2007

Hapax Legoman "is, therefore he thinks."

Hapax Legoman "is writing in the third person. And looking for a housemate. If you hear of anyone who might be interested, please let Jordan know."

Hapax Legoman "is now in the top hundred people in the world on the Facebook iLike Music Challenge. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Hapax Legoman "is now past the halfway-point of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And it just got so much better. "

Hapax Legoman. "Now over two-thirds of the way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And is now putting it down to take advantage of this beautiful day."

Hapax Legoman. "… Meh. The day's not that great. Less than a quarter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to go."

Hapax Legoman. "… Bloody heck. Fifty odd pages of The Deathly Hallows to go and I've got to head off for dinner. Probably ought to plan lessons for Year 7 and 10 too…"

Hapax Legoman "is finished with The Deathly Hallows. Unlike many of the characters therein, unfortunately Professor Morris has to return to school tomorrow."

Hapax Legoman "is taller in real life."

Hapax Legoman "is not going to change his Facebook status to the inappropriate phrase suggested by Phoebe. "

Hapax Legoman "is wishing more people would play Scrabulous with him."

Hapax Legoman "is now up to more than 100 answered questions on 10 Second Interview. Which took a lot longer than 10 seconds."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering why Julius Caesar is giving him the finger. Actually, it's probably because Julius is sick of idiots coming up and posing for photographs with him."

Hapax Legoman "is running out of interesting profile pictures."

Hapax Legoman "is on school holidays."

Hapax Legoman "is incapable of being summarised in two hundred and fifty-five characters."

Hapax Legoman "is very happy to hear that Billy Bragg and Björk will be in Australia next year. As always, Jordan wishes it was still the nineties, but this is at least a start."

Hapax Legoman "is feeling solipsistic. You are probably a figment of his imagination."

Hapax Legoman "is truly happy."

Hapax Legoman "is exhausted (but still happy.)"

Hapax Legoman "is supposed to be at school at 5:30 in the morning. He had forgotten that there even *was* a 5:30 in the morning."

Hapax Legoman "is … wow… there really *is* a 5:30 in the morning!"

Hapax Legoman "is apologetic because Facebook apparently just sent everyone a notification that he'd updated his blog. He didn't mean to do that."

Hapax Legoman "is he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."

Hapax Legoman "is The Carpenter."

Hapax Legoman "is marking."

Hapax Legoman "is wanted, dead or alive. Actually, alive would be preferable if you can manage it. Thanks!"

Hapax Legoman "is in need of new day-to-day shoes after destroying his in the 6-inch deep muddy water and constant rain of an Elton John mosh pit. (Yes, you read that right.)"

Hapax Legoman "is in-between internet providers."

Hapax Legoman "is ten years late in his thinking, but it's sadly ironic that Katie Bender was killed by an exploding hospital and that her memorial's a bit of rock by the lake."

Hapax Legoman "is bored with the internet. There doesn't seem to be anything good on it."

Hapax Legoman "hopes everyone has had a great Saturnalia and is wishing you all a happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti."

2008

Hapax Legoman "is wishing you all a happy International Year of the Potato."

Hapax Legoman. "Jordan Bo Bordan Bonana Fanna Fo Fordan Mee My Mo Mordan. Jordan!"

Hapax Legoman "isn't in the ACT or New South Wales. (He's nowhere particularly exotic, it's just not often that he gets to say that, that's all)."

Hapax Legoman "is back in the AC(C)T. You don't know how lucky you be."

Hapax Legoman "is thinking, "if someone who'd married and had a daughter to one of the Dawson's Creek girls had to die then why couldn't it have been Tom Cruise?""

Hapax Legoman. "… "You're an enigma, Jordy. I don't know where you came from. And I don't know where you're going. But I love you." (Gran, 2008.)"

Hapax Legoman "is a hound dog in the sun."

Hapax Legoman "is reading the Facebook 'privacy' policy: "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers". Um… okaaay."

Hapax Legoman "is the rerun that you'll always force yourself to sit through."

Hapax Legoman "is autumn cleaning."

Hapax Legoman "is as constant as the northern star."

Hapax Legoman. "Constant in the darkness, where's that at? if you want me I'll be in the bar…"

Hapax Legoman "is genetically modifying & experimenting on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice & poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy & taking drugs."

Hapax Legoman "is drinking absinthe. It makes the heart grow fonder."

Hapax Legoman "is worshipping Anglo-Saxon equinoctial goddesses."

Hapax Legoman "is attempting to come up with a witty status update."

Hapax Legoman "is shaken, not stirred."

Hapax Legoman "is attempting to come up with a witty status update.

Hapax Legoman "is like a book, elegantly bound but in a language that you can't read just yet."

Hapax Legoman "is like a puppy dog on its knees. Is that even possible? Are there knees on dogs' legs?"

Hapax Legoman "is thinking, "hmmm… if this is autumn, I wonder what they've got planned for winter. I hope they haven't played all their cards too soon"."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering if the constant inquisition about what I'm "doing right now" is some sort of CIA conspiracy to keep tabs on us all."

Hapax Legoman "has come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And he's all out of bubblegum."

Hapax Legoman "is passed out in your engine. Also, your mechanic is a pony."

Hapax Legoman "is not the Messiah."

Hapax Legoman "played dice with God. And He won."

Hapax Legoman "can't go away with you on a rock climbing weekend."

Hapax Legoman "won't lace your Coke with anthrax or anything."

Hapax Legoman "is the son and heir of nothing in particular."

Hapax Legoman. "…Armageddon is bedding this picture all right. My Marilyn, come to my slum for an hour!"

Hapax Legoman "is one week away from retirement. And half-expecting Mel Gibson to show up."

Hapax Legoman "is a silkworm moth."

Hapax Legoman "is annoying."

Hapax Legoman "doesn't know what he is doing right now."

Hapax Legoman "will not try it in his house. He will not click it with his mouse. He'd rather die by grappling hook. He does not like this "new Facebook"."

Hapax Legoman. "…ice cracks on a seamless line."

Hapax Legoman "hates the new Facebook. Such an ingenious way to stop people from using their product."

Hapax Legoman "is doing his tax. And his brain hurts."

Hapax Legoman "is watching fuel prices at the petrol station across the road and wondering what decade it is. <Crosses fingers for the Nineties!>"

Hapax Legoman "has *not* answered any questions about anyone's personal life. He has not even added that application. He clicked a link and it spammed everyone he knows."

2009

Hapax Legoman "was just surprised to find his article on parenting at the newsagent (Wondertime, page 122). Jordan does not actually have any children."

Hapax Legoman "is AlanLamontJoanPhyllisMorjoPurpleRabbitLamontSydneyTheGreenOrangeJuiceJomoLemonGingerNutCheetahBarcooMorizzleOrlaanrisBlackAudreyEauD’IsseyGreenFrog."

Hapax Legoman "is astonished that the new ending actually makes sense. Thirty-five minutes ago."

Hapax Legoman "doesn't know what Twitter is, yet his intuition is telling him that it must be whatever the hell Facebook is trying to imitate right now."

Hapax Legoman "just read that the world's foremost expert on the neurobiology of transsexuals is named Dick Swaab. For some reason, I find that amusing."

Hapax Legoman "is staring blankly at the keyboard, hands poised over the keys. He realises he has run out of things to do on the Internet and is not sure what to do next."

Hapax Legoman "read the SMH article about Twitter and is ironically posting about it here. Evan Williams seems down-to-Earth, but Biz Stone is a pompous, self-important twat"

Hapax Legoman "just noticed some invisible text when he mouse-highlighted his 'All Friends' page: "What doesn't kill a quail only makes it stronger". Facebook, you are an odd fellow."

Hapax Legoman "loved those two weeks without school traffic; wonders how Turkish Australians feel about ANZAC Day; believes that 'Electric Feel' is the weakest track on "Oracular Spectacular" and is concerned that he's started to think in Facebook statuses."

Hapax Legoman "has blocked his annual payment to The Autumn Fan Club."

Hapax Legoman "has – thus far today – exchanged salutations with last year's Booker Prize winner and chatted with the winner of three Drama Pulitzer Prizes. And it's only 9:45am."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering if wolves can whistle."

Hapax Legoman "can never hear 'When Doves Cry' without thinking Prince's father's name is 'Tubold'. It's not, it's John."

Hapax Legoman "just passed a group of kids in the street, arguing: "It's a simile!" "No it's not, it's alliteration." "A simile!" "Alliteration!" Best argument ever."

Hapax Legoman. ""I think if you haven't read the script and you go and you see it and you understand it, I think you might be a genius." (Megan Fox, Re: 'Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen'.)"

Hapax Legoman "is so vain, he probably thinks this status update is about him."

Hapax Legoman "wishes he could read his own handwriting. "Hyircs polf to th 8terdrr of th wknovh"? Hmm… somehow I don't think that's right…"

Hapax Legoman. "Apparently Noel Gallagher's spent over a million quid on drugs. On top of that, I wonder how many he got for free…"

Hapax Legoman. "Dust. Anybody? No? High in fat/low in fat? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. It's actually very low in fat. You can have as much dust as you like."

Hapax Legoman. "The Sydney music papers are giving away free life-sized Matt Bellamys this week. (You know, if you're into that sort of thing.)"

Hapax Legoman "likes going for sunlit walks down familar streets on Google Street View."

Hapax Legoman "has just returned from the Sydney airport, where the sign on the front door of the McDonalds states that "Your conversations will be audio and video recorded for quality assurance purposes." WTH?"

Hapax Legoman "is thinking that if they had any solid evidence against Bill Posters, surely they would have prosecuted him by now."

Hapax Legoman "is facepalming at The Sydney Morning Herald's mathematics. Pink played 58 shows in Australia. She sold 660,000 tickets. It doesn't follow, however, that Pink's tour was seen by "one in every 32 Australians". I could use the exact same statistics as the SMH in order to 'prove' that the same 11,000 people went to all her shows and thus it was seen by one in every 2000 Australians. (The truth lies somewhere in between.)"

