dreams from the ghettoes trespassing the gentleman’s land

Dreams from the Ghettoes Trespassing the Gentleman’s Land: A Ruthless Recreation of Duddy Kravitz’s World in Adiga’s The White Tiger

Dr. M.A. Kanakamalini

Associate Professor of English Sri. D.D.Urs.Govt.First Grade College,Hunsur

Entrepreneurs are made of half-baked clay (Adiga 11) The subaltern is the seed of progress-in life and crucially in thought. On the boundaries of the community and the polis—whether barbarians, Huns, Tartars, or conquered populations ‘untamed’, forest dwellers, women and servants, people who could subvert or threaten the established order. (Pandey 4740) Divided Nations and Multiculturalism Canadian society has adopted prescriptive multiculturalism and has been described as the most successful pluralist society on the face of the globe. Even in the World Peace Index it stands in the top position. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988, section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Movements, the Broadcasting Act of 1991 and the Canadian official policy of Bilingualism justify this description. Canada has the title of accepting more immigrants per capita than any other country. Canada is home to the fourth largest Jewish community exceeding only the United States, Great Britain and France. Jews constitute 1% of Canadian population and the 1986 American Jewish Yearbook estimates the Jewish population to be 3, 10,000. 85% of the Jewish population is concentrated in the region of Ontario, particularly in the cities Toronto and Montreal. The Jewish community is an independent community and is prospering well but had been a victim of persecution, anti-Semitism and rejection. Under the French rule the Jews were banned from New France and French Proper. Even in the English Canadian society, the upper class excluded the Jews from its sphere. The Jews were not allowed in to the places of higher learning and people refused to trade with them or sell lands to them. Though the Jews made their entry into the land only after the defeat of the French forces by the British, it was only after the World War II, racism in Canada declined and a matured generation open to multicultural pattern of life came into being. The Jewish community was spared of forced acculturation and assimilation. It could simultaneously grow as an independent community with the Canadian identity. Jews were the first founders of major cities on the Candian Prairies and made rich contributions to the urban industrial frontiers (Elazar JCPA Homepage n.p.).The decade of the 1930s witnessed strong anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic political sentiments surfaced occasionally. The last decades of the twentieth century created anxiety among the English–speaking Jews when the nationalism of the Quebec separatists was at its peak. The Israel- Palestinian conflict had its effect on the harmony of the multicultural Canadian society. The late nineties also witnessed attacks on Jews and Jewish property. However, the Canadian Jews have experienced relatively little Anti-Semitism (Israel n.p.). India has been a pluralistic society from time immemorial and diversity and plurality are considered to be the source of its strength and rich tapestry of life. The counter-Colonial literatures emphasized on the rich tradition of India and its glorious past. The fissures in the

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Indian society were kept concealed under the mask of its rich heritage and civilization. The social stratification based on class and castes were hailed as its unique system of division of labour.The unequal and unfair division maintained a majority of the population under servitude and ignorance. The subaltern had to wait and witness many social and economic upheavals for his turn. The British gave access for certain groups and communities to the mainstream but created new groups of subalterns. Globalization brought in unseen mobility in the economic fronts and cities and towns developed in such rapidity that it resulted in an exodus of the poor from the villages to the fast developing cities. The poor who built big cities and structures waited on the pavements and in the squalid slums anticipating a major change in their lives.

They have come from the Darkness too-you can tell by their thin bodies, filthy faces, by the animal-like way they live under the huge bridges and overpasses, making fires and taking lice out of their hair while the cars roar past them(Adiga 120)

A parallel existence of the two Indias with contrasting life qualities brought in an unforeseen unrest in the working class and Aravind Adiga has thrown light on this aspect. He has given a word of caution about the arrival of the subaltern and the violent mode of his arrival. In both the novels, the underdogs challenge the hypocrisy of the elite and justify their dirty play on the grounds that the underdogs have been denied a fair game since ages. While Richler makes the underdog suffer from occasional attacks of morality, Adiga creates a ruthless wild beast that pounces upon its victims for survival. The civilized world will witness the underdog’s brutality if it fails to lend a helping hand at the right moment. Arrival of the Subaltern: Now and Then Most of the literary works related to the Jews were on Holocaust theme and ‘internal critique’ or a realistic portrayal of the community with all its oddities was rarely attempted. As it is in the case of all the persecuted communities, the Jews exhibited total devotion to their community and distrust towards non-Jews that almost bordered on paranoia. Any work that attempted ‘inner critique’ was termed anti-Semitic and looked at with suspicion. Richter just wanted to be an honest witness to his time and his place’ (Macdonald “Introduction” xi). In White Tiger, Adiga becomes the spokesperson of the muted citizens of the ‘Other India’. He unveils the mask of the ‘successful and shining India’ revealing a large mass of people living like worms sunk in the pit of shit and dirt. Richler’s work arrived at a time when the Jewish community was struggling to gain its place in an alien land, among people who looked at it with contempt. Richler’s satire, being an insider’s story was unacceptable and branded blasphemous. Adiga ridicules the very values and principles highlighted by the great epics of India and makes a mockery of all its sacred symbols which an ordinary Indian is proud of. Both the works shocked the respective societies. Adiga heralds the arrival of the subaltern and hints at the possibilities of white tigers waiting silently, ready to pounce on their masters. Richler’s underdog makes his way with a lot of commotion and openly defies every symbol of authority good or bad. Servitude is the very way of life that Balram walks on and Kravitz makes defiance his tool. Two different stories of different communities, happening at two different parts of the globe in different periods of time are strikingly similar in many aspects .The similarities are very strong that we dare not ignore them, yet they are two different art works that shine on their individual merits. Duddy, the protagonist of Richler’s story is a small, narrow-chested boy of fifteen with a thin face; “The thin crafty face, the quick black eyes and the restlessness, the blackheads and the oily skin, the





