, libraries, bookstores, museums and other activities, and educational visitors can surely serve as powerful teaching devices.

First Television

Amongst all the mass media today, TV attracts the largest number of viewers; its audience is greater in size than any of the other media audience. This is because television is able to focus on audience of all age groups, whether literate or illiterate. Television has been used for education and information purposes than for entertainment. There is no doubt about the fact that the technology has given us a main tool in television. It is very powerful mass communication medium. The Indian model of television programmes are unique as it is expected to pass on the culture from one generation to another. Today Doordarshan is challenging with all cable TV networks in meeting the entertainment needs of the people. Television in India, through its programme presents pictures and view of India’s rich culture. They represent various religion and cultural language and activities of people, belonging to different parts of India and so it reflects the Indian Society.

We live in an attractive world and even more charming society. We are part of a culture where every morning we wake up to the voice of the morning news filling us in on the beautiful sunny weather outside, and at the end of the day, tired and hungry. We move slowly home, where our TV or computer are waiting patiently to be at service. In the world, life without technology feels totally impossible and life without media is simply unthinkable.

India has various cultures, religions and traditions. Therefore, medium like TV can play a vital role in developing common understanding with the people and bring them closer, like movies, TV reinforces ideas, beliefs. For example- TV represents the messages on importance of girl’s education, marriage age, environment protection, energy conservation etc. Thus, it serves believable function. Television has more flexibility and mobility in its coverage due to audio-visual presentation. As Saxena says-

“Television in India has acquired today newer dimensions, greater popularity as a much wider reach. The moving images of television fascinate people, demand attention and eventually influence their thoughts and behaviors”.

Radio is generally used as mass communication medium and has a great potentiality is spreading of information as radio signals cover almost entire population. Radio being a handy form of entertainment caters to a large audience.

Radio reaches the common man in urban and rural areas of India, though the use of radio is more among rural cities. It has advantages over the use of other mass media like television and newspaper in terms of being handy and easily available. It is the most transportable of the broadcast media, being easy get to at home, in the office, in the car, on the street or beach, almost everywhere at any time. Radio is helpful not only in informing the people, but also in creating understanding about many social issues and need for social improvement, developing interest.

In India, radio with its access to the rural areas is becoming a powerful medium for advertisers. Because radio listening is so widespread that it has spread as an advertising medium for reaching local audiences. Moreover, radio serves small highly targeted audiences, which makes it a superb advertising medium for many kinds of specialized feature for radio as mass medium is that it caters to a large rural population which has no way in to TV and where there is no power supply. In such places, All India Radio’s programmes continue to be the only source of information and entertainment. Moreover, broadcasts programmers come in 24 languages.

Kapoor, Director General of AIR (1995) said-

“Radio is far more interactive and stimulating medium than TV where the viewer is spoon-fed. Radio allows you to think, to use your imagination. That is why nobody ever called it the idiot box”.

Impact of Mass Media

- Personal

- Psychological

- Social

- Moral

- Cultural

Bernard Berelson an American behavioral scientists defines the impact of media as-

“Some kind of communication, some kind of issues brought to the attention of people under some kind of condition has some kinds of effects”.

Mass media is centrally involved in the production of modern culture. Reach of mass media is limited in India thus mass culture in our country is still by and large the one that prevails in our villages where over 77% of people live. Here, folk media is still predominant.

Advantages of the Media

Media is one of the most Influential entities we have in this world, with good reason. We rely on the media to provide us with information. The mass media has many roles in our world, and the most important role is providing us the news.

Helps spread News Faster

The news cycle has changed that how we put away the news forever. We no longer have to wait for the morning or evening news to get caught up on present events. There are many news channels which run 24*7 i.e. all the time in all the seven days.

- Keeps us updated with current events whether we want to keep up with our area, state, country or world, the media is there to give us all the information we need to know. By media, we can be aware of what is going on in any part of the world, specially the parts that affect our everyday life. We can keep up with what’s going on all over the world in number of ways as well. If we want some quick news, organizations offer applications that can be downloaded in our phone. These applications give us breaking news notifications, so that you can always be aware about latest updates. If you have a long journey or important works, you can use radio to get your news. Generally, radio stations are that focus on lifestyle, news, current events and more.

- Contact with family and friends with the help of social media, many people can communicate with their families or with friends. Actually people travel around the world and by this reason; They need a good way in order to not lose the contact with their families in their native country. So the world’s population uses electronic devices for their communication for example- Mobile phones, telephones, computers etc.