Hapax Legoman "is worried that Facebook will judge this status update to be un-News-Feed-worthy."

Hapax Legoman. "Out Of Office AutoReply: Jordan will be away from Facebook from the 14th to the 21st. If it's your move on Wordscraper, please forward all enquiries to http://apps.facebook.com/wordscraper/ If you want to comment on how handsome Jordan looks in his photos, you should follow this link: http://www.opsm.com.au/ If you want to offer Jordan a stray farm animal to look after, please don't. He'd probably just eat it."

Hapax Legoman "is amused that The Dandy Warhols lived up to their promise and covered Blackbird once Michael Jackson died. Now I only wish that a more Dandyesque Beatles song had rhymed with 'absurd'."

Hapax Legoman "It's been nearly three days, but Jordan still can't help but chuckle every time he remembers that Bella Swan flies Virgin America."

Hapax Legoman "has a message for everyone who's ever told him he should back up everything important on an external hard drive. That message is: "well it's not much good if I then decide to move my laptop while it's still *plugged into* the external hard drive, sending the hard drive crashing onto the tiled floor." Sigh. At least all my important stuff is still on the laptop (since I never actually got around to 'backing it up'.)"

Hapax Legoman. "Summer's got to be over soon, right? Right?"

Hapax Legoman "is worried that he still doesn't know if 'The Noughties' is the actual name for this decade and yet we're already about to start another one."

2010

Hapax Legoman "‎- somewhere in his heart – is always dancing with you in the Summer rain."

Hapax Legoman "misses the thunder. He misses the rain. And the fact that you don't understand casts a shadow over this land. But the sun still shines from behind it."

Hapax Legoman "has just returned from a week of living in a girls' boarding school. Facebook was blocked."

Hapax Legoman "thinks he would update his Facebook status more often if he had that 'Facebook for iPhone' application. Oh, and an iPhone."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering whether child internet filters block web pages that 'disprove' the existence of The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy."

Hapax Legoman. "‎… Is it implicit that people who like middle-of-the-road music are bad drivers?"

Hapax Legoman "loves 'bat season' in Sydney. Right now, thousands of them are rising as a typhoon from the botanic gardens like something out of a sci-fi apocalypse. Only cuter."

Hapax Legoman. "Overheard in Rose Bay: "damn it – I brought my home phone instead of my mobile.""

Hapax Legoman "just got naked with five thousand other people."

Hapax Legoman. "Since I haven't slagged off Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen on here in several months, it's now time to point out that it won three Razzies – one for Worst Film, one for Worst Screenplay and the third for Worst Director. And it was the second highest-grossing film in 2009. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere."

Hapax Legoman "There are no longer two Coreys!"

Hapax Legoman. "In an attempt to further comprehend the Beyonce lyrics from last Wednesday's XKCD strip, I just forced myself to sit through the three minutes of nothing that is the video clip for 'Single Ladies'. And then I realised the significance of that video. How the heck was that "one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!"?"

Hapax Legoman "would like to acknowledge Mungo Man, the diprotodon, muttaburrasaurus, amoeba and primordial soup, the traditional owners of this land."

Hapax Legoman "hasn't actually bought any pairs of high heels or leather shoes from any online shops, but apologies to anyone who was spammed by my Hotmail account's misguided attempt to sell footwear last night. My new password should *hopefully* be more spambot-secure. (It has… like… numbers in it and stuff.)"

Hapax Legoman. "Holy moley – Operator Please tickets are *$25*. I feel like it's 1997. (Well, except for the fact that I won't be seeing a bandful of seven year-olds.)"

Hapax Legoman "just realised that Easter Sunday is twenty-five hours long this year. Nicely done, Jesus."

Hapax Legoman. "How did someone who's not even the most beautiful person in her own family get to be on the cover of Who magazine's Most Beautiful People? Oh – right – apparently someone knocked her up. Is that all it took to come out of her sister's shadow? If Dannii had known that, she probably would have gotten pregnant decades ago. Like… on Young Talent Time."

Hapax Legoman "went to see a film today and there was only one other person in the entire cinema. And she was sitting next to me."

Hapax Legoman "Just helped a guy who's working on the animation for a new 3D Mad Max film. Now… maybe I'm a bit slow, but I've interpreted that as meaning that there's going to be a new Mad Max film. In 3D. And that it's going to be animated."

Hapax Legoman "is probably a bit slow, but he just realised that Danielle Spencer is related to someone *really* famous! Her dad is Don Spencer from Play School! "Feathers, fur or fins,/Shell or skin or scales,/If it runs on legs or flies on wings,/If it walks or crawls or slithers or swims/It's got its place in the scheme of things./Feathers, fur or fins.""

Hapax Legoman "wishes he wasn't working tonight so he could go to roller derby, where his wife is the half-time entertainment performer. (Plus, since 95% of everything I know about roller derby I learned from Whip It, that means there's a 95% chance that Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore will be there!)"

Hapax Legoman "Sometimes it's not the stapler that's the problem, it's the staples."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering how big Kevin Rudd's carbon footprint would be if Rudd postponed breathing until after the 2013 election."

Hapax Legoman "hopes everyone had a great Star Wars day. May The Fourth be with you."

Hapax Legoman. "Thanks muchly to to the commenters on my blog both here and on the blog itself. There's a new one if you're interested (see the link below. Comments are beloved. Well, kind ones, anyway.)"

Hapax Legoman "was excited that he got the chance to shake Noah Taylor's hand.

(There was no felafel in it at the time.)"

Hapax Legoman. "The NSW Department Of Education has ruled that while full-time teachers are "on duty", they are not allowed to teach ethics to students. For some reason, I find that hilarious."

Hapax Legoman "mentioned to his wife the other day that something was up with Gillard, since she finally had a good hairdo and colour after forty-nine years. For a woman who lives with a hairdresser, it was suss that she hadn't seen the value in having good hair until this month. Congratulations to Julia on securing the top job, too. (But mainly on the hair.)"

Hapax Legoman "is disappointed that the Liberal Party can no longer run their Kevin 0Lemon smear campaign. As a replacement, I suggest "0 Ranga Ten"."

Hapax Legoman "is thinking that if he wants the grass to be greener on *this* side of the fence, then he has to remember to water it."

Hapax Legoman "changed his mind and now has third-row seats to hear Silent Bob talk for three hours."

Hapax Legoman "is wondering if anyone who has moved on to greener or iPhonier pastures has an old unloved Nokia BP-5M phone battery that he or she no longer needs. If so, could I please be its new owner?"

Hapax Legoman "belatedly thanks everyone who wished his birthday was happy. (Thanks!)"

Hapax Legoman "talked to Joss Whedon and shook his hand today. (I'd say I'm never going to wash my hand again. But then I remembered I've already washed it.)"

Hapax Legoman. "Facebook's MasterCard sponsorship box keeps asking me "What's Good Charlotte's best song?" That's either an oxymoron or the kind of inverse omnipotence paradox that's so insoluble that it makes my head want to explode."

Hapax Legoman. "No, you're not asking a question, you're making a statement. "Who", "Are", "How", "Is", "Where", "May", "Who", "Can", "Why", "Am" and "What" are all fine words with which to start a sentence if one wants to ask a question. "There's nowhere more secure to leave the luggage" is not a question, and it's *particularly* not a question if you don't intone your voice upwards at the end of the sentence."

Hapax Legoman "just heard his dad on the radio. Apparently he's the "Federal Director of Barton Deakin". That was a weird way to find out…"

2011

Hapax Legoman "thought up a new Facebook status, then Googled it to make sure it was original. Apparently Mark Twain beat him by over a century. That guy came up with all the best stuff – if I could, I'd follow him on Twitter."

Hapax Legoman. "Not having Internet is not "like being in a Third World country". It does, however, necessitate actually living in the First World for a while."

Hapax Legoman. "Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away. And always remember to wash your hands afterwards."

Hapax Legoman. "An open letter to English-speaking people on this planet: if you ever find yourself tempted to say or write the phrase "going forward", please don't. Your sentence will be happier without it."

Hapax Legoman. "Piña coladas, getting caught in the rain, making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape, the taste of champagne and the feel of the ocean."

Hapax Legoman. "It's not hard to turn living into an art form. The hard bit is making sure you don't turn it into one of the crap ones, like finger painting or country music."

Hapax Legoman. "If you're an atheist, can you argue that you *are* insured against floods because acts of God aren't real?"

Hapax Legoman "was just told by a French woman that I was the rudest man she has ever met. I queried this, since as far as I could tell I hadn't actually done anything except organise a plumber to fix her shower and then knock on her door. But apparently "it is my attitude that's rude". Also, her shower wasn't even broken – she just couldn't work out how to use a shower-over-bath."

Hapax Legoman. "So, to reiterate, a person *from France* said I am the rudest man she's ever met. I think that's truly an achievement."

Hapax Legoman. "Since I get all my news from the radio, I demand a whole series of homophonically confusing levies. Let's have a road toll, orange dues, thumb tax and an it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine."

Hapax Legoman "is mad that 12:41 AM on Thursday the 27th of January happened 24 hours before he thought it did."

Hapax Legoman. "Bring on the year of the metal rabbit! \–/"

Hapax Legoman. "Microsoft Word's green squiggly line is suggesting I replace "you've" with "you has". Everything suddenly makes sense. Its grammar check was created by LOLcats."

Hapax Legoman. "‎'Impactful' is not a word. The word you are looking for is 'effective'. Using 'impactful' once in an article was bad enough, but twice made my fist want to impact your face."

Hapax Legoman. "Holding hands is either brilliant design on the part of the gods or an awesome evolutionary adaptation."

