“Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an odd museum of ideas: sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks (no boy remembers his schooling like the one who was taken out of school, let me assure you), sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office, triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half hour before falling asleep--all these ideas, half formed and half digested and half correct, mix up with other half-cooked ideas in your head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas, and this is what you act on and live with.” SchoolEducationPovertyIndia Book:The White Tiger Source: The White Tiger
“And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here.” LibertyPovertyIndiaRebirthWhite Tiger Book:The White Tiger Source: The White Tiger
“I am talking of a place in India, at least a third of the country, a fertile place, full of rice fields and wheat fields and ponds in the middle of those fields choked with lotuses and water lilies, and water buffaloes wading through the ponds and chewing on the lotuses and lilies. Those who live in this place call it the Darkness. Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India—the black river.” DarknessIndiaInequalityRuralWhite Tiger Author:Aravind Adiga
“Indira Gandhi had been this very powerful, dominating, ambiguous mother figure. Ambiguous because she was tyrannical, she had imposed...she had suspended Indian democracy for a few years but she also was the woman who had defeated Pakistan in war at a time when most male politicians in India had secretly feared fighting that war, so that here in India even today Indira Gandhi is called by Indian nationalists the only man ever to have governed India.” MenYearsWarTodayMotherFightingPowerfulDemocracyFiguresPoliticianIndiaMalesIndianDefeatedPakistanVery PowerfulAmbiguousSuspendedDominating Author:Aravind Adiga
“What keeps India safe really is the heroism of millions of poor Indians who every day reject the allure of terrorism. What keeps India safe is just the courage of poor Indians, not the actions of its government.” GovernmentActionPoorMillionsSafeIndiaTerrorismRejectsHeroismAllure Author: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.” KnowsMenKindHardWinningExampleMastersWorshipIndiaAbsolutesShiningDevotionFaithfulServantTemplesDo You KnowFidelityRamaFaithful ServantsHanuman Book:The White Tiger Source: The White Tiger
“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.” IfsWorldEndsMomentsWould BeBeautifulPoorBoysHellRichThis WorldTaughtPoetGunIndiaSlavePaintChinaGreat PoetPoor Boy Book:The White Tiger Source: The White Tiger
“India's great economic boom, the arrival of the Internet and outsourcing, have broken the wall between provincial India and the world.” WorldEconomicBrokenWallInternetIndiaArrivalsOutsourcing Author:Aravind Adiga
“In India, it's the rich who have problems with obesity. And the poor are darker-skinned because they work outside and often work without their tops on so you can see their ribs.” ProblemPoorRichIndiaWork OutObesityRibs Author:Aravind Adiga
“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.” WorldTryingImportantIndiaWestInjusticeChinaLike MeBrutalHighlightsGreat Change Author:Aravind Adiga
“An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project.” SometimesPoliticalHonestPoliticianLimitsProjectsIndiaPaidStructureDollarsBillionsLocalsOfficialsEffectivenessPolitical PowerTossPaid Off Author:Aravind Adiga
“Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly 'clean' politician is to grin. It is a cliche that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad.” PeopleFirstsAudienceHonestSonDadPoliticianIndiaRegardCleanSilentSeekingSuspicionClicheMock Author:Aravind Adiga
“It has always been very difficult for writers to survive commercially in India because the market was so small. But that's not true at all any more. It's one of the world's fastest growing and most vibrant markets for books, especially in English.” WorldBookDifficultGrowingIndia Author:Aravind Adiga
“Like most people who live in India, I complain about corruption, but know that I can live with corrupt men. It is the honest ones I secretly worry about.” PeopleKnowsMenI CanWorryHonestIndiaCorruptionComplaining Author:Aravind Adiga
“Nothing gives us greater pride than the importance of India's scientific and engineering colleges, or the army of Indian scientists at organizations such as Microsoft and NASA. Our temples are not the god-encrusted shrines of Varanasi, but Western scientific institutions like Caltech and MIT, and magazines like 'Nature' and 'Scientific American.” GivingGreaterCollegePrideOrganizationScientistIndiaImportanceArmyInstitutionsWesternMagazinesIndianTemplesEngineeringMicrosoftNasaShrinesMitVaranasi Author:Aravind Adiga
