The White Tiger: Chapter 7: The Sixth Night Summary & Analysis

Soon after Ashok’s evening with the minister’s assistant, Balram asks Vitiligo Lips to find him a golden haired prostitute. He also asks the older driver for advice on how to cheat his master. Balram begins selling petrol from the Honda City’s tank, visiting corrupt mechanics that overcharge for repairs, and using the car as a freelance taxi. He finds that each time he cheats Ashok, he doesn’t feel guilt but rage. Balram claims that he was “growing a belly” at last.

Using the money he stole from Ashok, Balram hires a golden-haired prostitute with the help of Vitiligo Lips. To his disappointment, she is not nearly as attractive as Ashok’s Ukrainian girl. He learns that her name means, “Girl” just his former name, “Munna,” means “Boy” in Hindi. Balram discovers quickly that the girl’s hair is not naturally blonde but dyed, and gets into a brawl with the manager. He is thrown out of the hotel without having had sex at all.

When Balram returns home, Ashok is waiting for him in the servants’ quarters. Ashok claims that he is tired of living the comfortable yet soulless life of a rich Indian man. He says that he constantly allows himself to be exploited, and yet doesn’t have the courage to change his ways. He asks Balram to bring him to a teashop where he can eat like a “simple man.” At the teashop Balram orders Ashok enough food to feed a family, and watches resentfully as Ashok eats it all.

Ashok continues to bribe ministers on schedule, distributing money in a red, Italian leather bag. One morning, Balram brings the red bag down to the car while Ashok finishes getting ready. He opens the bag and, dazzled by the enormous quantity of money inside, can’t rid himself of the thought of stealing it. He thinks to himself that taking the money wouldn’t in fact be stealing, but recovering what is rightfully owed him. Ashok planned to distribute the money to avoid paying income tax, which—had it been paid—would have gone to helping poor people like Balram.

Balram mulls over the possibility of stealing the money as he roams Delhi’s streets, seeing everywhere symbols of his own oppression and looking for a sign as to what he should do next. He stops at a book market where a Muslim bookseller reads him a poem: “You were looking for the key for years/ But the door was always open!” He asks the man if poetry can make a man “vanish,” then flees the bookseller’s suspicious gaze. He visits the butchers’ quarter in Old Delhi, where he sees a buffalo pulling a cart loaded with the heads of dead buffalos, the faces of which seem to resemble the faces of his own family.

The following day, Balram finds an iron wrench in the parking lot outside Ashok’s apartment complex. Intending to use it as a weapon, he brings it back to his room where –to his great surprise—he finds his young cousin Dharam. Balram then learns that Kusum sent Dharam to Delhi for Balram to mentor, along with a letter threatening to arrange a marriage for Balram in his absence. She also threatens to tell the Stork’s family that Balram hasn’t sent back any money in months. The new responsibility of caring for Dharam saves Balram “from the edge of the precipice,” and forces him to admit to himself that he has been plotting murder.

Shortly after Dharam’s arrival, Ashok learns that the ruling national government has lost the election to several oppositional parties, including the Great Socialist’s party. The Stork’s family had anticipated that the government would win by a landslide, and is frantic because they neglected to bribe the winning parties. Ashok hurries to fix the mess. Balram drives him to meet with two of the Great Socialist’s representatives and, after agreeing to pay a large sum of money, Ashok loans them the use of his car. Balram is shocked to discover that one of the men he is driving is his childhood hero Vijay, who has “changed uniforms again” for the suit and tie of an Indian businessman.

Over glasses of Johnny Walker Black whiskey, Vijay and his companion discuss how they will be sure to get the correct amount of money from Ashok, and decide that it is not worth the trouble of threatening him with physical violence, as he doesn’t have the courage or cunning to avoid paying up. They move on to discuss the election, and in particular the good fortune that their party has a foothold in Bangalore, the city they believe holds the future of Indian business. After they exit the car, Balram takes the bottle of whiskey they left behind and smashes it on the pavement, creating a sharp-edged weapon.

The following morning, Balram asks Ashok for time off so that he can take Dharam to the Delhi Zoo. Balram’s nerves are on edge all morning with the knowledge of the crime he plans to commit. When he and Dharam come upon a white tiger pacing back and forth in his cage, Balram locks eyes with the animal and faints. Back at the apartment, Balram dictates a letter for Dharam to write down. The letter is written as if from Dharam’s point of view, and ends with Dharam witnessing Balram regain consciousness from his faint, and Balram crying out that an apology to his Kusum Granny, but that he cannot keep living in a cage all his life. He orders Dharam to mail the letter to Kusum Granny as soon as he, Balram, leaves in the car with Ashok the next day.

The following morning, Balramdrives Ashok from bank to bank to fill the red bag with money for his master’s final bribe. As they drive towards the Sheraton Hotel to deliver the complete sum, Balram pretends that there is a problem with one of the car’s wheels and pulls over. He convinces Ashok to exit the car, kneel down and examine the wheel. As Ashok does so, Balram brings the broken bottle of Johnny Walker Black down on Ashok’s head from behind, then turns him around and stabs him in the throat. (He remarks that this is how Muslims kill their chickens.) Balram explains that he killed Ashok rather than stunning him because he knows that Ashok’s family will brutally murder his own family once they discover Balram’s guilt: he is simply “getting his revenge in advance.”

The deed done, Balram covers his tracks as best he can and scatters Ashok’s body with stickers of the holy goddess Kali, thinking that they may help his dead master’s soul reach heaven. He drives to the train station to make his escape, but is tortured with indecision about whether or not to rescue Dharam. He goes back to get his cousin in Gurgaon despite the risk of getting caught, and the two flee to Bangalore together.