Hapax Legoman. "‎"I was under the impression that these doors are locked at night." That's nice. I'm under the impression that you're an idiot. So do you have a question?"

Hapax Legoman "has a spare ticket for Belle and Sebastian tonight at the Opera House, 8pm. Anyone?"

Hapax Legoman. "The highlight of Mark Ronson last night – the one-two-three punch of Radiohead's 'Just' and the theme from The OC sung by Alex Greenwald, followed by 'Oh My God' sung by Rosay from the Pipettes. ♥"

Hapax Legoman. "What the hell is this song even about? None of the lines are semantically intelligible. And… she's "feeling fly like a G6"? What does that mean? Fly like the European Union? Like the G7 before Canada joined? Like a square on a chessboard? I think I can actually feel my brain cells eroding as this song plays out."

Hapax Legoman "just found out what the lyrics to 'Alouette' mean. "Skylark, nice skylark./Skylark, I shall pluck you./I shall pluck your head/And your beak/And your neck/And your back/And your wings/And your feet/And your tail/And your head,/Skylark./I shall pluck you." That is seriously #@(%ed up. Why did no one tell me as a child that I was singing a song about mutilating a bird?"

Hapax Legoman. "They should turn Bridget Riley paintings into long-sleeved shirts."

Hapax Legoman "has hope."

Hapax Legoman. "Smart one, Gillard. Oblige the US President to listen to nineteen Powderfinger and Bernard Fanning songs. They nuked Hiroshima for less than that."

Hapax Legoman. "This page intentionally left blank."

Hapax Legoman. "Facebook's new messaging system is one of the worst interfaces I've ever had the misfortune of using. Want to write a message that's taller than twenty-one lines? Sorry, we won't let you see what you're writing. Do you habitually press enter to start a new paragraph? Ha, you just started a new message! Blergh."

Hapax Legoman. "Tomorrow is my favourite day. Twenty-five hours to waste instead of the usual twenty-four!"

Hapax Legoman "is the least productive person Sarina Del Fuego knows."

Hapax Legoman "thinks he needs a prescription for Ritalin."

Hapax Legoman. "We're getting the hotel fumigated, and the pest control guy came in with a BED BUG SNIFFING DOG!"

Hapax Legoman. "Last night one of the people in my vivid dream said she'd been having vivid dreams. Is that a sign of a potential inception?"

Hapax Legoman "thinks it requires a special level of retardation if – even after seeing the stairs (and the lift) – one still needs to ask "how do I get upstairs?""

Hapax Legoman. "I'm sitting in my office, and a girl just walked down the hallway, yelling the following into her phone: "I had sex with Jay last night – he has the biggest penis I have ever seen in my life. Sorry!""

Hapax Legoman "always meant to have Imperial walkers and giant dewback lizards in the background, but simply couldn't afford it."

Hapax Legoman "is continually refreshing Google until he sees all sixteen Roger Hargreaves logos."

Hapax Legoman. ""Jordan, do you mind if I ask how old you are?" "I'm thirty…" "Wow, you look much younger." (I didn't correct her on the fact that she didn't actually let me finish my original sentence.)"

Hapax Legoman. "If I were only half living life to the fullest, would that mean I was also living life to the half-emptiest?"

Hapax Legoman. "Serbia – un million points; Romania – douze points; Iceland – dix points; Germany – neuf points; Georgia, Spain and Moldova – nul points."

Hapax Legoman. "ST PETER: Hello and welcome to the gates of Heaven. I just have to go through this checklist and… hmm. Oh…. I thought that was only supposed to turn you blind, but it says here that you died by planking. Here we call that the sin of onan, and…

GHOST: No, PLanking. Dude, you lie like a plank and someone takes a photo of you. It's rad – I fell from my seventh-storey balcony.
       
ST PETER: Ah. Well in that case there's technically nothing here that prevents you from getting into Heaven. Just head through those pearly gates. And congratulations on your inevitable Darwin Award.
       
GHOST: Thanks, man! [Goes inside.]
       
ST PETER [muttering]: What a planker.
       
JESUS: Hi! Welcome to the meeting.

GHOST: Oh my God… you're Jesus!

JESUS: Yes… and yes.

GHOST: And you came here just to help me with my addiction?

JESUS: You misunderstand. Hi, I'm Jesus, and I'm a plankaholic.

GHOST: You're addicted to plankahol?

JESUS: Um… no. To planking. I used to be totally mad for it. Back then we really planked – it wasn't like today with your fancy balconies and signs and train tracks and whatnot. All we had to plank on were planks of wood.

GHOST: Jesus dude! I can't wait to post this on Facebook. So what happened?

JESUS: Long story. Being a carpenter, planks were just… always around. It took me years to realise I had a problem. Until this one bad planking accident involving two planks and three nails. 2000 years later and I still haven't lived that one down."

Hapax Legoman "is amused that Facebook just recommended that he should be friends with Simon Day from RatCat because we have seven mutual friends. Yeah-eh-eh-eh! And that ain't bad."

Hapax Legoman. "Poppy seed bread is the opiate of the masses."

Hapax Legoman "has decided that "entende o" must be Portuguese for "um"."

Hapax Legoman. "Since when has May had thirty-one days? Did it steal yet another one from February?"

Hapax Legoman "is annoyed at the arrogance of people who claim something must be true because a majority of scientists say so. A majority of scientists said that the atom was the smallest particle, the sun revolved around the Earth, and humans and chimps don't share a common ancestor. I don't care if human-produced climate change is real or not, but I do care about the implication that society has to blindly believe what it's told."

Hapax Legoman. "To the expert in his field who used the phrase "antidotal evidence" at least twice on the radio today: someone really needs to correct you on that."

Hapax Legoman. "Received hug and kiss on the cheek from former Neighbours starlet and spent an hour with police and criminal 'mastermind' fraudster who'd claimed to be "Gareth Evans". (N.B. it wasn't really Gareth Evans.) On balance, not a terrible day."

Hapax Legoman. "If I may kill all the bluejays I want, but it's a sin to kill a mockingbird, then where exactly on the killing/sin spectrum does treeful-of-screeching-mynah-birds fall?"

Hapax Legoman. "Did anyone else hear the interview with Rose Byrne this morning where she called Angela Bishop 'Bronwyn'? So good."

Hapax Legoman "just watched a car-window-washer-man pick up a littered apple, smash it on the road and collect the seeds. Is that normal? I can't imagine it's that easy to grow an apple tree. Maybe he's accumulating cyanide to poison someone."

Hapax Legoman "has started watching daytime television for the first time in many years and there appear to be only three types of advertisement. 1. Get life insurance because you're going to die. 2. Get funeral insurance because you're going to die. 3. Get health insurance so you can die in comfort."

Hapax Legoman. "Why are there yellow, orange, red, purple and white things in my green salad?"

Hapax Legoman "is ambisinistrous."

Hapax Legoman. "According to Newspoll research released today, of Australia's capital cities, the residents of Canberra are the happiest. Or least unhappy."

Hapax Legoman "would like to explain the difference between sexism and puns to the Telegraph. "Juliar" is not sexism, it is a pun. It is the same as "Kevin O'Lemon" and "The Mad Monk". Stating that it is sexist implies that only female politicians are liars. This is clearly not true."

Hapax Legoman. ""What's it called? When they put money in for when you're dead?" "Super?" "Yeah.""

Hapax Legoman. "Microsoft… stop trying to make Bing happen! It's not going to happen!"

Hapax Legoman "just watched Captain America. I can suspend disbelief when it comes to Nazis speaking English, but was kind of taken out of the moment when they'd used English to write signs on their bombs and 'autopilot' buttons."

Hapax Legoman "just heard that Kevin Rudd has a heart. Must have missed the press statement when the Blue Fairy made him a real boy."

Hapax Legoman. "Thanks to all for the birthday wishes and a glorious day."

Hapax Legoman. "The expert on office design (on the radio) described my pile-everything-on-the-desk style as a 'caldera desk' but I think it's more like stratification."

Hapax Legoman. "R.E.M. split up today, a shocking announcement for the 6.9 billion people on the planet who thought R.E.M. broke up ten years ago."

Hapax Legoman. "At 1:30pm, my first words to another human being on this school holiday Wednesday were, "It's hard to get up and out of bed when I don't have to." In other news, yesterday I noticed a child whose parents had left him unattended in a car. Well, not entirely unattended – the parents had left the child in the car with a goat."

Hapax Legoman. "My phone is telling me that I missed a call yesterday, but it's like a child with a half-assed phone message for its parent, so it can't actually remember exactly when, or who it was from. If you were that caller, please let me know – I'm not ignoring you, (my phone is.) Even if you weren't that caller and want to pretend to be, that's good too."

Hapax Legoman. "Hold on… Monica is Ross's sister and Chandler was Ross's college roommate. And then Monica and Chandler just coincidentally happened to live in apartments that were opposite each other? How does that make sense? (It's stuff like this that keeps me awake at night.)"

Hapax Legoman. "I have a new, ingenious savings plan! What I'm going to do is, every time I want to spend $50, I don't do it! Then, after going through this process just 200 times, I will have $10,000! If I repeat this simple cycle just 100 times then I shall have *one* *million* *dollars*! I am already getting rich as you read this!"

Hapax Legoman "just drove home behind a kangaroo through four suburban streets."

Hapax Legoman. "If people really died in wars so we could be here today, I'd say it's not such a big deal for us to pay a bit of tax so people at some time in the future can live to say the same thing."

Hapax Legoman. ""We're sticklers for historical accuracy on this programme. We always check whether something existed in the time when dragons spoke, and if it didn't… well then we don’t use it." (Julian Murphy, producer of 'Merlin')."

Hapax Legoman. "What is the point of decaffeinated coffee? Is it meant to be like methadone or cigarette patches?"

Hapax Legoman. "EARNEST STUDENT FROM TOP YEAR TEN ENGLISH CLASS: "You know how you can hear the sun?"

