Between the assassinations
By Arvind Adiga
Day One: The railway station
The story gives right from the beginning a good over view of the life in India, which I like. The description how the streets are littered with trash, matched exactly with my first thoughts when I drove here through the streets. Everyone would throw his or her trash out on the street, not caring if he cows would eat it or harm the environment. Due to this disorganization children cannot go to school and get educated therefore children need to work to help their family financially. Just like in this story Ziauddin, when he gets send by his dad to town to work. I have been told, that here in Bangalore people from the countryside come to earn or beg for money for their families. Which I have experienced myself a lot, when people knock on the window to get money. I think it’s very fascinating that in this story a Hindu let’s a Muslim work in his shop, because as described in the story for usual Muslims work in a Muslim shop, but I haven’t noticed that yet, because I haven’t had the time to walk through the small shops by the side.
After Ziauddin got thrown out from a couple of jobs in teashops he becomes a porter at train stations. Especially here you can see how Indians can change their attitude and behavior, when they know with whom they are dealing. I can talk of my own experience, as soon as they see foreigners entering a shop they put the prices much higher but when we start dealing the price can go much lower. But even then they have made a big profit, which might be for them a lot but for us it’s cheap. Here in the story as soon as Ziauddin found out his costumer was also a Pathan, he offered him a better hotel.
Since I haven’t lived in India for a long time, it’s hard to tell how the caste system is still exiting in the community. Clearly is here shown that the Muslims are still not equated with the Hindus, because they don’t accept each other the way they are supposed to. It’s been remarkable for me that they don’t get along, even if it’s small things, like the driver tells you to take care at different places where a lot of Muslims delay. Even tough I don’t have a problem with them.
What made me think a little was the reason why the boy ran off at the end when he found out that the Indian army was setting up a base near by. I can imagine that he was scared something was going to happen to him or the foreigner was working together with them. A key to that was him drawing a circle onto the ground, which shows he felt surrounded or his life was a circle always loosing a job and getting new one, which here in India applies to a lot. Mostly the people change their work frequently.
Day One (Afternoon): The Bunder
Reading this story gave me a whole new idea, about how business works in India or at least in this city, Kittur. I know that in India, when you’ve got more money than average (especially foreigners), getting things done the way you want is easier, since corruption is a very common thing. The story talks itself, a very good example is given, how the shirt factory owner bribes the official by giving him an expensive shirt served with one of the finest whiskeys. I don’t think that’s the right way, but here there’s no way out of it otherwise you get ripped off yourself. It goes in a circle of which it is hard to get out. Everyone bootlegs another but all in all they harm themselves. Sure, there are shops with set prices but in small villages or shops the prices are variable.
Still corruption is a problem; I haven’t looked behind the scenes in India, how the law works but noticing that people get unjustified things justified by bribing each other. That’s how the law get’s literally deceived and rules broken. Best example is the traffic: 300 rupees are charged when driven to fast or caught when Drinking and Driving, for some it might be a lot, but it is something to cope with, so it wouldn’t bother posh people, so they redo it.
Another problem, which is mentioned in this chapter, is the working conditions. The chef might be aware of what kind of environment his or her employees are working but looks away or has no money to change it. But in this passage it surprised me, how Abbasi sends home his workers because he feels bad for them. I don’t think you see that a lot in India in fact of the money to do that is missing. Every working hour is precious and caused to the big population everything needs to be done quickly to move on to the next, otherwise things start to amass. This is a big problem here as the huge amounts of people want something, but there is not enough time to do it, so everything delays day by day. A personal experience happened to me when our container arrived in Bangalore it was already one week delayed but they weren’t able to get to our house for two weeks. So, this is a problem, which needs to get worked on. Law is definitely something that needs to be worked on.
Summarizing I have to say that the story opened my eyes to different things and how business life works out. To me it seems more like the olden days when people try to corrupt one another, open and close shops and factories and change their jobs as well as taking their time completing the work and tasks. But the country is developing its self very good and quickly, which means the profit it makes grows durational.
