Monday, August 1, 2011

"The White Tiger"

Last night I could not sleep well because I was dreaming of a news channel, a breaking news was flashing on the sidebar of the TV.

"A kind of white tiger was being watched roaming freely over the Sadbhavna bridge located at Jaunpur city in Uttar Pradesh."

I don't know, what was the truth? Why had I dreamed about the white tiger? But there is something in the way I am thinking about the white tiger since I had read the debut novel "The White Tiger" written by Mr. Aravind Adiga.

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Next day, I was standing over the "Sadbhavna bridge", the newest kind of bridge which has been built over the river Gomati, in my town Jaunpur. I was watching at the muddy and filthy water flowing in river. The water in river was flooded as it was the month of july, the monsoon has flooded all the river in darkness. I was seeing the sun, which had become red in the evening and setting at the horizon over the river. I was completely lost in that, suddenly my thinking was interupted by a boy who was asking me something-
"Why are you looking so sad?"
I turned towards him and glanced him with a question mark on my face because he was strange to me.
He asked again, "Please excuse me sir; But I would like to know why are you looking so sad? I was observing you for more than half an hour, and you seemed as completely lost in your thinking. Is there any problem?"
"Am I really looking sad?" I questioned myself, "What happened to me?"

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I could not found any white tiger there at the bridge. It was a false dream, I thought. All, I have seen there, was the asses, some of them were talking by sitting over the railing built for the safety of public, some laughing, some watching like me and some rickshaw pullers sleeping over their rickshaw, except me, "The only white tiger in the town;;;".

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There is something so mysterious about the main character, Balram Halwai, of this novel "The white tiger", I am studying second time, and each time when I read this, I fancied myself in to a white tiger. I am thinking myself trapped in to Rooster coop. (One of which I have seen on the way towards the bridge with the roosters inside.)
The father along with family (the so called Rooster coop) wanted me to get married but I don't. All, I wish, is to break the coop.

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I was pondering over the lines written by one of the world's greatest poet, Rumi-

"The moment you start looking what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave."

and the second one by the poet, Allama Iqbal-

"You were looking for the keys, but the door was always open;;"

I think there is some mystry hiding in these line, don't you think so?