ME: "Um… No."

ESFTYTEC: "Yeah – you know – the noise sunlight makes. You can hear it on a sunny day."

ME: "There's a soundless vacuum between us and the sun. There is no… sun noise."

ESFTYTEC: "Sure there is! Moonlight makes a noise too…"

ME: "Right… Is it the same sound the sun makes only reflected?"

ESFTYTEC: "No, it's different." ESFTYTEC sticks her head out the window. "The sun definitely makes a noise. Can't you hear it."

ME – actually checking to see if I can hear the sun. "That's a helicopter."

ESFTYTEC: "Not the helicopter, the sun."

ME: "You can… hear the sun over the helicopter? What?! You have synaesthesia."

ESFTYTEC (is played the SOHO spacecraft's recording of the sun): "No, that's not it… I seriously thought everyone could hear it… You know… when you step outside and there's just that moon sound?""

Hapax Legoman. "So… Obama just came here with his 500-person entourage, fifty automobiles, helicopters, planes (etc.) while, back home, Americans are protesting economic waste? Couldn’t he just have used Skype?"

Hapax Legoman "likes his own status."

Hapax Legoman. "Hold on… so in Cabbage Patch Kids canon, why the heck did Xavier Roberts go around signing the bottoms of children? (Yes, once again it's past midnight, the randomly-strewn paperwork inside my brain is blowing in the wind and this is what I found.)"

Hapax Legoman. "Happy dies natalis Solis Invicti!"

2012

Hapax Legoman. "It's 2012. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know."

Hapax Legoman. "Beyoncé was pregnant?"

Hapax Legoman "met Brian Eno, Susan from Coupling (Sarah Alexander) and Chris Martin last night. Chris Martin liked my hat. Or… liked that I was wearing a hat."

Hapax Legoman. "It is unsurprising that it was an Italian and not the English who proved that the Earth revolved around the sun. It would be hard for an Englishman to prove that the Earth revolved around something that he had never actually seen."

Hapax Legoman. ""When I became a man I put away childish things because… wow, then I could afford much *better* childish things!" (Terry Pratchett)"

Hapax Legoman. "Seriously, how do plants photosynthesise in this country?"

Hapax Legoman. "If I'd known at the time that the guy on the phone was from Dexys Midnight Runners I would have told him at that moment he meant everything to me."

Hapax Legoman "is in trouble for sitting on a cushion, having been under the mistaken impression that it was what cushions were for. My life is this:" http://youtu.be/Lp0-8Ibkczc

Hapax Legoman "just received fan mail from Morocco. I'm big in Morocco."

Hapax Legoman. ""The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment." T. H. White."

Hapax Legoman "I don't know why Richard Dawkins doesn't just say, "If God existed, why would he let me (of all people) sleep with Lalla Ward every night." QED."

Hapax Legoman. "Just ten years before I was born, the world population was half what it is now. That is insane."

Hapax Legoman. "Dear England, if you would like to convince me that you are in a drought, perhaps you could try NOT BEING CONSTANTLY RAINED ON! Yours sincerely, Jordan."

Hapax Legoman. "Why is there a University of Essex?"

Hapax Legoman "is annoyed that people are always told not to post things on Facebook because they will be on the internet eternally, and yet the things I actually want to find (my old 10-Second Interviews, LiveBlog posts and Notes) all appear to be gone forever."

Hapax Legoman "Apparently Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' still nets Stock Aitken Waterman £1,000,000 a year. I wonder if it's possible that a good percentage of that is royalties from people being Rickrolled. Full article here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ (J/k. But the £1,000,000 statistic is true.)"

Hapax Legoman "just finished working behind the bar at the cricket club and on my way home walked past the block where Anne Brontë used to work as the governess. Life is unexpected."

Hapax Legoman. "I hate most of the contexts in which people use the word 'tolerant' – it always seems to imply that the thing being 'tolerated' is negative and something that must be grudgingly endured."

Hapax Legoman "just realised that there's a stone called sardonyx. I must use that as a character's name at some point."

Hapax Legoman. "It's hard to look right/At you, baby,/Like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it./So call me, maybe."

Hapax Legoman "is not a free man, he is a number."

**********

(If you still want to be Facebook friends with me after reading all that, you can find me here.)

**********

Welcome to The Thursday Throng and this week I’d like to welcome Lesley Fletcher, a poet and the creator of 5 Pillars of the Gypsy – a work that combines her art and poetry in a beautiful volume that stirs the senses and the heart of the reader.

I have found myself reading more poetry recently as a result of finding new and inspiring writers around the web and Lesley is one such person. I was fortunate to be given a copy of her new book, 5 Pillars of the Gypsy and found myself stunned by the combination of imagery through her paintings and words through her poetry. It is a beautifully explored subject and left me feeling fulfilled and inspired. This is a journey both emotional and spiritual towards a sense of redemption and understanding and acceptance.

So, on to the interview.

Hi Lesley and I’d like to open by asking you my favourite question,  ’What is One thing that No-One Normally Knows About You?’

People are somewhat surprised to learn that my halo falls off sometimes. I have a soft, friendly mannerism that seems to attract a bit of bulls**t and I truly believe that those who throw it my way are totally unaware of my sixth sense. So the answer is that my intuition is a huge hidden asset.

What did the best review you ever had say about you and your work?

I recently did a visual check at Amazon regarding my books/author page; which order they were in and if there was anything new, anything to update and to my great surprise I received a review that left me completely stunned. It reads short but oh so sweet – ‘How beautifully written your poetry is, reminding me of Elizabeth Barrett Browning with a touch of Aristotle thrown in for perception. Well done you.’ If it gets better than that then someone will have to pinch me.

How did you choose a title for your book?

There were three previous titles before finally deciding that ‘5 Pillars of the Gypsy’ was the right one. I feel, in retrospect that all of the setbacks that I encountered were because I had the wrong title! That may seem like a foolish thing to say out loud but I believe strongly in listening to the Universe and it was yelling at me for quite a while.

I forget the first title (I had put in in my phone notebook and lost it when my phone died forever).

The second title was ‘Healing with Words’ but when I mentioned it in an interview a woman who had written a book with the same title blasted me via email. I know legally I had every right to maintain and use it and even suggested that cross promotion may help her sales but alas she proved to me in no uncertain terms that ‘cross’ was the optimum word so I scraped it.

My third title was ‘Listener’ which after some time and ordering a proof copy, struck me as a BORING title that would not reflect the nuances of the book. I do though mention in my book that listening has afforded me treasures I wasn’t aware existed until I learned how.

Finally, I had a brainstorm and instituted the current title to reflect the poems and artwork in the fashion that they were created and incorporate ‘Gypsy’ into the title because that is what the book is about. It is about a mind that will not settle on being just placated. It is about a gypsy who searches, as we all do for a place to call her own spiritual centre of our Universe. And finally, I used the reference to the 5 Pillars of Islam (renamed by the gypsy) to reflect places in the Middle East that deeply, deeply affected my own perception of people, religion, misconceptions and realisations and ultimately my art and poetry/prose.

How do you remain sane while working?

Peace and quiet are my best friends but neither one is an assurance of sanity. I feel that stepping outside of the box of ‘sane’ is a necessity when writing or the imagination will not be able to produce its best results. In order for me to write more than just notebook writing I have to set up a perfect scenario for myself. I know what works for me is cloistering without a schedule or a care to watch the clock regarding day, night, eating, sleeping – the works. It is not always possible to do this because life gets in the way but I have found a few opportunities and grabbed them! And that is how I have been able to produce my four books.

What has been the best experience you have ever had in your life?

I mention in one of my poems (the Gypsy Continues) a reference to 27 days which refers to my own solo trip to tour Turkey. “When she leaves that life behind /For twenty-seven days, / The universe must guide her / As she stumbles through the haze.”

One of the parts of the tour included a 4 night, 3 day trip on a 16 person Gullet that leaves from Fethiye to Olympus. There were mostly part couples traveling together, the crew and myself. Good fortune shined on that boat because, considering the mix of people the unexpected happened; there was a tremendous chemistry that resonated throughout the trip. As it happened I let someone know it was my birthday and very much to my delight the crew and its passengers took it upon themselves to throw me a surprise party on board. There was singing, eating, dancing and finally a birthday cake prepare by the cook without the advantage of an oven, complete with sparklers, a small gift, a card signed by all and a glorious rendition of Happy Birthday! Following those festivities we departed our lagoon on a water taxi to a lone ‘disco’ in the middle of the sea. That created a memory that I will hold near and dear forever. I don’t ever remember having a surprise party – I had a blast

What is the book that you wished you had written?

My first reaction was to choose a classic here but recently I read a book, ‘White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga that really caught me off guard, taking me completely by surprise. It won the 2008 Man Booker Prize but even if it hadn’t won any prizes I would have loved to have written it because to have written this type of book takes deep knowledge of the people of India and superb writing skill as it is a first-person narrative with an unattractive main character. Adiga’s honesty is something to be emulated. I did not catch a hint of apology or trickery in his honesty. Now, to be able to produce a book like this, keep it current, win a prize, sell it and make a living from it must have required so much gumption coupled with a confident resolve that I admire and aspire to create for myself.

Set in a raw and un-romanticized India, The White Tiger—the first-person confession of a murderer—is as compelling for its subject matter as it is for the voice of its narrator: amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply endearing.

(Linda’s aside – White Tiger is also one of my unexpected favourite reads which challenges you to think differently about people and what they do)

25. If you could commit the perfect murder where would you hide the body? Best not to have a body Linda. No body – no proof there was a murder. I know because I watch TV sometimes

(Linda’s aside – Good point Lesley)

Thanks so much Lesley for spending a little time with me today and I wish you all the very best for 5 Pillars of the Gypsy.

Where to buy the book and find out more about Lesley.

