The White Tiger: Chapter 2: The Second Night Summary & Analysis

Balram believes that the entrepreneur’s education depends largely on an ability to learn as much information as possible from one’s surroundings. Balram has learned a great deal from his employers’ conversations, which explains why he can still feel indebted to them despite their mistreatment of him. That Balram professes to feel a bond with his victim stronger than a familial bond ties into the troubling portrayal of family ties and intimacy in the novel as a whole.

The Muslim patient’s story fascinates the hospital visitors, even though it is the story of a corrupt system that has left all of them waiting in a hospital without doctors. The patients’ perverse interest in the subject of corruption reveals how totally the Rooster Coop oppresses the poor. They somehow take pleasure in hearing about the systems that keep them in permanent destitution, without access to basic health care. This is all also a pretty good joke: The White Tiger is itself a story of “rottenness and corruption.”

Kusum’s decision to marry off Kishan when he is barely old enough to support his wife is an example of the destructive role traditional Indian families play in the novel. Instead of waiting for her grandson to mature with an eye to helping him succeed longer term, Kusum marries him off to collect the dowry in the short term. Balram, meanwhile, tries to look after his own interests by paying special attention to miners who patronize the café, where he and Kishan work, knowing that they have insight into Dhanbad’s coal industry.

Even Kusum Granny’s help comes with crippling obligations. The driving instructor’s preconceived notions about Balram’s likely abilities based on caste show how crippling the caste system could be when it existed, and how it’s removal allowed individuals a degree of freedom that they didn’t have before. Yet this freedom is the freedom of the “jungle” – as the novel literally describes the open road. Balram, who sees himself as a white tiger, thrives in this world, and this “life” education fits with his belief that the most important lessons a young person should learn have nothing to do with moral or intellectual reasoning, but with developing survival skills. After these lessons, he has become “a man” – as his father wished him to become – both mentally, as he’s able to think his way out of trouble and into opportunity, and physically, as he’s able to confront the “jungle” of the road and also because he’s now had his first sexual experience. And, of course, since the India he depicts is one of a kind of hyper-capitalism, that first sexual experience is something he bought from a prostitute.

Balram’s decision to promote his services as a chauffeur by going door-to-door, while impressive, would normally not be termed “entrepreneurship.” That he uses this word to describe his job search demonstrates how in his mind, entrepreneurship refers generally to any behavior requiring initiative, courage, and drive. Note also how this display of drive connects him almost immediately to the criminal and corrupt powers in India – the big-bellies, the eaters – and how Balram willingly joins up with a family that has preyed upon the poor of Laxmangahr (including Balram’s own family).

In Balram’s India, it is common practice for masters to punish a servant’s misdeeds by hurting the servant’s family. Balram comes to believe that this is another factor that contributes to the Rooster Coop: that not only does family itself trap a person in obligations, but that threats of violence against that family further limit what an “entrepreneurial” person can actually do.

Balram’s ability to absorb bits and pieces of information from his masters’ conversation, even while carrying out the humiliating task of massaging the Stork’s feet, reflects his natural curiosity and intelligence. His desire to understand the family’s financial circumstances shows both his drive, but also that he already feels strongly bonded to his masters, is invested in their welfare, and despite himself has an instinct to serve them.

The hostile relationships between the household’s three servants show how even those who are at the bottom of the Rooster Coop enforce its rules, rather than trying to free themselves. Instead of working together to better their quality of life, the servants engage in petty infighting in order to gain as much power over each other. They fight each other in order to get to serve in more sophisticated ways, rather than work together to be free. Even religion becomes a tool in the ongoing competition between Balram and Ram Persad, in their private show of false devotion.

The great luxury of the Wild Boar’s estate is immediately contrasted by the poverty of Balram’s family. Note how Kusum continues to try to manipulate Balram, but also feels that his role of a servant is a powerful one (which also shows just how small Kusum’s dreams are). For Balram, Kishan’s overworked, underfed appearance is a visible representation of the exploitative demands he feels his family makes of him and his brother. Kusum is a destructive influence on her family, placing too many burdens on individual family-members and preventing them from advancing in life. Balram rejects her plans to marry him off, fearing that he will soon end up like Kishan. Remember, also, that as a child Balram was both in awe of and scared of the Black Fort. Walking up to the fort is a physical symbol of throwing off that fear.

Balram’s behavior as he stands near the Black Fort, and in the car ride back to Dhanbad, reflects his complicated attitude towards religion. On the one hand, he sets out to defy the plans God has laid out for his life and makes light of God’s influence. On the other hand, the show of respect he makes as the car passes roadside temples is so ingrained in him, he is not at first aware of doing it. Finally, the spitting as a representation of his desire to “go freelance” complicates the relationship between good and evil, God and the devil. His goal is to defy fate and experience independence, even if he has to behave immorally to do so. Anyone who seeks independence in Indian society, at least as Balram sees it, is aligned with both freedom and the Devil. Finally, in spitting at Laxmangahr, Balram is scorning both his hometown and his family, a sign that he is ready to fully part ways with both. As we know from the end of Chapter 1, eight months after this moment up at the Black Fort he kills his master. So this spitting, which symbolizes both his choice to go “freelance” and his breaking away from his past and family, is a critical moment setting him on that path.