perpetual fidgeting so shrewd and knowing” all made a bad impression on Uncle Benjy (Richler 57). He is a trouble maker and gives every indication of what he is up to. He is a terror to everyone around him and he plays dirty. He accepts his grand father’s symbolic statement “A man without land is nobody” as his ultimate goal and he moves on with high octane power and adopts all kinds of sinister designs to achieve his goal. The persecuted never feels the need of following the rules of the game when they strike back. The fact that has to be acknowledged is that Duddy is the creator and generator of ideas. As MacDonald observes, Duddy is part of the engine powering the post-war economic miracle, “the

founder with the dirty fingernails” to quote another Richler novel, a bright thread on the seamy side of the fabric of society (“Introduction” ix).

Balram is well aware of his unpleasant appearance and mean brought up. He explains in anguish the misery of taking birth in darkness, a poor servant’s family where breathing itself is a great achievement. Why had my father never told me not to scratch my groin? Why had my father

never taught me to brush my teeth in milky foam? Why had he raised me to live like an animal? Why do all the poor live amid such filth, such ugliness? (Adiga 151

Duddy also articulates the same sentiments, though; overtly he flares up at any small comment made about his upbringing, All that work, he thought, so much struggle, heartache, nights without sleep,

scheming, lying, sweats, and fevers and for what? Bubkas. I am a failure. All I needed was to born rich. All I needed was money in the crib and I would have grown up such a fine, lovable guy.….Why was I born the son of a dope? (Richler 310)

Balram learns to dream from his mother and his initial training in defiance of the existential miseries is given to him by his father. His father, a poor rickshaw puller resisted his miserable state in his own way, The rickshaw pullers were not allowed to sit on the plastic chairs put out for the

customers, they had to crouch near the back, in that hunched-over squatting posture common to servants in every part of India. My father never crouched-I remember that. He preferred to stand, no matter how long he had to wait and how uncomfortable it got for him (Adiga 24)

Balram learns the initial lessons of defiance by his father and he waits silently concealing all his rebellious thoughts under the disguise of an innocent, humble servant. While Duddy commits a series of misdeeds, Balram never gives a hint of his dark thoughts to anyone. Balram’s portrayal is complex -- he is a servant, entrepreneur, a lover of poetry and a ruthless murderer. He is placed at the bottom rung of the globalized economic ladder and he refuses to remain at the same position. He decides to find a way out of the Rooster Coop. He subverts the social order and becomes one among the new generation entrepreneurs for whom the new economic scenario is favourable. Duddy Kravitz and Balram Halwai: Similar Portraits with Varying Frames Born and raised in ghettoes with little love around, the little boys crave for their mothers and grow up emotionally starved, “Where Duddy Kraviez sprung from the boys grew up dirty and sad, spiky also, like grass beside the railroad tracks” (Richler 41). Balram was born and raised in Darkness, where the Roosters fought among themselves to breathe. Their fathers are poor drivers