You can find out more about Lesley on her website at: journeyofthegypsy.wordpress.com/

You can buy 5 Pillars on Amazon in the UK and on Amazon in the US too.

Oh, and don’t forget to go and meet Lesley on Facebook at facebook.com/InspirationImport and on Twitter too here: twitter.com/gypsyles

Oh, and you can find my reviews on Goodreads here: goodreads.com/book/show/13597555-5-pillars-of-the-gypsy and on Amazon UK here: amazon.co.uk/dp/0986533246 and on Amazon.com amazon.com/dp/0986533246

These posts are called The Thursday Throng in honour of the throng that waits eagerly outside the book store when a new author is doing a book signing event or appearance. On this website it takes the form of a ‘Meet the Author‘ online event with some information about our author’s latest book and an interview. If you would like to take part in the Thursday Throng then why not email me to find out more.

If you would like to see past Authors featured on The Thursday Throng you can click here: womanontheedgeofreality.com/category/thursday-throng/

Despite the balmy weather today, Monday-itis was an understatement for me.  Crabby, tired, emotional, irritable, and to make matters worse, I had to go back to work after a four-day weekend.  Or maybe I am just on edge hearing about the horrific crimes of Luka Rocco Magnotta, but whatever the cause, I feel like I am leaving something behind.

I know they speak many times in meditation about a grieving process on the path of finding your own freedom and that seems like an accurate assumption to my feelings as of late.  Why does such a large part of humanity grow jaded and shows their jealousy by spreading hate?  Why do people want to bring you down because you are simply going after what you want when they are too scared to themselves?

We think we are so progressive and modern in this country, but we really are still as backward as any third-world country when it comes to viewpoints on competition and success.  White Tiger by Aravind Adiga takes place in India and tells about a poor peasant coming from the inland of the country, AKA “The Darkness” to be a servant in Delhi and ultimately, becomes a successful entrepreneur.  Along the way, not only was he faced with constant challenges to test his endurance and cleverness, but constantly had to withstand attempted sabotage by his supposed well-wishers, the people nearest and dearest to him.  The author described it as the “The Rooster Coop.”  The characters friends and family members consistently guilt tripped him for wanting to do well, blamed him for their lack of fortune, not to mention just created a negative air all and all, about the character and his ideas and ambitions in life.  The Rooster Coop was further on described in the novel as also meaning that part of the problem of the poor class in India was that very same poor class wanted to remain miserable.

But are things so different here in the United States?  I think with the economic downturn of the last several years, this sort of mentality is more and more prevalent in society.  Now, I certainly don’t want to have some political or economic discussion on my blog.  Again, I will say it until I am blue in the face; I want to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.  My interest lies in human psyche rather than current affairs and where cultural debate is a noble idea to aspire to; it’s not the point of this entry either.

I do believe though a culture of competition is present here in America now, and when the vast majority of Americans have suffered greatly in the last decade, there seems to be an alarming belief in limited resources and even more sadly, limited happiness.

Just because someone reaches happiness and maybe you are not there yet doesn’t mean you ever can’t, people!  Happiness is a universal; it’s as absolute as love, kindness and humanity itself.  It’s always there for you; you only have to reach out and feel yourself worthy enough to accept it.

As long as we collectively have a thought of scarcity in this world, we will always be forced to duke it out to get what we desire, often times with our most intimate of relations, brother against brother and sister against sister, friend vs. friend soon becomes foe. The easiest way of explaining this is what you think becomes your reality and what we all think together, becomes our humanitarian experience.

When we only realize what we have and what is real, we will truly be free and learn to sincerely love our neighbors again and wish them well from the bottom of our hearts.  And when we are willing to open our hearts and love others, we might pleasantly discover we can begin to love ourselves.  Then call me naïve, but maybe, just maybe, this talk of competition and “I have to knock someone down to get myself to the top” will go back to the wayside, where it always belonged.

He was still wriggling – his body was moving as far from me as it could. I’m losing him, I thought, and this forced me to do something I knew I would hate myself for, even years later. I really didn’t want to do this – I really didn’t want him to think, even in the two or three minutes he had left to live, that I was that kind of driver – the one that resorts to blackmailing his master – but he had left me no option.

The above is an excerpt from one of the most admired book – The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. There is a reason I quote it here. Here, in the passage, the driver – Balram is about to kill his master – Mr. Ashok. Nevertheless, whatever might have been his intentions, he just sensed one thing absolutely right – the intelligence of our body. Our body is never wrong, unlike our mind, it has its own wisdom. Balram has made a plan, he asks his master to step out of the car but something is stopping Mr. Ashok from doing so – his body. His body has sensed something wrong, something is not going to be in its favor today but his mind was stupid to figure it out. Eventually, he is killed but till the last moment his body was trying to oppose him, beware him of the casualty which was about to strike. His body was moving as far from Balram as it could, I can bet he was sitting in an entirely different posture when he got down on his knees to check the car’s tyre. Such is the acumen of our Body!

The head only thinks; hence it never comes to any conclusion. It creates questions and then creates answers, and then out of those answers, more questions and more answers. Have you ever noticed one peculiarity, the body does not rely on the mind (or the head). The body has to live, that’s why all essential functions of the body – for example, breathing, heartbeat, digestion of the food, circulation of the blood are in the hands of our instinct. Doesn’t it appear funny? A thousand and one processes are going on inside our body in which we have no part at all. This is so mysterious yet so convincing, that nature has given our body its own wisdom. If our mind had to take care of the body, you may forget to breathe – at least in sleep! You are most of the times so occupied with the thoughts, who will take care of the digestion of the food or the circulation of the blood? The actual YOU is not needed, indeed.

A milkman has just finished his delivery, so he parks his horse and cart outside the pub and goes in for a drink. Refreshed after an hour, he comes out to find his horse painted bright green. Angry, he strides back into the pub and demands, “Which of you just painted my horse green?”

A seven-foot Irish giant stands up and, towering over him, says, “I did. Want to do something about it?”

The milkman gives a sickly grin and says, “I just came in to tell you, the first coat is dry!”

Now, this is a suitable example of Intellect. Here, in the story, the milkman used his intellect and got safely out of the complication. Had he relied on his body, he would have had little chance of overcoming the giant, but with intellect, he just made it. Intellect is helpful! In some situations you will be in a dire need of intellect- but only as a servant, not as a master. Think over.

May God be with you!

When you live and work on your own, as I do, writing takes a long time. You can keep producing shit and you’re always wondering whether you should stop. I’m so glad I had friends who told me to keep going.

Reow. I was a little disappointed when I realised five whole pages in that the elusive white tiger was not a character in the novel but merely a reference to the main character Balram. I’m fed up of stories about people. I wanted something more along the lines of the Lion King. Maybe I should start reading the blurbs instead of blindly picking out books with pretty covers in charity shops willy-nilly…

So it won the Man Booker prize back in 2008 – I’m so 2000-and-late when it comes to books of the moment. I’ve read the first two Harry Potters after finally giving into the hype, the first chapter of Twilight before getting distracted by a fly and have yet to fall victim to The Hunger Games and Dragon Tattoo series (seen all the films though – they were alright).

I almost didn’t want to like this book (I didn’t want its winning prestige to influence my own decision) but it was frustratingly engaging. I purposely took longer bus routes just so I could read and woke up slightly earlier for a pre-shower skim. More bizarrely, I don’t really have anything to say about it despite being a brilliantly written piece about the one man’s story of growing up in the Darkness of India and swaying between the two worlds of rich and poor.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood was, for me, a challenging book. This novel, in my opinion, is a writer’s novel, not a reader’s novel, which is probably why it won the Man Booker Prize. After finishing the book, I came away with a slight feeling of sadness but nothing else. It left no impression on me. Atwood’s descriptive prowess (which feels very Canadian doesn’t it?) is wonderful, but comes off as very academic. That being why I say this book is challenging; I don’t know how to feel about it.

The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Roald Dahl is a fun collection of fiction from the man who brought us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The stories are mostly humorous in nature, but there are some more serious writings as well. I did find many of the stories to be predictable, but that is probably because the familiar plot devices and turns found in his stories were originated by Dahl and then re-purposed frequently by writers who came after — Which is rather ironic after having read the first story in the book, The Great Automatic Grammatizator.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a great little book, by the Merry Prankster himself, Ken Kesey. The story comes off as one that could easily be confused as being non-fiction — The Memoir of Chief Bromden perhaps? It examines both the societies found outside and inside of the ‘hospital’, while at the same time delving into the psyche of a group of men who find themselves shunned by the one society and trapped in the other. This book is a rare case where the film adaptation of the book turned out to be really good. That being said, there is so much more to the book than there is to the movie, so I highly recommend reading it.

I think The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga can be described in three words: black-comedy-gold. Witty, drôle, and smart would do the job, too. Just a really fun book about the son of rickshaw-puller and his rise to Indian high-society. If you liked Slumdog Millionaire, you’ll like this. Read it.

50 Great Short Stories? I don’t know about that — more like 20 or 25. A lot of these stories, while being well written, just don’t have anything interesting to them. They read as exercises in good writing; not good story telling. There are, however, some standouts that bring good stories to the table, such as Aldous Huxley’s The Giaconda Smile, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, and Max Beerbohm’s A.V. Laider. Overall it’s a nice book to carry around in your bag for when you have some time to kill.

I have a confession to make… I am a complete book nerd. I am never without at least two things to read in my purse at all times. Typically it’s my Kindle and a fashion magazine, or a novel and the Kindle (Sidenote: I LOVE my Kindle, and would highly recommend everyone purchase one IMMEDIATELY! I’ve tried a few other ereaders and the Kindle is the best, hands down!).

With that little confession out of the way, I will now proceed to do the obvious and review a book I just finished

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This was a pleasure to read because it combined a few of my favourite things: Comedy, insights into a different culture, and a bit of suspense. Published in 2008, this is Aravind Adiga’s debut novel and was promptly shortlisted for the Man Booker prize that same year.

