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LCESlumsA squalid and overcrowdedurban street or district inhabitedby very poor people.Watch the videos about slumson your homepage to get anidea of the living conditions inIndia.English DepartmentCHAPTER 7: The Sixth NightComprehension1. What is grotesque about the way the servants’master practice sports?2. What are the 4 best ways to cheat your master?3. Which scenes indicate that Ashok has no cluethat Balram is secretly plotting against him?4. How does Balram become more and more like hismasters?5. Which scenes illustrate that the Rooster Coopmechanics are still trying to keep Balram fromrebelling against his master.Karma6. Describe the scene at the slum of theconstruction workers. (244-245)7. Who is Dharam and how is his arrival affectingBalram’s plans?8. Discuss the visit to the zoo. (259-261)9. Why are the latest election results bad news forAshok and Mukesh and great news for Vijay?The sum of a person'sactions in this and previousstates of existence, viewedas deciding their fate infuture existences.CHAPTER 8: The Seventh NightComprehension1. How does Balram kill Ashok and what happensto Dhara?2. What exactly does Balram’s company do andwhat are his ambitions for the future?3. Why is the Great Socialist’s visit to Bangalorenot going to change the fortune of the commonpeople?4. How does Balram handle the accidental killingof a boy by one of his drivers? What do youmake of this?5. Why is it fair to say that Balram had the choicebetween two different nightmares in his life?ORYX AND CRAKE9

LCEEssay writingMake sure you are able to writea well-structured essay ondifferent topics. Remember thatclaims need to be backed up byevidence. A mere summary ofevents or a description ofactions will not be enough. Youneed to analyse and interpretthese happenings to bringforward good arguments andget a good mark. Finally, doinclude your own personalopinion in the conclusion. This iswhat makes your essayinteresting. Do not simplyrecycle material you foundonline. What do you think aboutthe book?English DepartmentAfter reading:1. Compare the myth and image of the GreatSocialist to the sad reality.2. What is Balram’s attitude toward religion? Howdoes it develop throughout the novel?3. Adiga has his protagonist write a letter to thePremier of China. What is the purpose of thisframework?4. “A name is important to a person’s identity.” Towhat extent is this true for Adiga’s protagonist?5. Discuss the way the concept of the Indian familyis treated in Adiga’s “The White Tiger”.6. “India is no longer a third world country but it isnow a developing market in a globalised world.“What do you make of this statement?7. “Balram: Hero or Villain?” Discuss.8. Check the internet for literary critics who did notlike the novel. Make a list of their arguments anddiscuss them.9. “In The White Tiger Adiga aims to highlight thesocial evils in India.” Discuss.10. “The concept of the India of Light and the Indiaof Darkness is the novel’s biggest strength butalso its biggest weakness.” Discuss.ORYX AND CRAKE10

The White Tigerby Aravind AdigaCheck-Yourself QuestionsAs you are reading The White Tiger, evaluate the following statements. If thestatement is correct, put a tick under ‘true’, if it is wrong, put a tick under ‘false’and correct the statement.Chapter 1: The First Nighttrue false1. According to the narrator the future of the world lies with theyellow man and the brown man.2. Balram divides India into an India of Light and an India ofDarkness.3. Balram was given his name by his mother.4. Balram’s mother and his grandmother got on well.5. Balram’s father was a rich goatherd.6. Balram’s father wants Balram to attend school.7. Balram attends an elite school in Delhi.8. The school inspector recognizes Balram’s talents and thinks ofhim as ‘the white tiger’.9. Balram has to leave school because he has to work for hiscousin-sister’s dowry and wedding.10. The village is dominated by five greedy landlords.11. In his village Laxmangarh electricity poles are broken, watertaps are broken and children are undernourished.12. Balram’s first entrepreneurial role model is Vijay, a bus driver.13. When he returns to Laxmangarh after many years he goes toan old black Hindu temple.Chapter 2: The second Night1. Although Balram killed Ashok, he hold him in high esteem.2. Balram’s father died of TB after an extensive medicaltreatment in a first class hospital.3. Balram works in a tea shop in Delhi and does his job withhonesty, dedication and sincerity.4. Balram wants to become a driver because drivers are paid1700 rupees a month.5. Balram is allowed to take driving lessons but only oncondition that once he has a job he has to send all the moneyback to Kusum, his grandmother.6. Balram and Ram Persad, the other driver, get on well witheach other.7. Balram is allowed to drive the Honda City whereas Ramtrue false1

