The White Tiger

Addressing Premier Wen Jiabao, Balram jokes about Indian exaggeration, the common impulse to claim discoveries and inventions as Indian. Balram describes the Rooster Coop as the greatest invention in India—a figurative pen where servants reside. Like roosters and chickens, servants and the poor are believed to manage confinement easily, ignoring danger and dismissing escape. Balram claims employers trust servants with great sums of money and precious jewels, because servants wouldn’t imagine stealing them. He meditates on the nature of the Indian family, and then thinks about the white tiger at the Delhi zoo.

The Stork pays a visit and asks Balram to massage his legs daily. Seeing his treatment of Balram, Pinky Madam expresses disgust. Balram takes the Stork to the hospital, and then goes to sleep exhausted. Pinky Madam wakes him up in the middle of the night, demanding he drive her without Ashok. She forces him to take her to the airport and she returns to America, leaving him 4,700 rupees.

The Mongoose arrives soon after, and Ashok, missing his wife, drinks every night. The Mongoose brings a letter from