Function of Mass Media

Mass Media is the powerful medium that does not only influence today’s world but that also shape tomorrow. Mass Media performs essential task in order to cast its effect to the people and maintain the society.

Information

It is the main function of mass media. While information is power of knowledge it can be objective, primary, subjective and secondary. Media disseminates information mostly through news broadcast on radio, TV as well as newspaper or magazines. Moreover, advertisements are also mostly for information purpose.

Education

Media presents education and information side by side. It provides education in different subjects to people of all levels. They try to educate people directly using different forms of content. Dramas, documentaries, interviews and many other programs are arranged to educate people directly. Mass media is used as successful tool for mass awareness.

Entertainment

It is one more function of mass media. Persuasion involves making influence on others mind. Mass Media power audience in varieties of ways. All people are not well known about it. Many of them become influenced or motivated unknowingly towards it. Hence, specific functions of mass media are explained below:

Surveillance

It denotes observation. The function of mass media is to observe the society closely. News about films is played at local theater, stock market prices, new products, fashion ideas are example of instrumental surveillance.

Interpretation

The mass media do not just give facts and data but also explanations and interpretations of events are situations. News analysis, editorials are some examples of interpretative contents. Such types of interpretative contents are prepared by those journalists who have knowledge of background information and strong ability.

Socialization

It is the transmission of culture. Media is the reflector of society. Whenever a person reads newspaper or watches television, individual knows how people respond on matters and what types of norms and values they perceive on situation.

Conclusion

Thus, media is attractive even more important in life of adults as well as of children. We get great deals of information from the different forms of media such as newspapers, films and documentaries, journals, radio, motion pictures and more. Mass media plays a vital role in forming and reflecting public opinion, connecting the world to individuals and reproducing the self image of society. The mass media still plays a vital role in the social learning process and have power on how individuals acquire now ideas, attitudes and changes direction in society.

Works Cited

"Meaning and importance of Mass Media."

Class Notes

Research on Marketing, Advertisements and Public Relations.n.d.

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Representation of Women in African Literature with reference to the novels- Things Fall Apart, Waiting for the Barbarians and A Grain of Wheat

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Representation of Women in African Literature with reference to the novels- Things Fall Apart, Waiting for the Barbarians and A Grain of Wheat

Prepared by- Urvi Dave

Course- M.A.- II

Semester- 4

Paper no. - 14

Paper name- The African Literature

Enrollment no. – 14101009

Batch- 2014-16

Email id- dave.urvi71@gmail.com

Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi

Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction

Women's place in society is thought a lot in contemporary studies. In literature, women's representation is observed and criticized with feminist approach. Like most literature around the world, African literature also portrays women in different shades. In early African works, incomplete and inaccurate female characters are littered. The fact, like other literature, African literature was first written by men. Educated African men not only come from patriarchal society but were educated by colonizers, who also come from patriarchal society. Some feminist critics say that male francophone African writers routinely portray their female characters in the stereotype of an oppressed and subjugated wife who has little if any say in shaping her destiny or changing the system that deprives and oppresses her. The African novels present different images of women in the contemporary patriarchal society. Female character do not have their own identity or story to be called or celebrated. But they are always portrayed as less heroic than men and in periphery. The famous African writers like Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ulasi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Amos Tutuola and Ben Okri use African imagery in portraying and dramatizing the characters and situation, for effect and authenticity.

African societies are primarily viewed as masculine. Feminine perspective of Africa and African society, especially about the role of women in African novels, is richly illuminating. In African natives religion and African life, it is the image of the chief deity, the Goddess of earth that dominates. The chief deities of the Ewe community of Ghana are Mawu and Lisa. Mawu representing the moon is a female while Lisa symbolizing the sun is masculine. The image of Mawu greatly influences the life and living of the people. Though men do not duly regard women, she is universally acknowledged as the mother of mankind.

Gender discrimination, family constraints and social restrictions on women are the greatest banes of African society. Some female voices scream that the real place of woman is in her home. However, women are sometimes glorified in their personal life as family caretakers and teachers. Woman constitutes a force to nourish and shapes the young minds in her family. In the traditions-bound society, she is confined to her home discharging her primary duties. The creation of myth and literary image of Africa meaning one's physical attachment, formulates the woman's place in the house. But still in some cases, as a stereotype, the idea of an 'African dilemma' is there with representation of women. African women have to choose between being true to their traditional culture and embracing thee colonising western culture and having equal rights is an interesting one. The study of women characters, portrayed in African colonized literature is an interesting with that one can know human nature of colonising, marginalizing or making other race gender religion subaltern.

