Mangalore's Gem - Booker Nominee Aravind Adiga Studied in City

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Aug 1: It is a proud moment for Mangalore, as Aravind Adiga, who has his roots in the district, is the author of a work that has been lined up to compete for this year's prestigious Booker Prize amounting to 50,000 pounds. Works by two other Indians, Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh too are in contention for the prize. His first novel, 'White Tiger' has been chosen to compete with the best of books from all over the world.

Aravind Adiga was born in Chennai in 1974. However, he hails from a family located in the coastal region. He studied in Canara School for two years before completing his SSLC in the year 1990 from St Aloysius College in the city, recollects Gopalakrishna Bhat, who had taught him here. Aravind was a brilliant student and had excelled in the national talent search contest (NTSC) when he was here, Bhat says.

After completing his SSLC, Adiga continued his schooling in Australia and USA. He got his BA degree in literature from Columbia University New York and M Phil from Magdalene College Oxford. He entered journalism in the year 2000 through the Washington DC bureau of 'Financial Times' and after a 30-month stint there, came to India as a representative of the 'Times'. He has widely toured India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka etc., and has written a number of articles for the 'Times', 'Financial Times' and 'MSNBC.Com'.

One of his articles also dealt with the developments the Karnataka coast has been witness to, in his article, 'Mangalore Revisited'. Later, he left 'Times' and started working as a freelancer and during this period, authored the 'White Tiger'. Adiga presently lives in Mumbai.

'White Tiger' in rural parlance in north India, means the smartest boy in the village. Balram Hawai, a boy from a very poor family, belongs to a remote village. His family cannot afford him proper schooling. By chance he gets to know a rich man who hires him as his chauffeur and takes him to Delhi. The wide eyed white tiger realizes the enormous wealth and opportunities that beckon city dwellers. He wants to grab them but has no means to do so. So Hawai comes to the conclusion that he can realize his dreams by murdering his master. The novel is a first person confession of a murderer, who is unrepentant about his deeds. The plain and raw language used in the novel predominantly in a rural background has been the high light of this extra ordinary work.