Persad usually drives the smaller car, a Maruti Suzuki.8. Ashok intends to return to America as soon as possible.9. In Laxmangarh Balram has to dispute with Kusum overarranged marriages.10. Balram does not want to go back to Laxmangarh again.Chapter 3: The Fourth Morning1. On election day Balram has to inform a government officialthat he does not know his age. The official tells Balram he iseighteen.2. Balram’s employer has sold Balram’s vote to the GreatSocialist’s party.3. Politicians who are in jail are no longer influential.4. Vijay is still a bus conductor.5. A rickshaw-puller who publicly claims his right to vote isbeaten to death by Vijay and a policeman.6. The animals take coal for free from the government mines andthe Great Socialist lets it happen and gets paid for it.7. Because Ram Persad is a Sikh he has to leave the Stork’sfamily.8. Balram drives Ashok and the Mongoose to Delhi.true falseChapter 4: the Fourth Night1. Belram often gets lost in Delhi because the numbering andlettering system of houses in the rich housing colonies ishighly logical.2. Mr Ashok repeatedly defends Balram against the Mongoose.3. Balram’s fellow drivers read quality papers while waiting fortheir masters to return.4. In Delhi, Balram sleeps in an ugly room full of cockroaches.But he likes this room because he can be on his own and theother servants cannot tease him.5. Ashok and the Mongoose bribe the president of India.6. In Delhi, Balram is impressed by the roads without jams andthe clean air.7. The Mongoose leaves Pinky Madam and Ashok.8. When Balram makes tea for Pinky Madam she is disgustedbecause Balram scratches his groin and has red paan all overhis teeth and red spots on his shirt.9. In front of a mall, drivers notice a poor Indian who is deniedaccess to the mall because he wears sandals instead of shoes.10. Although he wears an American style T-shirt and black shoes,Balram is not allowed to enter the mall because the guardsfind out that he is merely a paid driver.true false2

11. One night Ashok is drunk, drives the car and kills a child.12. Balram is forced to sign a document stating that he isresponsible for the accident and its consequences.Chapter 5: The Fifth Night1. Balram explains that Indian society can be compared to arooster coop.2. He says 99.9 per cent of all Indians exist in perpetualservitude.3. This system works because if a servant tries to stealsomething from his master, his whole family will bedestroyed.4. When Balram is sent to his master’s apartment, Ashok tellshim at once that he doesn’t have to go to jail.5. Pinky Madam splits up with Ashok and leaves India for good.6. Ashok is overjoyed that finally his wife wants a divorce.7. The Mongoose has returned to Delhi to supervise Balram.8. In her letter Kusum, Balram’s grandmother, wants Balram toask his employer to send money to the family.9. After the Mongoose has gone, Ashok urges Balram to massagehis feet.10. Balram meditates in his car and asks his fellow drivers to doso, too.true falseChapter 6: The Sixth Morning1. According to Balram, this chapter is about how he changedfrom an innocent man into a citified fellow full of debauchery,depravity and wickedness.2. Balram claims that Ashok did not contribute to his change.3. Balram complains that drivers are the lowest in the peckingorder of servants.4. According to Vitilgo Lips, the best case future scenario for adriver is a house in a slum and a kid in college.5. Ashok meets an African prostitute at the Sheraton.6. Balram engages in a conversation with a bookseller who hasread all the English books on sale.7. The bookseller anticipates social unrest because the Naxalshave got a whole army.8. Ashok likes seeing the cabinet minister.9. Ashok’s girlfriend warns him that he should not trust Balram.10. The politician that Ashok meets remarks that unlike inAmerica, elections can be managed in India.11. The politician complains about the deteriorating moralsituation in India but at the same time makes fun of Ashoktrue false3

who has been faithful to his wife all the time.12. Ashok determinedly refuses the politician’s offer to meet awhore with golden hair.13. Balram is completely indifferent to the conversation aboutmeeting a whore.14. Balram has a mysterious conversation with Delhi in whichsocial unrest is foreshadowed.Chapter 7: The Sixth Nighttrue false1. Balram thinks that the dreams of the poor and the dreams ofthe rich never overlap.2. Using the car for his own purposes Balram cheats Mr Ashokand feels guilty.3. Balram meets a prostitute and is enraged because her goldenhair is dyed.4. Mr Ashok feels pity for Balram and offers him to live in abetter place.5. Ashok complains about his decadent way of life and wantsBalram to take him to a place where ordinary people eat.6. The Mongoose tells Ashok that he has to remarry but this timethe family will arrange the marriage.7. When Ashok and the Mongoose see Balram rolling down thewindow and giving one rupee to a beggar, both of them scoldBalram for giving only such a small amount.8. Balram thinks that it is right to steal the money from Ashok.9. Balram visits a book market where a Muslim reads him twoverses that changes his life: ‘You were looking for the key foryears / But the door was always open!’10. One day a boy with a letter is waiting in his room. It turns outthat they boy is called Dharam, a remote relative of Balram’s.11. In the letter, Granny praises Balram’s generosity and leaves itup to him to decide whether to get married or not.12. Ashok and his family are upset because the ruling party, whichAshok’s family had bribed, has lost the elections. The GreatSocialist’s party (which they did not bribe) is one of thewinning parties. As a result, Ashok meets up with Vijay whohas become even more important and another representativeof the party and pays the party off.13. The two politicians leave an empty whiskey bottle in Balram’scar.14. When Balram looks into the eyes of the white tiger in the zoo,he feels invigorated ( revitalised).15. Balram writes a letter to Granny stating that he can no longerlive in a cage.16. Pretending to have problems with a wheel, Balram luresAshok out of the car and kills him.4

THE WHITE TIGER by Aravind Adiga Aravind Adiga is an Indo-Australian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. He was born in Madras (now Chennai) in 1974. He emigrated with his family to Sydney, Australia and later he studied English literature at Columbia College of Columbia University in New York .