Balram Halwai, the protagonist, narrates his life story in the form of letters written nightly over the course of a week. The story offers a view into the lives of the very rich and very destitute of India and portrays the jarring difference in a uncomfortable yet also slightly comical way. The plot centres around Balram’s rise to fortune, with his murderous action playing a central role.

Overall a very good and enjoyable read!

So now, what are you currently reading? I have moved onto a biography of Mary Boleyn (and no it’s not “The Other Boleyn Sister” which was a fictional novel ).

Cover of The White Tiger: A Novel

The main character in this story is a young Indian man named Balram (well, this is just one of a few names he goes by throughout the book). We first meet him sitting at the desk of his business in Bangalore, writing a letter to the Chinese Premier at that time, who will soon be visiting India and is looking to meet with young Indian entrepeneurs – which is exactly what Balram is, so in his eyes the Premier should listen to him and meet with him. The entire narrative of the story is Balram writing a letter to the Premier over several nights, talking about his life and explaining how he got to be where he is today. Whether this letter ever makes it to the Premier, we don’t find out.

The book follows Balram from a young age when he is at school. We are with him when he is taken out of school and made to work to help support his family, and when he betters himself by getting a position in the house of a prominent family as a driver. This position soon takes him to New Delhi and from here he eventually gets to Bangalore, which is where we find him.

As I said earlier, I have been trying to decide whether I liked this book or not. Overall, I enjoyed the narrative and the storyline, but I think what is causing me the most grief is the main character himself. At times I found him endearing and sympathetic towards him in difficult situations. But for the most part I found myself disliking him immensely. I feel that he was a selfish and non-caring person. Perhaps he made the decisions that he did based on the situations he was in, but every person still knows the difference between right and wrong. I could not connect with the main character and I therefore found it difficult to enjoy the rest of the book. It was interesting, but it’s not something that I would be in a hurry to read again.

RATING - 5 out of 10. I liked the storyline, but not a lot else.

WHO SHOULD READ IT - I think you should read it if you spend more time in the “Literature” section of your local book store, as opposed to the “Fiction” section.

WHO YOU’LL LOVE - Honestly? I can’t really pinpoint one character that I liked more than the others. I think that the most honest character in the book may have been Mr Ashok, so he probably stands out more than the others.

If anyone else has read this I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this book.

Literary prize winning books are never fun and it’s the general truth. The pleasure a Brown or a Sheldon gives is in no way comparable to such a prize winning book. But on the contrary I say you can appreciate a prize winning book only if you possess the eye for that. Two of the Man Booker Prize winners adorn my bookshelf – one from Ms. Desai “Inheritance of loss” and the other Mr. Adiga’s “The White Tiger”. And this particular post is about the latter. I know it’s a bit late, not just a bit – a good 4 year delay. But I blame myself for being on and off about my reading habits. If you haven’t read this one, go ahead and knock yourself out. If you have, then choice is yours to continue reading the post or just quit.

You’re an ardent reader or someone who’s just getting into this hobby? I’d gladly suggest Adiga. For one, his is the standard simpleton Indian English anyone could appreciate. None of those fancy buzzwords or words with more than 10 syllables. Two, and almost “The” best reason – you’d for once be supporting an Indian Litterateur.

Coming back to “The White Tiger”, here’s what I’d like to say about it (probable spoiler alert):

The plot – To give a very high-level overview of the story, it’s about how Balram Halwai from The Dark turns into Mr. Ashok Sharma of the White Tiger. The back cover describes Balram as The White Tiger, Servant, Philosopher, Entrepreneur, and also as a Murderer. The story runs from describing about a boy named Balram from Gaya who takes up the job of driver at Delhi and finally evolves into an entrepreneur Mr.Ashok at Bangalore. The story revolves around Balram’s philosophical musings and his experiences with the Indian society at large.

Storyflow – The story unassumingly begins as a one-sided rant (letter) from the author on the eve of Chinese premiere’s visit to India. Dark humour ensues with how the Premier would be treated in India giving him a Green Grass Image of India – when the ground realities are much worse. The story continues over a week, mostly through the nights with the author reminiscing his entire life under an eerie chandelier. In some way, tying the narration to a current event kept my pulse beating on the story and I could never skip a page.

… Part 2 to continue

One of the most entertaining and enlightening sources of information was Aravind Adiga’s novel, The White Tiger. While it’s true that it is a work of fiction and as such owes its primary fidelity to its own artistic integrity and not necessarily to factual accuracy, it is also a truism that literature can often capture life in a way that so-called ‘objective’ information like statistics and encyclopedia entries cannot. So, I cannot, as yet, comment on the authenticity of its portrait of Delhi and elsewhere. But I can say something about how it goes about satirising the New India it so clearly feels ambivalent about. (Note – there are spoilers.)

What’s in a name?
The White Tiger is a story of a name. The central narrator-protagonist’s name changes throughout the novel, each time reflecting his complex identity.

The protagonist – I cannot truly call him a ‘hero’ in the broadest sense, for reasons that will become obvious – is first named Munna, then Balram, nicknamed ‘The White Tiger’; later called ‘Country Mouse’ by the unkind drivers in Delhi; his family name ‘Halwai’ reflects his caste and social status; and then finally self-titled Ashok Sharma, who owns The White Tiger Drivers. In my discussion, I’ll suggest ways in which this name change is tied to some of the novel’s themes and ideas.

Munna and Balram: India, China and the century of Asia
The story begins in earnest when we first meet our narrator as an unnamed boy who escapes his village to live in the city. Despite his poverty and his family’s relative disinterest – they do not give him a name; he is simply known as ‘Munna’, meaning ‘boy’ – he is bright and resourceful. His talent and enthusiasm are recognized by his schoolteacher, who calls him ‘Balram’, the same name as Krishna’s brother. Such an elevation foreshadows the novel’s central plot, the rise of Balram.

The narrative is expressed through a single long letter written over a series of nights, from ‘the desk of Balram’ to that of the visiting premier of China, Wen Jiabao. The New York Times review calls this approach ‘inexplicable’ but I think there are good reasons for it.

In a direct sense, it neatly summarises Balram’s audacity, even arrogance. Written retrospectively, and at the height of his powers, he now feels able to write to a figure clearly above and outside his own social circle. Moreover, he does so with a sensibility permeated with equality and fraternity. He writes: “In my way, sir, I consider myself one of your kind.”

The microcosm of the relationship between Balram and Jiabao contained within these pages reflects a much more profound connection between countries. It has been said that the 21^st century will belong to Asia, as India and China emerge as both economic and political world leaders. Balram and Wen Jiabao and the countries that have produced them might have more in common than we first think.

Despite their similarities and fraternity, the letter are also a device to highlight the substantial differences between their countries. Balram writes early in the novel:

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. (p. 4)

It is as if this vocation alone – that of the highly-prized entrepreneur – is enough to balance the otherwise alarming differences between countries. Balram’s early hymn to the entrepreneur illuminates a single path only, the one that he will take as the novel unfolds, regardless of the cost. Adiga is at almost all times ambivalent about Balram’s, and therefore India’s, success.

Adiga calls the life of the villages the 'Darkness'

Halwai: social satire and the caste system
In his teacher’s re-naming, Balram has earned his name and it elevates his status. Yet even he at this point cannot escape the caste system, where the family name describes one’s status and vocation. Balram’s family name is Halwai, meaning ‘sweet maker’ in the caste system. Balram says of this name:

Halwai – my name means sweet maker. That’s my caste – my destiny. Everyone in the Darkness who hears that name knows all about me at once. (p. 63)

Given the significance of naming in India culture, one can see why Adiga might choose his central character’s name as an emblem for his path through life in general and his social standing in particular. The use of family names, surnames, has long indicated the caste into which one belongs. When Balram moves to Delhi with his boss, the more experienced and worldly drivers he works with call him ‘Country Mouse’, referring to his origins in a humble village. In order to escape the crushing poverty of what Adiga calls the ‘Darkness’, Balram must escape the caste system – and therefore his family name. He does so through resourcefulness, hard work and ruthlessness.

Ashok Sharma: Dickens and social inequality
When Balram achieves his aim to climb society’s ladder, he once again changes his name, this time to Ashok Sharma. His first name is almost identical to Ashoka, one of India’s great ancient emperors and a central figure still in India life. In this respect, it reflects great power and respect – ironically perhaps, since, unlike Ashoka, Balram earns his place through murder and deceit. The name also means absence of pain: translated from Sanskrit, Ashoka means ‘painless, without sorrow’. That absence of pain is derived from his newly-felt freedom from his former boss Ashok, who Balram murders in cold blood. As Balram says: “The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy.” Balram breaks that trust and in doing so Adiga suggests he is an example of what might happen when people are faced with tremendous pressure. In killing his boss, he becomes him – Balram fights with Nietzsche’s monster and thereby becomes that monster himself. Yet Balram appears to feel none of this: assuming the new identity of Ashok, he both assumes the grandeur and power of the emperor and removes the pain of humiliating servitude from his former boss.

His newly-assumed family name, Sharma, replaces Halwai with ideas of happiness and joy. Wikipedia tells us that:

As a noun in Sanskrit, Sharma has various positive connotations, such as “bliss”, “happiness”, “shelter”, “laid back” and “protection.”

The use of Balram’s changing name as a totem to chart his progression is a twist on Dickens’ use of name to suggest character. Dickens infamously used names that represented his character’s persona: Thomas Gradgrind of Hard Times, whose name represents the unending toil of the mill he owned; Sir Mulberry Hawk, the swivel-eyed, lecherous nobleman in Nicholas Nickleby. (The bildungsroman Dick Whittington also shares similarities to The White Tiger.)

