Another book that I picked up with Emma Donoghue's "Room". I had been thinking of reading "The White Tiger" for some time since it had been recommended to me numerous times. But since it was not in the "3 for 2" offer, I picked this one instead.
The book is set in the times between the assassinations of India's prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. It seems to try to capture the sentiments of the common Indians in a small town of Kittur in Karnataka (the location of Kittur is a little questionable though, it is described as coastal in the book where as it lies far within the landmass on the Indian map). The book is a collection of short stories that talk of various type of people from various sections of the society and of varied professions. It seems that the stories could be a reflection of an Indian town at any time. The assassinations hardly seem to be a part of the story, except for that the stories are built around news clippings from the 7 years, 1984 to 1991. The stories are diverse and touch on various social issues like caste, corruption, journalism, communist parties, deforestation, etc. It seems more like a compendium of scattered writings than a collection of connected stories with an underlying theme. Probably there is no theme to them at all.
The book is pretty interesting albeit crudely written. And Adiga's writing is quite engrossing. He creates and portrays his characters quite well. But there is nothing much to this particular story of his. Probably not the best story of Adiga's to have started with, the result of which is that I am not very keen on reading more of him. Probably I will pick another of his works during another bout of mindless wandering through the shelves of a bookstore.
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