THINGS FALL APART BY CHINUA ACHEBE

Umofia, the village in Achebe's Things Fall Apart respects only one women called Chielo, the priestess of the Oracle of the hills and the caves. Chielo has a dual role to play as an ordinary woman and as the one to reprimand the offenders of the community. She, as the spokesperson of the deity, screams at Okonkwo when he accompanies his wife and daughter to the shrine of the Oracle of the hills and the caves: beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Okonkwo, the great warrior and matchless wrestler, rants at Nwoye's mother.. Do what you are told woman. Okonkwo's wife becomes meek and dumb before Chielo. Achebe has presented the image of an idealized woman, thereby opening the space for women to become active and involve themselves along with men in the nation-building activities. They are the images of progressive women though they are not fully evolved characters. Achebe's Chielo is a priestess and a healer whose roles allow her control of spaces that the fearless Okonkwo is cautious about entering. Confident of these spaces and the social environment on a moonlit night, she runs through the town with a sick Ezinma on her back. Throughout Chielo's race that night, her voice calls out greetings to notable community personages and Agbala. Chielo's voice shows no hint of oppression or suppressed womanhood. The fact that Ezinma recovers after the encounter with Chielo also speaks about Chielo's power in Agbala.

There is no male equivalent to this role of priestess in African life. Okonkwo must follow later and wait in the shadows as woman-as-priestess and Agbala renegotiate the child's health and continuance. Significant here is the fact that the process of ritual and negotiation are embedded in narrative tradition and practice. Like Achebe, Nwapa makes use of this relationship in Efuru in which the major characters have praise names. Achebe says-

"Names reflect the circumstances of one's birth and family background."

Many women in the novel are flat characters who are satisfied with oppressive structures like Polygamy as Okonkwo's wives. Critics condemn Achebe for being too male-focused, there could be many reasons for this lack of female representation. One is that, readers are seeing the culture and events largely from Okonkwo's point of view, who could be said to have unenlightened gender views by Ibo standards. For example- when he is sent to his mother's village, be cannot answer to his uncle why a common name and saying is "mother is supreme", Uchendu, his uncle replies, "A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness, be finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there that's why we say mother is supreme." In these words, women as mother is respected. The portrayal of Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma, is the only visible rounded female character in the novel. There is evidence in the novel which suggests that Achebe was showing ridiculous nature of a strong patriarchal society. Ezinma was intelligent enough to eventually run the family the way Okonkwo wanted. Okonkwo says-

"She has the right spirit."

Okonkwo is unable to think outside of his cultural paradigm, when Ezinma offers to carry Okonkwo's chair to the wrestling match, traditionally a boy's job, Okonkwo says-

"No, that's a boy's job."

Instead of finding a way to let Ezinma run the home, be only comments that "She should have been a boy."

It shows Achebe's poverty in describing woman character in patriarchal world. Still there was not much female representation in the novel. It is important to realize that Achebe wrote this novel to justify his native culture, where women become victims, to European audiences, who were patriarchal themselves. With the exception of Ezinma, Achebe's female characters in the novel were not rounded or visible. Okonkwo carries more space and female characters are marginalized in narrated patriarchal culture.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT BY NGUGI WA THION'GO

A Grain of Wheat is a political narrative talking about Mau Mau Kenyan movement first placed in forest. The movement included both men and women against British colonizers. Women played remarkable role directly or indirectly in that rebellion. Ngugi pays respect to these women and celebrates their limitless sacrifices, their contribution and struggle for freedom of the homeland in this novel. The novel describes heroic women as providing the invisible backbone to the movement. The writer also made use of traditional African values of womanhood to fight with the enemies. Wambui, the major character in the novel, is a model of the resistant woman during emergency; she carried secrets from the villages to towns. Incident of Wambui and policeman is very significant in portraying her character. For example- Karanja, Kihika and Gikonyo encounter Mumbi at Gikonyo's workshop, she is addressed respectfully as Karanja calls her "Mother of Men, we have come, make us some tea." Kihika, the Mau Mau hero in the novel, refers to the homeland as mother as be proudly says "With us, Kenya is our mother."

