- From: The Australian
- June 04, 2011
A rags-to-riches story that alternated between the obscenity of India's poverty and the obscene wealth of New Delhi's entrepreneurial elite, The White Tiger confronted the contradictions of India's economic miracle with a darkly comic realism that, as one blogger put it, made Midnight's Children "seem positively twee".
Last Man in Tower is the intertwined story of a group of lower middle-class Indians living in an apartment block known as Vishram Society (Tower A), which is described as "absolutely, unimpeachably pucca". Unfortunately, it's in a neighbourhood -- the toenail of a suburb called Vakola -- that is definitely un-pucca:
On a map of Mumbai, Vakola is a cluster of ambiguous dots that cling polyp-like to the underside of the domestic airport; on the ground, the polyps turn out to be slums, spread out on every side of Vishram Society.
Since 1959, when it was built near a swamp as a hopeful example of "good housing for good Indians", this 18-apartment co-operative has stood as a "dreadnought of middle-class respectability" amid mushrooming shanties.But as the Indian economy gained momentum, so the tower block decayed. Once pink, its outer skin is now "a rainwater-stained, fungus-licked grey". And as the rest of Mumbai boomed, so the relative cheapness of the land around Vakola attracted the attention of unscrupulous developers. The people who live in Tower A are a microcosm of modern Mumbai but it soon becomes clear there are two central characters around whom the action spins.
Yogesh Murthy, who lives in apartment 3A, is a recently retired, 61-year-old schoolteacher. Living alone since the death of his wife, he is universally respected by the other residents for his learning, restraint and fair-mindedness. They all call him Masterji. His daughter died in a tragic accident; his son is married and lives in a posher suburb.
Lined up against Masterji is the outsider, a property developer named Dharmen Shah. He is another of Adiga's amoral, ruthless and dynamic entrepreneurs. A crude, rapacious self-made multimillionaire who grew up in rural Gujarat, he thinks nothing of bribing police and politicians or of breaking the bones of those who oppose him. Yet he is vulnerable and strangely seductive, and it is implied that without people such as Shah nothing would get done.
The inhabitants of Tower A are complacent. They gripe about the inconveniences of living in this globalised, super-city: the noise, the pollution, the utilities that don't work. But they're more comfortable than their near neighbours in the slums of Vakola and they're missing the one thing that might make them act on their gripes: a better offer.
When Shah offers them twice the going rate for their apartments, some agree immediately while others require more convincing, in the form of "sweeteners" or brutal threats. Eventually, everyone is ready to sell -- everyone, that is, except Masterji. At first it seems that Masterji is holding out in solidarity with his two oldest friends, Albert Pinto and his wife Shelley, who don't want to go because Shelley is blind and frightened at the prospect of re-learning the contours of a new building.
Full review at The Australian.
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