This is not the only debt that Adiga pays to Dickens. The White Tiger shares Dickens’ concern with social inequality and the division between the have and the have-nots. It is a novel of idea and observation as well as a focus on the life of a single man. Dickensian in scope and theme – it charts the rise of a single determined and impoverished man against the odds, overcoming the crushing machine of a society in which inequality is endemic – it also shares a Dickensian approach, a language and vitality which captures all forms of life and a central characterisation worthy of any Dickens’ novel.

Adiga calls the life in the cities the 'Light'

A return to ‘Munna’: authenticity and genuine experience
Having sought and attained power and wealth, Balram – now Ashok – seeks to cement his success. When he buys sex from a prostitute, she asks his name. He gives it as ‘Munna’, the non-specific name meaning ‘boy’, a return to his earliest and in some senses most genuine identity. He no longer needs or wants to disguise himself when engaged in what he hopes will be a profound experience, choosing instead to strip himself of all pretentions as he searches for authenticity. Yet by now his identity has become complicated by his personal history, a sense of innocence and truth lost. When he learns that the prostitute is not a real blonde but has instead dyed her hair, he is outraged.

Ashok, his one-time boss, illustrates the complexity of the relationship between the Darkness and the Light, of that nostalgia that characters might feel for their modest upbringing, alongside their desire never to return:

“Order for us Balram. Order the commoners’ food”. I ordered okra, cauliflower, radish, spinach and dhal. Enough to feed a whole family, or one rich man… “This food is fantastic. And just 25-rupees! You people eat so well!” When he was done I ordered him a lassi and when he took the first sip he smiled. “I like eating your kind of food!” I smiled and thought I like eating your kind of food too. (p. 238)

For those who escape the Darkness, a return to the village where they were born and raised offer a chance to wallow briefly in a nostalgic authenticity; for those yet to escape, the Light is all. Both, at least for a short time, desire what the other has. Adiga, himself a Western-educated Indian, places Balram at the centre of both worlds, so that he might be well-placed to pass judgment on both.

The White Tiger Drivers: an insight into India?
Finally, Balram – now Ashok Sharma – calls the most powerful emblem of his success in the latter stages of the novel – the taxi business that he runs – The White Tiger Drivers, based on a nickname that he earned as a young man known for being the smartest in the village. The narrative comes full circle and returns us to Balram’s modest beginnings. The white tiger, found in India, is a big cat that is both feared and respected, a ‘mutant’, and rare.

Is it possible that we can learn something specific about India, about Delhi, through this novel – or more generally, through fiction in general? This is the question raised by a work such as this, which adopts a fictional manner in which to satirise, analyse and portray a real country and its people. I am not in a position to pass comment on the factual accuracy of this novel, nor on its claims. This novel has caused considerable controversy in its perceived negative depiction of India.

Although at times this novel appears as if it were simply a vehicle for Adiga’s commentary, we find in the language, character and plot a clarity and directness which no financial report, newspaper story or international agency document can capture. For example, where the geopolitical report talks of ‘low resource setting’ in order to remain neutral, Adiga writes ‘Darkness’, echoing V.S. Naipaul’s early critical account of his journey in India, An Area of Darkness. By giving Balram a voice that has a peculiar perspective on both the poverty and success of village and city, the Darkness and the Light, Adiga praises and decries in equal measure. Adiga says of the novel:

At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society (Indian). That’s what I’m trying to do – it is not an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self-examination.

Through a process examining the life of a single man, in a carefully considered fictional approach that is direct and persuasive, Adiga attempts to capture what he see as the ambivalence of the New India in The White Tiger. नमस्ते

Coda: an interview with Aravind Adiga
The following video is an interview with Adiga, where he discusses the themes and ideas of The White Tiger.

Photo credits: ‘That Village III’ by Honza Soukup, Flickr CC licence. ‘On your mark…’ by ListenUp!

So I cleared my space (threw a mass of papers and printers that seemed to be magically floating on four pillars to discover little- seen table), found a tranquil space and time (waited for kids to go to school), and got ready ( bought 2 new shiny, pretty notebooks and 3 sets of multi-coloured pens) and waited for inspiration to strike.

And waited….and waited…..

The best authors write from their childhood experiences. Think ‘catcher in the rye’ and not ‘assholes finish first’ here. So I delved into the farthest memories of my childhood hoping to discover some innocent, struggling , Indian ‘desh ki mitti’ kind of recall that could be stark and alien to sympathetic foreignors.

There was only one problem. Try as I might to conjure images of open and dusty maidans and ice golas, I could only remember concrete flats, dollops ice cream and burgers. I pushed my mind towards deprived children in blue pinafores, jute bags and studying under street lamps and it stubbornly threw back images of uniformed dresses, gated playgrounds and elaborate assembly functions. I wanted to think of ‘hum honge kamyaab’ and ‘ek chidiya’ and it supplemented those images with ‘Papa kehte hain’. ‘Another day in paradise’ and ‘Remember the time’.

I finally had to admit that my childhood was very ordinary. And global. We didn’t even have a full time servant whose oppression I could make into the Indian version of ‘Help’. If there is anyone who is oppressed in Mumbai its my sexagenarian mom who is held to ransom by no-nonsense ‘ek kaam ka hazzaar rupaya’ kaamwaaalis.

The only deprivation I could think about my childhood was the lack on entertainment we had as kids. We used to wait for the 9′o clock serials the whole day and thought ‘mungerilal ke haseen sapne’ was hilarous. The weekend movie and Star trek was a really big thing. We played all afternoon and read books over and over till we had them by-heart.

Yep, that’s my whole childhood.

So much for the ‘India story’.

But I digress – it’s an incorrigible weakness I have I thought it would be fun to include my first review, so I can flesh out my second one from its tiny skeleton…so here goes, “An utterly enjoyable and fascinating read! I loved Adiga’s no-nonsense direct style and the way he’s developed his characters. I’ve lived in Bombay most of my life and every character in the book seemed intimately familiar & extremely real. Balram the driver and Ashok the master – their ‘master-servant’ relationship as described is scarily accurate and certainly very prevalent in all parts of India today, whether in its large metros or tiny villages. The transformation of the hapless, nameless “Munna” from the ‘Darkness’(so reminiscent of Bihar, arguably the poorest, most lawless state in India) first into the officious, subservient Balram, then into a selfish, self-serving Balram and finally, paradoxically into Mr. Ashok in the ‘Light’, is believable, intriguing and deftly handled. His moral conflicts are superbly portrayed and I still can’t quite decide whether to hate and revile him as a murderer or admire him for his wiliness & ‘entrepreneurship’. Despite my best efforts, I must confess, I veer towards admiration! I also enjoyed the author’s narrative style of presenting his story as a dialogue between Balram the driver and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao – it added just the right touch of whimsy and fantasy that I enjoyed! The book is aptly titled: Balram is indeed the ‘White Tiger’ – that rare creature of the jungle, born once in several generations! To me Aravind Adiga is no less!”

Well, I must say I stand by that review even today! If anything this time round, I was struck by how the book might make an excellent movie, subject of course to a great cast and adaptation. It reads so much like a script itself! Also, having just finished Wolf Hall, I couldn’t help but compare Thomas Cromwell and Balram Halwai. You laugh! Don’t. Suddenly the parallels between these two ‘entrepreneurs’ seemed obvious and inescapable! Their unhappy childhoods, their ambition, their struggles to rise above their circumstances, & their willingness to take risks are eerily similar. One in 16^th century England and the other in 21^st century India – both countries in flux – and both men ultimately successful, each in their own way, both paying their dues along the way. It seems the definition of ‘entrepreneurship’ has changed little over the centuries! Indeed Adiga has put it quite brilliantly in one of my favourite quotes from the book, as early as Page 9, “My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time.” And that my friends is the secret of a successful entrepreneur in a nutshell! Talk about hitting the nail on the head, recognizing what makes us Indians tick and being able to condense it into one sentence – now that’s brilliance!

The book is an excellent social commentary on India as she is today. A country of paradox and contradictions; a giant behemoth of a billion people lumbering along like an elephant at best but eternally aspiring to the cheetah’s sprint! A country of such diversity that the only way to survive, is to celebrate it. What choice is there? Forgive my similes; Adiga’s are so much better! At one point, he describes the women of Balram’s household sleeping together in a single room, “At night they slept together, falling one over the other, like one creature, a millipede.” Clever that – not only for the physical accuracy but also because of the reference to the women functioning as a unit, a combined force in order to increase their power & influence. Also the parallels between landlords and animals – clever and apt! The dark humor that laces the narrative only serves to underline the ominous undercurrents evident from the start. The way he describes why millions of Indians are ‘half-baked’ for example is scarily accurate, enlightening and yet humorous. “Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay.” Amen! Another excellent example of dark humor is Adiga’s ‘Rooster Coop’ concept. Dark, brilliant and once again terrifyingly accurate. How many times have I seen trucks laden with ‘rooster coops’, stuffed with chickens squeezed into that tiny barbed space on their way to death, and not given the grotesque tableau a second thought? Not anymore! My heart bled but my lips wore a half-smile, from recognition and from pity. And ever so often that’s how this book made me feel – when he loses his Dad; when he improves his status in the Stork’s household, with audacity and sharp observations; when he suffers from the vagaries of his employer’s behaviour, at times bordering on friendship, at others a definitive owner-slave equation; when he struggles to choose between morality and self-improvement and despairs that it must be a choice. The last time I read this book, I imagined myself in Ashok’s position, because it was easy and natural for me to identify with him. I am after all an employer myself! That in itself was a frightening experience. This time I forced myself to walk in Balram’s shoes, and do you know they didn’t seem so alien after all. And that is more frightening!