Female identities and anatomies become symbolically bound to motherhood and to the nation. We can find privileging of motherhood in Ngugi's fiction. In the novel, where Gikonyo has an inferiority, Mumbi is more self-assured and capable of action. Gikonyo's mother, Wangari, refuses to accept defeat when her husband beats and rejects her, accusing her of sexual coldness. She displays undaunted courage when she settles in Thabai with her baby son. Wambui introduces the active role of women in the movement, while Karanja's mother mirrors Nyokabi's defiance of the traditional female role, as she questions the action of men. Ngugi, through the depiction of the ideal patriotic women pays great tribute to the African women especially in those dark days. The strength and courage of certain black women is incontestable in relating the fight for freedom. Ngugi through the persons of Wambui and Mumbi clearly shows us that though the men were fighting openly, the war led by the women was as much important as theirs. Example- Wambui's "now-famous drama at the worker's strike in 1950," how through her words and the common action of women they had revived the strength of men. There is also the comic episode of how Wambui "once carried a pistol tied to her thighs near the groins" where behind the comic account of the incident, Ngugi portrays the courage and role of women in freedom fighting. If African women had not been such an inner force, Kenya would have never been what it is today. This argument is illustrated by Mumbi's inner force during the emergency period. She is in fact the character who depicts the ideal African woman according to Ngugi. Strong, beautiful, both and furthermore mother of a child, be strength during that period if far than admirable, "In the end, she tied a belt around her waist and took on a man's work."

Far from the sensual woman, she has the ability to play a completely different role which is that of the submissive woman or rather wife. Mumbi, who despite having survived during harsh times, has to bear the authority of Gikonyo at home, "I'll make you shut this mouth of a whore", he cried out, slapping her on the left cheek. Ngugi does not seem to criticize this attitude of Mumbi; her attitude as a weakness, the author transforms this into a strength by the characters. Mumbi's mother Wanjiku says-

"The women of to-day surprise me. They cannot take a slap, soft as feather, or the slightest breath, from a man. In our time, a woman could take blow and blow from her husband without a though to running back to her parents."

Ngugi Wa Thion'go enrich African literature with portraying his woman characters strong, courageous and patriotic, who equally and sometimes more than male characters,, participate in struggle for freedom.

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS BY J.M. COETZEE

Waiting for the Barbarians is set in an indeterminate place and time. It is an allegory about the evils of colonialism. The story is told with the point of view of a Magistrate. The novel has one woman character, Barbarian girl, with whom portrayal of woman character can be studied. She is a prisoner of Colonel Joll's but after their release she is left behind by her folk in the outpost, begging, semi-blinded and disfigured from the torture. This symbolizes in extremes that how people can be transformed to be perceived as the other by an ideology and how the normal can turn out to be abnormal by the system. She will always stay as the other, both as a Barbarian in the eye of the empire and as carrying the marks of the empire in her uncanny body, in the eyes of her folk. Wenzel reads the relationship between the Magistrate and the girl by saying that-

"The Magistrate seeks to eliminate his sense of the girl's otherness and to understand the pain of her torture as her verbally and physically probes the girl in an effort to read the signs of torture written on her body."

Actually, Barbarian girl is a symbol of colonized. Her relationship with Magistrate is of master and slave. She is tortured by colonizers. She is not colonized by empire but as a woman by the Magistrate as well. He uses her body as an object. The narration never gives us the view point of the Barbarian girl, but the magistrate attempts to understand feminine Viewpoint. He is even at one point dressed as a woman by his torturers who are servants of the empire. The empire and the Barbarian culture are symbolically represented by the magistrate and the Barbarian girl and their relationship the same. The Magistrate sometimes sympathies the girl but it is also true that he uses as an object, he becomes cause of her sorrows. Sometimes, the girl plays a role of the catalyst for the change that takes place in the Magistrate; she fulfills the role as colonized woman. Coetzee's choice to put a girl as a symbol of colonized, slave and subaltern indicates woman's position in society and in men's mind.

CONCLUSION

These three famous African novels represent women differently. One has no significant space for women. One made women courageous, strong and even greater than men; and one made it slave, colonized and inferior. These different portrayals shows women's role in different situations and different cultures, which is moving and not static.

