The White Tiger by 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." ~From Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger~

I had been procrastinating about reading this book for a very long time. It was actually an easy book to finish, considering the time I took while having a nine-to-five-job.

The story revealed the "darkness" of India, told from a first person's point of view. Balram Halwai, who was born in the "darkness", told his success story as an entrepreneur in the form of letters to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China. Adiga was sarcastic, funny and dark at the same time. He addressed some issues (political, corruption, caste system etc) in an exaggerated (or maybe not) manner, which made me wonder if these are still happening at this moment (at some part I simply gasped in disbelief).

I've always enjoyed books about other nation's culture like Amy Tan's where she tells stories of American born Chinese, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Adeline Yen Mah's Falling Leaves: Return to their Roots. The White Tiger was not an exception - it was definitely an enjoyable read.