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Wen Jiabao
Balram’s father is a poor, illiterate rickshaw driver who dies of tuberculosis early in the novel. During his life, he fights to the best of his ability to fulfill his wife’s wish that Balram be given an opportunity to finish his education and move up in the world. Balram traces his struggle for upward mobility to a wish his father once expressed: that although he himself spent his life being treated “like a donkey,” he wants one of his sons to be able to live like a man.
Vikram Halwai Quotes in The White Tiger
The The White Tiger quotes below are all either spoken by Vikram Halwai or refer to Vikram Halwai. 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:
).
Chapter 4: The Fourth Night Quotes
“We were like two separate cities—inside and outside the dark egg. I knew I was in the right city. But my father, if he were alive, would be sitting on that pavement... So I was in some way out of the car too, even while I was driving it.”
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Balram describes the experiences of driving Ashkok around Delhi and observing those outside of the car. He notes that he has more power than those on the street but also that his actual social position is hardly any better. To explain how separate his existence is from those on the street, Balram uses the image of two cities. This metaphor implies that there are two overlapping cities in the same physical space—thus pointing to how varied of an experience two populations can have in it. The “dark egg” of the car divides the two, presenting Ashok and Balram’s city as Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferen
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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Ashok prepares for an enormous bribe, so Balram must shuttle him over Delhi withdrawing money. This passage is a characteristic example of how Balram’s imaginative thinking takes a metaphorical idea and renders it literal. Of course, the physical weight of the bag is not actually sufficient to weigh him down, but Balram feels that it is symbolically doing so. That he feels a “pressure increase” speaks to a double moral burden: one Balram feels for supporting Ashok in the first place and one for the murder he is planning to imminently commit. And, intriguingly, this burden causes Balram to think Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a
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Vikram Halwai Character Timeline in The White Tiger
The timeline below shows where the character Vikram Halwai appears in The White Tiger. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: The First Night
Balram’s father Vikram Halwai scrapes together a living as a rickshaw driver. His one ambition is to see his...
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