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Balram Halwai
The Stork’s son and Balram’s master. Ashok recently returned from America and has a gentler, milder personality compared to his wealthy and entitled family members. He feels disillusioned by the widespread corruption in India and his family’s role in it, but goes along with his relatives, handing out bribes to ministers and currying favor with politicians. Compared to the other wealthy people around him, Ashok demonstrates more outward signs of compassion for Balram, seeming to take an interest in his servant’s welfare and trusting him entirely. Ashok becomes increasingly decadent and goes into something of a downward spiral after his wife, Pinky Madam, leaves him and goes back to America. Balram feels a strong, mysterious connection to his master, but after several months in his service concludes that Ashok is no less cruel and selfish than his father and brother, that the generosity he offers is not nearly what he could afford to give.
Mr. Ashok Quotes in The White Tiger
The The White Tiger quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Ashok or refer to Mr. Ashok. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2: The Second Night Quotes
“Many of my best ideas are, in fact, borrowed from my ex-employer or his brother or someone else whom I was driving about. (I confess, Mr. Premier: I am not an original thinker—but I am an original listener.)”
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Chapter 4: The Fourth Night Quotes
“We’re driving past Ghandi, after just having given a bribe to a minister. It’s a fucking joke, isn’t it.”
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Chapter 5: The Fifth Night Quotes
“... But where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are... We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.”
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Chapter 6: The Sixth Morning Quotes
“The rest of today’s narrative will deal mainly with the sorrowful tale of how I was corrupted from a sweet, innocent village fool into a citified fellow full of debauchery, depravity and wickedness, All these changes happened in me because they happened first in Mr. Ashok.”
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Chapter 7: The Sixth Night Quotes
“We went from bank to bank, and the weight of the red bag grew. I felt its pressure increase on my lower back—as if I were taking Mr. Ashok and his bag not in a car, but the way my father would take a customer and his bag—in a rickshaw.”
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Chapter 8: The Seventh Night Quotes
“There is no end to things in India, Mr. Jiabao, as Mr. Ashok so correctly used to say. You’ll have to keep paying and paying the fuckers. But I complain about the police the way the rich complain; not the way the poor complain.”
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"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Mr. Ashok Character Timeline in The White Tiger
The timeline below shows where the character Mr. Ashok appears in The White Tiger. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: The First Night
Indian entrepreneur Balram Halwai (alias Ashok Sharma), the novel’s narrator and protagonist, begins composing a letter to Chinese official Wen Jiabao,...
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...a slave. When he returns to the village years later with his wealthy master Mr. Ashok and his mistress Pinky Madam, he finally gets the courage to visit the fort alone....
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Chapter 2: The Second Night
...comments that he continues to feel a sense of loyalty and closeness to the murdered Ashok and his former wife, Pinky Madam. He attributes many of his best ideas to Ashok...
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Balram first meets Ashok in the city of Dhanbad, where he moves after his father dies from tuberculosis in...
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...is not rewarded for this so-called “entrepreneurial” behavior until at one house he meets Mr. Ashok. Ashok is the son of the Stork of Laxmangahr, and has recently returned to India...
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Ashok, the Stork, and Ashok’s older brother Mukesh Sir (also known as “the Mongoose”), question Balram...
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Balram gets his first opportunity to drive Ashok and his wife in the Honda City when Ashok decides to visit Laxmangahr, their shared...
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Chapter 3: The Fourth Morning
...mines, apparently the source of their fortune. Balram listens in on the conversations that follow: Ashok, Mukesh Sir, and Pinky Madam decide that they have to move to Delhi to ensure...
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Chapter 4: The Fourth Night
...alleys where drivers are easily lost. In order to please Pinky Madam, who misses America, Ashok has rented an apartment in the modern, Americanized suburb of Gurgaon. Balram gets lost repeatedly...
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Shortly after arriving in Delhi, Ashok, Pinky and Mukesh Sir go shopping. Balram waits outside the mall with the other drivers,...
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A few days after his exchange with Vitiligo Lips, Balram takes Ashok and Mukesh Sir to deliver bribes to ministers. He drives them to their destinations in...
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...issues several orders about how he should behave as a driver, and tries to convince Ashok to discipline Balram. Ashok waves off his brother and assures him that Balram is honest,...
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On the evening of Pinky Madam’s birthday, Ashok orders Balram to dress as a Maharaja and serve the pair dinner. However, after dinner...
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Chapter 5: The Fifth Night
...back to the US, leaving India forever and putting an end to her marriage. Later, Ashok becomes furious with Balram for helping Pinky escape and nearly throws Balram over a railing,...
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The Mongoose arrives in Delhi to help Ashok through his separation from Pinky, and also bearing a letter to Balram from Kusum Granny....
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Chapter 6: The Sixth Morning
...Delhi corrupted him, made him capable of murder and rebellion, only after the city corrupted Ashok. After Pinky's departure, Ashok begins going out to bars and clubs at night. As his...
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During one of Ashok’s evenings out, Balram wanders into a nearby bookshop to pass the time. He chats with...
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The following evening, Balram drives Ashok around the city to deliver bribes. One minister’s assistant joins Ashok in the car and...
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Chapter 7: The Sixth Night
Soon after Ashok’s evening with the minister’s assistant, Balram asks Vitiligo Lips to find him a golden haired...
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Using the money he stole from Ashok, Balram hires a golden-haired prostitute with the help of Vitiligo Lips. To his disappointment, she...
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When Balram returns home, Ashok is waiting for him in the servants’ quarters. Ashok claims that he is tired of...
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Ashok continues to bribe ministers on schedule, distributing money in a red, Italian leather bag. One...
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The following day, Balram finds an iron wrench in the parking lot outside Ashok’s apartment complex. Intending to use it as a weapon, he brings it back to his...
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Shortly after Dharam’s arrival, Ashok learns that the ruling national government has lost the election to several oppositional parties, including...
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...companion discuss how they will be sure to get the correct amount of money from Ashok, and decide that it is not worth the trouble of threatening him with physical violence,...
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The following morning, Balram asks Ashok for time off so that he can take Dharam to the Delhi Zoo. Balram’s nerves...
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The following morning, Balramdrives Ashok from bank to bank to fill the red bag with money for his master’s final...
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The deed done, Balram covers his tracks as best he can and scatters Ashok’s body with stickers of the holy goddess Kali, thinking that they may help his dead...
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