White Tiger Blog (T.B.): Summary of Chapter 7

At the beginning of the chapter, Balram talks about the rich people in Delhi. They became fat, because the consuming too much food so they need to try to lose weight. On the other side, having millions of poor people, suffering from not having enough food to survive.. Every night the masters make an evening walk, while the servants stand around them with a bottle of water. There Balram meets the Vitiligo-Lips and asks him for a girl with golden hair.

Then he explains Mr. Jiabao different ways how to earn some extra money from the master. For example, when the master is not around he can siphon petrol from the car with a tube and a funnel and sell it. Or you can go to a corrupt mechanic if his master orders him to repair the car and gave him some money for work beforehand. Balram tells that he collects some money by doing these ashaming things.

On a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Ashok tells Balram, that he doesn’t need him today, so Balram goes to the servant dormitory. There he meets the man again and gives him the money for the girl. When the man counts the money while standing in the parking lot, Balram tells him, that the girl is for himself and not for his master. The man gets proud of Balram, because he shows some ambition.

Then they drive to a hotel in South Extension and the man to the manager and say that his friend wants to have a golden-haired woman. He gives him the money and after that the manager takes Balram upstairs. The Vitiligo-Lips leaves the Hotel and drives away.

The Manager shows him the room with the girl. They enter the room and the girl sits on the bed. Balram sits next to her and they talk a little bit. Then they start to have sex. But after a few minutes Balram yells and starts to slap her, because she has dyed hair. The manager enters the room and Balram grabs him to get his money back. The situation ends with Balram leaving the hotel with a scratched and bruised face.

When Balram drives back to his home, he notices that somebody sits on his bed. It was Mr. Ashok. They talk a little bit and Mr. Ashok tells him, that he will give him another room to live like he lives. Mr. Ashok doesn't like his life any longer and wants to change some things. He starts his new life by eating some food of the servants together with Balram.

In the second part of the chapter Balram tells, that mongoose comes back to Delhi again to visit Mr. Ashok. They talk about the divorce and he tells Mr. Ashok, that a divorced man in India isn´t respected. Mr. Ashok has to remarry another girl and not the Nepali. The mongoose gives him a bag full of money and says that Mr. Ashok has to go to the minister’s assistant, because the minister needs a lot of money for his election campaign.. While they wait in the traffic jam to drive back to the apartment, Balram gives a rupee to a child which sells some things to the car drivers. The Mongoose and Mr. Ashok get very angry about that, but then they are going on to talk about the divorce.

The next day, Balram drives the Mongoose and Mr. Ashok to the ministers assistant, to deliver the money bag, after that they have lunch in a hotel. Then Balram drives the Mongoose back to the railway station.

One day Balram drives Mr. Ashok to the Imperial Hotel. He thinks about his situation and about Mr. Ashok. After Mr. Ashok gets out of the car and goes to the hotel, Balram drives to the train station. He thinks about to steal the red bag with the money and go somewhere. But then he thinks about his family and what will happen to them if he would steal this bag full of money from his master.

On Sunday Balram has a free day and drives to the red-light district by bus. There are lots of people and some of them want to sell some things. He comes to a secondhand book market where many booksellers have their stalls. He reads in some books until he meets a Muslim who tells him something about poems and the Urdu language. After this conversation Balram goes to the older part of Delhi and sees that the city gets older and older and the air gets worse every day. Later he sees a buffalo, going his own way down the street, with no human on his side. Then a strange thing happened: In his imagination, the buffalo talks to Balram and says him, that his Cousin Kusum was kicked to death.

The next morning, Balram and Mr. Ashok sit in the car talking. Then Balram tells him, that he is going to marry a girl. Thereupon Mr. Ashok gives him one hundred rupee, with the statement, that Balram is a good member of the family. Mr. Ashok asks him, weither he marries in Laxmangarh and that he will come along at the wedding.

The next morning Balram walks out of Buckingham B onto the main road. He goes straight ahead into the slums. The construction workers live there in bad affairs. They build the malls and homes for the rich people. When he comes back to his room, Dharam the son of his aunt sits in his room with a letter from Kusum. Balrams aunt wrote that he is a bad guy because he does not send money to his family. She also wrote, that she found a wife for him to marry.. The aunt would send the wife to him if he wouldn't come home. He also had to care about Dharam. When Balram reads the letter, he gets angry and slaps Dharam. Balram tells Mr. Ashok, that his family sends him a helper and Mr. Ashok accepts it.

One day Mr. Ashok gives Balram a day off. He asks Mr. Ashok, weither he can visit the zoo with Dharam. In the zoo they see the animal which gets born only once in every generation - the white tiger. Balram analyzes his movements and later he falls into faint. That evening, Balram wants Dharam to write a letter to his aunt Kusum on his behalf. He wants to tell her what happened at the zoo, as well as saying goodbye to his grandmother.

One morning Balram drives Mr. Ashok from one bank to the other, because he needs money for the red bag. On their way back, Balram stops the car. He says that there is a problem with one of the tires. He checks at it asks Mr. Ashok to get out of the car to help him. At first Mr. Ashok do not wants to leave the car, but after a while he opens the door. He goes down on his knees to help Balram fixing the tire. Balram takes the bottle that he brought along and hits Mr. Ashok on his head. He drags the dead body into the bushes, jumps into the car and drives to the train station, where Dharam waits for him.

What I like/dislike in this chapter?

I was surprised, when Balram told, which methods the servants have to earn some extra money. Here you can see the dark side of India. Balram described bad things like violence, dealing with drugs and the prostitution. I can understand, why Balram got angry, when he read the letter of kusum. But it´s not fair to his Dharam,because of this letter. I first thought,that Balram steals the money bag at the first time, but I didn´t expected an end of this chapter like this. Balram killed his master in a bad way, just with a bottle. It´s also unbelievable, that Balram is not sure to get away with Dharam together. I think that Balram didn´t made a right decision, to kill Mr. Ashok, because I had the feeling that the connection between them got better and better.

I found an interesting link about the divorced people in india and how they get treaten...

Divorced People in India

Here I found an nice picture from the bookmarket, where Balram talked with a muslim...