I think there’s a Balram in all of us, ‘The White Tiger’ within that longs to break free from whatever our particular shackles, whether financial, social, mental, spiritual or any other. Certainly this time around, his character resonated with me more deeply. I understood him better even though I still like to think that if I were faced with the same circumstances, I would have made different choices. But who’s to say? All I can say is I’m no longer so certain. If you live or have lived on the sub-continent for a decent amount of time, this book will reinforce your beliefs in the fragile, transient nature of humanity in our part of the world. Life is tough here at best (don’t let the money fool you), hypocrisy an accepted societal norm, corruption firmly entrenched and honesty rare. We have to be “straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time”, just to survive. Can you blame us then for who we are, who we become and how we get there? Will we ever break the shackles of this vicious ‘Darkness’? Will we ever be able to redefine what ‘Light’ really means? Where do we begin? How? Those are the questions that this book leaves me with. I think this book has been the toughest book to review so far, probably because it’s too close to home. It rips away at the masks we so carefully arrange for our faces and souls and gets straight to the darkness within. Not an easy place, but one that must be visited if we’re ever to get to the ‘Light’.

It’s that kind of book. Read it.

It’s Anne Enright’s The Gathering next. I’ve ordered the book online and am waiting for it to arrive. Meanwhile will be reading The Case of the Man who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall.

Related articles

• The Ugly Duckling (writingthepolitical.wordpress.com)
• Darkness and Light (writingthepolitical.wordpress.com)
• Book Recommendation #2: A Novel Narrated by a Murderer (beyondthepalebooks.net)

The novel throws us immediately into the world of Balram Halwai, our narrator and protagonist, who is quick to inform us he is a man that has risen to riches from poverty, and also happens to be a murderer. Like a lazy fish I was hooked and found myself being carried along on the quick paced current of the novel, it proved to be a fantastic ride. When I attended the book group I found I wasn’t the only one that had been captivated from the outset.

Adiga is a clever writer, unlike any I’ve had the joy of reading before; he tells us what will happen in the novel at the beginning, we know the path that Balram’s life is going to take but we, the readers, are still eager to read on and find out more. Is this simply because I couldn’t really believe that Balram was a murderer? Or was it the enjoyment of reading a novel that you knew wasn’t going to throw a gut-wrenching twist in your direction at an unforeseen moment? Or possibly the brief introduction we’re given to Balram is sufficient to incite in the reader a curiosity that is strong enough to want to see the puzzle of his life completed, what are the bits that fit in between the beginning product and the end result? Whatever the answer might be I take my hat off to Adiga, I don’t think many authors have the skill required to set up a novel in this manner and ensure that all of the readers remain riveted throughout.

The novel is formed as a series of letters Balram is writing to the Chinese Premier that is due to visit India and his letters not only detail his own tumultuous journey through life but also the corruption that is rife at every level in Indian society, particularly in the government. Although this novel was written in 2008 the corruption depicted within its pages is still prevalent and problematic. When I visited India at the end of 2011 meetings with Indian friends that live and work in Mumbai involved sonnets being sung to the country and town they held so dear, promptly followed by a deep wave of frustration and sadness from the corruption that was holding back their country’s development and progress so gravely. Adiga’s novel underlines the fact that China and India have quickly become the world’s super powers, however as we can already see, India is now lagging behind due to the lack of the tyrannical Communist structure that keeps the population of China in check. Once I’d finished Adiga’s book I remained a little surprised that it had been freely published in India given its open criticism of the government and the political systems that hold the country back, but then again I suppose the fact that it was published perfectly illustrates my earlier comment; in China a book passing such judgement on the country’s government wouldn’t stand a chance of reaching the printing press.

The White Tiger is a book that not only succeeds at making a moving statement about India and its plight but also is a thoroughly enjoyable read. I can’t imagine anybody with an interest in the world around them not enjoying this novel, no matter how grim and sordid it becomes at times.

Adiga is quoted as saying: “the criticism by writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens of the 19th century helped England and France become better societies.”  Having visited India and felt the warmth of its people, the depth of its culture and the abundance of potential the country contains I can only hope Adiga’s novel has helped India in some shape or form make a step towards becoming the better society it longs and deserves to be.

Source for ‘The Book’ section : From Wikipedia
Balram lived in the village of Laxmangarh, Bihar (not the village of Laxmangarh in Rajasthan), a community deep in the “Darkness” of rural India. The son of a rickshaw-puller; his family is too poor for him to be able to finish school. Despite being clever and being promised a scholarship, Balram instead is forced to break coals and wipe tables in a Dhanbad teashop. He originally went by the name “Munna”, as his parents had never named him, but his schoolteacher Mr. Krishna wanted to give him a new name since Munna simply meant “boy” in Hindi. He named him Balram in reference to the brother of the Hindu God Krishna. His last name, Halwai, is derived from “sweet-maker” in the caste system.

In Dhanbad, he learns to drive after learning about the high salary paid to drivers. After learning how to drive, Balram gets his break when a rich man from his village (known as “The Stork” because of his penchant for taking a cut of the local fishermen’s profits) hires him as a chauffeur for his son, Ashok, who lives in the city of New Delhi. Having recently returned from a stint in America, Ashok is conflicted by the corruption and harshness of life in India, and has to deal with his family’s unhappiness with his foreign marriage to his current wife, a member of a different caste. The city is a revelation for Balram. As he drives his master and his wife to shopping malls and call centers, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, and the contrast between the master and servant classes. Through these experiences, Balram becomes increasingly worldly and ambitious.

As Balram broods over his situation, he realizes that there is only one thing he can do to become part of this glamorous new India — murder his employer, and escape from servitude. Ashok’s increasing involvement in political corruption and divorce from his wife provides Balram with his opportunity. One day as Ashok is carrying seven hundred thousand rupees in cash as money bribes for politicians in New Delhi, Balram murders him and flees to Bangalore with his nephew Dharam. Balram uses the loot to bribe a police commissioner and create his own taxi company. He changes his name to Ashok Sharma, and becomes a wealthy “entrepreneur” in India’s new technological society thus completing his emergence from the Darkness into the Light.

The View:

This is the first book that I am posting ‘The Book’ section from Wikipedia. Firstly Wiki had a better description of the book than GoodReads and secondly, GoodReads site was down (I know, I almost fainted when the unavailable message came up on the site).

If I had to describe this book in a single word it would be ‘Honest’. The plot, events, locations, characters and thoughts were all depicted truthfully as best as it can be done. Since I come from India, I could picturise this plot as if it occurred right in front of my eyes.

There are numerous reviews and comments across the web for this award-winning book and I had a lot of expectations from it. This book did not let me down. The pages flowed easily, taking us through different phases of Balram’s life. There were a lot of description of events and places which would have annoyed me on a typical day, but with ‘The White Tiger’ I felt that they added a depth to the plot. As I swept through the book, I kept questioning myself if I should root for Balram. He definitely seemed immoral and even killed someone to get his way. In reality if I had come across someone like him, I would have best kept my distance…but with Balram, I felt a connection. I knew what he did was wrong, but I could empathize with him. The things he went through as a servant and as a poor citizen of the country, really moved me.

I enjoyed this book tremendously and wanted more of it. I don’t know if he really posted the letter and would have liked to see if the recipient had any thoughts on it. Not that it matters, but just being curious. Rated a 5 on 5, all the raves and reviews of this book are so worth it.

Introducing a major literary talent, “The White Tiger” offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.

“Don’t you feel proud of your country?” Arundhati Roy has been asked.

India is considered to be a rising star by the growth rate. India’s cities are booming. Money is being made.

The University of Westminster hosted a conference on Democracy and Dissent in China and India in June of last year, where Arundhati Roy had a conversation with Dibyesh Anand about the notion of democracy.

Roy considers the darker side of the question: She says that although India has been presented as a huge success story, 800 million people live on less than 30 cents a day. It is a country were the numbers of displaced people– displaced to slums and the underbelly of big cities– are larger than the populations of European countries. But it not just that. The poor people of India don’t have voices. As Roy puts it, “You are not allowed to feel  about your river or valley or your people because somewhere, someone has drawn a mark that tells you who you are and who you are not.”

Aravind Adiga was faced with the same question in his 2008 Booker Prize winning novel, The White Tiger. Is it the duty of a writer to voice the opinions of the poor and those who can’t speak for themselves? Is Adiga’s voice the voice of someone actually in this position or is it something else? How can we, as readers, consider the context of this plot without creating an exotic India that has never existed?

Adiga, in an interview with The Guardian, answers some of these questions. Adiga points out that if the people of India were to write into the social constraints they were born into then only 5% of India would be represented.

A poor man in India has no place to voice his opinion. Balram explains: a man who tries to vote is killed. He writes,

“‘What are you doing here?’

‘Voting,’ he shouted back. “isn’t it the election today?”

I cannot confirm what happened next, even though I was only a few feet behind him… I never saw what they did to that brave, mad man” (85). Only a few paragraphs down Balram explains that he learned that the man was beaten brutally.

Who will speak for a man like this?

A writer should speak in the language that creates change in the world if the writer has the skills to do so– that is the writer’s most treasured power. If writers never strove to make a difference with their words, the novel wouldn’t make the kind of impact that it does– we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. The danger in this is that the voice presented may create a caricature of the voice it intended to bring to light. But how does anyone know, when the voice being represented can’t speak for itself? This is a dangerous road to walk along, and it’s something that Adiga does admirably. For example, his main character in The White Tiger speaks plainly of the problems of politics in India. There have been critics, an example of which this blog post discusses, who have made the point that Balram speaks in a voice that is unrealistic for a taxi driver. Adiga himself notes that in his travels around India he was amazed at the intelligence of the working class and poor. Perhaps they are simply pushed into a role– a big belly versus a smaller belly that is eaten– and not allowed to voice their opinion.

But how can the cycle change? Only when writers use ever means available to them to give those people a voice. Give them room to speak, and the world will start listening. This is what writers do. This is why writers must keep creating. Even if we as readers don’t understand the whole picture yet– even if we see an image that isn’t true to reality– at least we can get in the conversation.