with no future and the boys are proud of their fathers but promise themselves never to lead life like them. Duddy’s grandfather creates a dream in his little heart, the dream of owning a piece of land. Duddy decides to make it his destiny and gallops toward it unmindful of trampling everyone on his way. Balram is taught to confront fear by his father and the brutal killing of the giant green lizard by his father is replayed by Balram when he smashes the head of his unsuspecting master, Ashok. Both commit a series of law-breaking acts and get well rehearsed in intensifying the degree of callousness. Their world chokes with the kind of people; the civilized world disgustingly keeps away. Pimps, prostitutes, vitiligo affected drivers, porn magazines adorn their lives and every act of cunningness and craft is more a clever strategy of survival than a breech of moral code. They hunt down their preys with the precision of wolves and move on enjoying the freshly smelt blood still on their lips. Duddy tries to understand classical music and poetry. He patronizes arts and is fond of his family. Balram reads history books procured from pavement, secondhand bookshops. He claims that he knows by heart the works of the four greatest poets of all times, according to him, Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib and another one whose name he forgets. Balram, like Duddy is also fond of his brother Kishan and feels for him but never does anything to reduce his misery. He takes his nephew along with him, fearing his safety, after he murders his employer. While Duddy wants his family with him to share his joy at the moment of his dream being fulfilled, Balram moves to his dreamland, Bangalore, the entrepreneur’s paradise alone. The white tiger walks alone in the wild jungles of the globalized world where the fittest survives. Duddy’s character is moulded in such a way that it fits the racist description of his clan ‘the dirty Jew’. Set in contrast with the American and French Canadian characters, Virgil and Yvette, Duddy’s character is repulsive but definitely interesting. He is almost a diluted version of Shylock, whose destiny is money and who loses more precious possessions as an outcome of his avaricious acts. Duddy renders his friend an invalid and robs him of his money. After murdering his master, Balram Halwai walks away with little remorse and gains everything that the providence has denied him. He sympathizes with the victim for being a soft chunk in the hardened armour of the upper class society. Shylock’s character is not just a Jewish stereotype that the anti-semitist Christian society was fond of ridiculing. It is a character brilliant, complex and deep. Both Balaram and Duddy are not the typical elements of the bad world. They are interesting characters, complex and full of life. Duddy Kravitz contests the hypocrisy and cruelty of the elite world and justifies his raw and unsanitized behaviour, You lousy intelligent people! You lying sons of bitches with your books and your

socialism and your sneers. What a pack of crap-artists! Writing and reading books that make fun of people like me…It is the same with all you intelligent people…You never take your hand out of your pockets to a guy like me except when it’s got a knife in it (Richler 248)

Balram also scoffs at the intelligent and the elite and remarks that after twelve years of school and three years of university, fully formed fellows wear nice suits, join companies, and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives whereas, half-baked men become entrepreneurs (Adiga 11). A recent production of Shakespeare’s classic, The Merchant of Venice, in Stratford, Canada, presented the play as a minor Jewish tragedy within a major Christian comedy (www.victorbloom.com n.p). Adiga and Richler have also attempted to bring in comic elements and their works have been praised for their wit and humour. The anti-heroes make a number of wisdom filled statements in their raw and bawdy language and amuse the readers with their shrewd intelligent comments. Despite the presence of comic mode of narration, the underlying tragic current is very strong and encompasses us deeply. The Jews, the uprooted





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people were denied the right to buy lands and were not allowed to take up any other profession other than usury. Duddy’s grandfather’s words “A man without lands is nobody” carry the misery of the entire Jewish community that never had a land of its own. The fear, distrust, segregation, suspicion, ridicule, and humiliation suffered over centuries, for the sin committed by an older generation, naturally has brought about certain negative changes in the Jewish community and Richler reveals these without any hesitation. Some of the other characters also echo this bitter feeling. Duddy’s brother, Lennie Kravitz, a doctor, explains his decision of shifting to Israel as follows, “I have come to realize that they’re all anti-semites and out to use you. Every single one of them. They were never my friends. From the very first minute they were out to exploit my racial inferiority complex” (Richler 303). Mr. Cohen, the scrap dealer justifies every act of Duddy and explains his motto as ,

A plague on all the goyim, that’s my motto…So a goy is crippled and you think you’re to blame. Given the chance he would have crippled you” he shouted “or thrown you into furnace like six million others. You think I didn’t lose relatives? I lost relatives” (Richler 272).

Centuries of suffering and segregation take some more centuries to heal and till then, the distrust continues. Neither Balram nor Kravitz can digest love and trust. The quality of mercy, denied over centuries, has no meaning in the dictionary of the subaltern. Works Cited: Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. India: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. Elazar, J. Daniel. “Maintaining Consensus: The Canadian Jewish Polity in the Postwar World”.

jepa.org/djesbooks/canchl.htm.Accessed on 16-11-2012. Web. Israel, Steve. “A History of the Canadian Jewish Community”. en.wikipidia.org/wiki/History-of-

the -Jews- in-Canada. Accessed on 08-11-2012.Web. MacDonald, Ann-Marie. Introduction, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.. Canada: Penguin

Canada, 1964, 1995. Print. Pandey, Gyanendra. “The Subaltern as Subaltern Citizen”, Economic and Political Weekly.

41.46.Nov 8, 2006. 4370. Print. Richler, Mordecai. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.. Canada : Penguin Canada, 1964,1995.

Print. http//www.enwkipipidia.org/wiki/Mordecai-Richler.html.Accessed on 06-11-2012.Web En.wikipidia.org/wiki/jewish-diaspora. Accessed on 07-11-2012.Web. En.wikipidia.org/wiki/History-of-the -Jews- in-Canada. Accessed on 08-11-2012.Web. www.victorbloom.com/detail.php?id=1663.Accessed on 23-11-2012. Web. www.roberfulford.com/Mordecai Ritchler.html. Accessed pn 07-11-2012. Web.





http://www.victorbloom.com/detail.php?id=1663.Accessed

http://www.roberfulford.com/Mordecai%20Ritchler.html.%20Accessed%20pn%2007-11-2012.%20Web

dreams from the ghettoes trespassing the gentleman’s land

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