Works Cited

"Things Fall Apart."

http://studyquestion.blogspot.in/2012/11/portrayal-of-women-in-contemporary.html?m=1

http://www.academia.edu/8325497/A_Grain_of_Wheat

Class Notes

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Poor-Rich Divided in The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

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Poor-Rich Divided in White Tiger

Prepared by- Urvi Dave

Course- M.A.-II

Semester- 4

Paper no. - 13

Paper name- The New Literature

Enrollment no. – 14101009

Batch- 2014-16

Email id- dave.urvi71@gmail.com

Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction

Aravind Adiga is an Indian-Australian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. During his freelance period, he wrote The White Tiger. The novel studies the contrast between India’s rise as a modern global economy and the lead character. Balram, who comes from crushing rural poverty? Adiga says-

“At a time when India is going

Through great changes and, with

China, is likely to inherit the

World from the west, it is

Important that writers like me

Try to highlight the brutal

Injustices of society (Indian). That’s

What I’m trying to do- it is not

An attack on the country, it’s

About the greater process of

Self examination”

Story

Balram Halwai is a composite of various people of India; Adiga has portrayed Ashok, his family and the other upper class as harsh. Rich and poor divide and corrupt in India are not going away. Balram narrated whole about his life in a letter which he writes to a Chinese Premier, Wen Jiaboo, He tells everything that how the son of a rickshaw puller struggled and managed to become a successful businessman and an entrepreneur. He was born in a rural village of Laxmangarh, where he lived with his big family. He was a bright child but couldn’t study due to their financial condition. He then starts to work in a tea shop where he begins to learn about India’s government and economy from customer’s interaction. Balram then decides to become a taxi driver and learns driving. He then starts working in New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Pinky madam. During his stay in Delhi, Balram gets exposed to extensive corruption. Contrast between the poor and rich is visible through their proximity to one other. One night, Pinky madam was drunk to forced Balram to leave the car so that she can drive. In a drunken state, she hits something and drives away. Balram is forced to confess that he was driving the car.

Ashok bribes the government officials in order to increase the benefit of their family coal business. Balram plans to kill Ashok and hits him with a bottle and takes away a large share of bribe along with him. He then arrives in Bangalore where he Bribes the police so that he can startup a new, his own taxi business, Balram then explains that his own family was killed by Ashoka’s relatives as retribution for his murder. In the end, Balram rationalizes his actions and considers that his freedom is worth the lives of his family and of Ashok.

Beginning the Topic

Balram mentions two things about Delhi-

1 Systematic housing lane and traffic.

2 People live like animal in a forest do.

He gives every minute description of urban and rural life. The novelist also tells how teachers stole the money which was given for student’s charcoal could be arranged from government mines by paying culprits and criminals protected themselves by grassing the palm of carried out openly and brazenly. Balram explores a new India in New Delhi itself and gets attracted towards it. Imitating his master, he starts going to red light areas and consumes alcohol. Villagers are always eager to live this type of life and so does Balram thinks about living it so to lead a lavish and wealthy life, he kills Ashok as Adiga wrote about two destinies- eat or get eaten. Adiga tells us that increasing gap between upper and the lower class produces criminals like Balram.

Adiga talks about the progress in almost all the fields but behind this bright shine there are billions who are deprived of basic necessities of life. He exposes and explores this grim facet of Indian life. Negative aspects of Modern India are presented in a very humorous way. Economic growth has been accelerated but this poor rich gap has widened due to globalization. The narrator says-

“The story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen”.

Adiga hints to stop corrupting at all the levels create social awareness and close monitoring of functioning of the government machinery. Balram is presented as a modern Indian hero, in the midst of the economic prosperity of India in the recent past. He represents the poor in India who yearn for their tomorrow. His story is a parable of the new India with a distinctly macabre twist. He is not only an entrepreneur but also a roguish criminal remarkably capable of self justification. The background against which he operates is one of corruption, poverty and inequality. Social Discontent and violence has been on the rise.

Adiga had highlighted the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and the economic system that lets a small minority to proper at the expense of the majority. There has been greater economic disparity since the neoliberal economic reforms. The story of Balram moves from “darkness” to “light” i.e. from rural India to urban India. His thirst for freedom came alive when he visited his thirst for freedom came alive when he visited his native village. He describes-

“While Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam

Went to an excursion… It was a very

Important trip for me…while Mr. Ashok

And Pinky Madam was relaxing…

I swam through the pond…walked

Up the hill… and entered the black

Fort for the first time… Putting

My foot on the wall, I looked

Down on the village from there.

My little Laxmangarh, I saw the

Temple tower, the market, the glistening

Live of sewage, the landlord’s mansion

And my own house, with that dark

Little cloud outside that water

Buffalo. It looked like the most

Beautiful sight on the earth. I

Learned out from the edge of the

Fort in the direction of my village

And then I did something too

Disgusting to describe to you. Well

Actually, I spat, again and again.

And then, whistling and humming,

I went back down the hill. Eight

Months later, I slit Mr. Ashoka’s Throat.

His schooling in crime begins with the reading of murder weekly as all drivers do, to while away their time. He feels degraded as a human being, deprived of basic human rights to enter a shopping mall. A poor driver couldn’t enter a mall as he belonged to the poor class. He knows full well that Ashok comes from a caste of cooks and yet now he has to serve the wretch who is moneyed. He decides to break out of this fate of the poor in India, as from a Rooster coop. Ashok spent a lot of time visiting malls, along with Pinky madam, his wife to Mongoose. Balram’s job was also to carry all e shopping bags as they came out of the malls. The mean and stingy behavior of the rich is shown through the lost coin episode where Mongoose insults Balram for not while getting out of the car. He was so bothered about a rupee coin after bribing someone with a million rupees.

Such mean behavior of the masters continues when they instruct the servants about do’s and don’ts. Balram is told never to switch on the AC or play music when he is alone. Taunting Balram of his lack of an English Education was great fun for Ashok and Pinky madam. It patched up their quarrels. When he mispronounced ‘maal’ for ‘mall’, they had their ironic laughter. When Pinky madam left Ashok suddenly in a rage, Balram had driven her to the airport in the middle of the night for which he was rewarded with a fat brown envelop filled with forty seven hundred rupees. Introspecting on the tip, Balram recounts:

Forty seven hundred rupees… odd sum of money wasn’t it?

There was a mystery to be solved here. He is educated in the mean ways of the rich which imbibes him in course of time. Balram, a victim of rich-poor divide, reverses the role and becomes ‘master like servant’. When he is alone, he takes pleasure in masochism. While in Delhi, Balram experiences two kinds of India with those who are eaten, and those who eat, prey and predators. Balram decides he wants to be an eater, through his criminal drive; Balram becomes a businessman and runs a car service for the call centers in Bangalore. The protagonist confirms that the trust worthies of servants are the basis of the entire Indian economy. This is paradox and a mystery of India. Because Indians are the world’s most honest people… No, it’s because 99.9% of us are caught in the Rooster coop just like those poor guys in the Poverty market. Balram wants to escape from the Roster coop. Having been a witness to all of Ashoka’s corrupt practices and gambling with money to but politicians, to kill and to loot, he decides to steal and kill. Adiga delves deep into his subconscious as he plans to loot Rs.70, 000 stuffed into red bag.

In creating a protagonist like Balram in The White Tiger, as Adiga come forward to make subaltern speak through crime? Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of subaltern leads to the premise that subalterns cannot speak. It is not a classy word for oppressed, for other, for somebody who’s not getting a piece of the pie, but it signified “proletarian” whose voice could not e heard, being structurally written out of the capitalist bourgeois narrative. Speaking on the master-slave relationship, Adiga says-

The servant-master system implies two things: One is that the servants are far poorer that the rich-a servant has no possibility of ever catching up to the master. And secondly, he had access to the master- the master’s money, the master’s physical person. Yet crime rates in India are very low. Even though the middle class who often have three or four servants are paranoid about crime, the reality is a master getting killed by his servant is rare… You need two things (for crime to occur) - a divide and a conscious ideology of resentment. We don’t have resentment in India. The poor just assume that the rich are a fact of life… But I think we’re seeing what I believe is a class based resentment for the First time.

Injustice and inequality has always been around us and we get used to it. How long can it go on? Social discontent and violence has been on the rise. What Adiga highlights is the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Conclusion

Poverty trends in India have been debated by that claming decline in poverty and those disproving it. Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze in their thought provoking essay “poverty and inequality in India: A Re-examination” state that some claim that here has been a period of unprecedented improvement in living standards, while others argue that the period has been marked but widespread impoverishment. This novel is an excellent social commentary on the poor rich divide in India Balram represents the downtrodden sections juxtaposed against the rich.

Works Cited

Sebastian, Dr. A J. "Poor-Rich divide in Adiga's The White Tiger." Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 1 (2009).

Sebastian, Dr. AJ. "Poor-Rich divide in Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger"." (2015).

Tiger, The White.

http://studenthelpline.co.in/2015/06/poor-rich-divide-in-aravind-adigas-the-white-tiger-prof-aj-sebastian-sdb/

Class Notes