Day Two (Afternoon): St Alfonso’s Boys’ High School and Junior College
This story shows a problem, which doesn’t only occur in India, but also in lots of other places in the world: children being humiliated at school. It can happen more often in India since the caste system is still present in the Indian community and therefore children get bullied and left out because they belong to a lower caste. Yet these complications take place all over, it can be because of different styles, interests or attitudes, anything that doesn’t fit according to other’s opinions. For example in this story it is very clearly shown how the teachers treat Shankara, the victim, differently for many years and to what it leads. To show the teachers and headmasters how powerful he actually is and capable of doing, he blows up a harmless bomb at school. Still it causes a lot of confusion, which was all he wanted, to pay back what was done to him.
This story reminds me of a similar assassination which happened in Germany a few years ago, when a boy who was bullied at school came back after he finished his diploma and shot randomly into the classes. And this wasn’t the only time it eventuated, the same story happened in America. I can’t tell if at Indians school students persecute, I would guess that at schools with a big span of wealth there are such problems but at normal public schools, they rather work together since they are limited on money and educational equipment.
Castes have played a big role in Indian culture, now days it is released but still in existence. Even I notice that people judge themselves here who is wealthier and therefore is in an upper caste. For example the drivers tell the gardeners what do to, since they earn more money than them. In my opinion that’s not right, because everyone should be with equal rights. It also causes confusion to people who are in between a caste and don’t know where they belong, which might mentally damage them.
Mentioning the chauffeurs in the story reminds me of my first impression when I got picked up how luxury life for us is here, while other people suffer on the street. For me it was awkward and I felt weird being driven around by a driver and not my mom or using public transportation like in Germany. But if you think about the huge population they have in India a large number of jobs need to be created and the drivers are actually happy to have an employment such as driving.
The passage when Shankara tries to tell the police that he was the bomb planter, but they couldn’t answer the phone properly, reminds me when I tried to order pizza on the phone. It was a weird experience, because when I stared to take over their accent they understood me much better. That shows how attached they are to their Indian English and adopted it.
Over all I liked this story a lot since it had a lot of different aspects of a teenager’s life.
Day Two (Morning): Lighthouse Hill
For me reading the story was very unnatural because being arrested twenty-one times in one life period seemed very unrealistic. Apart from that it shows how Xerox, the prisoner, hasn’t learned anything from his mistakes. He doesn’t care how he affects others of loss with his illegal work. Even though he wishes not to cause any trouble to the publishers doing the same thing over and over again shows his passion to the books, as said in the book it gives him power and he loves making, holding and selling them. Even when Xerox gets beaten up for selling the books, such as “Mein Kampf”, which not only is not allowed to, doesn’t stop him from continuing it. In fact it makes him even more believe that he is destined to sell books. Yet selling books makes his living but there are other jobs he could attend on doing, but his desire selling books it too big to give it up even if he can’t read them. In that case he should make it to his use and start learning it, like this he would know what is written in the books. Maybe he will change his mind and change his job to a legal bookstore.
Xerox thinks that combining his work with books would make his dad happy, but actually he does the opposite of what he is supposed to do. But since his father couldn’t read or write, his father might have been proud of him, seeing that his son could interact with books, which he never could. This case reflects also the times how it used to be decades ago, when the children were told what to become or overtake the business of their parents. They had no free decision, couldn’t follow their own dreams, wants and needs. Adding on that children did a lot of things just to make their parents proud, which would apply here.
I haven’t discovered the black market in India, not that I want to but yet I can’t judge if Xerox is a special case that sells banned books or if it happens unnoticeable in town. I can imagine that there is some black market going on but police can’t be everywhere, besides from that it wouldn’t be written in the newspaper since it is in the world a daily occurrence.
I think that reading a book gives you different perspectives of life and a lot of knowledge. Especially this book gave me a great idea of Indian culture. Despite that books give energy just by laying in front of me, doesn’t apply to me, except if they have a nice cover.
For me India seems like a peaceful place. People get along with each other. But if trouble occurs, they can get rough. I’ve seen that on the street when a rickshaw crashed into another and it started out that they discussed who’s fault it was, later on more Indians came along and commenced slapping each other, apologized and got back into the rickshaws. That’s the way I have experienced to solve a car crash. It’s a very different way to Germany. Maybe that has been an exception how they solve such things but I’ve never seen the police around, Indians always work it out themselves.
Day Three (Afternoon): Angel Talkies
My first reaction to the story was very astonished. That money had that much power even in the Supreme was for me disappointing. Such as in this story, when someone rich kills an innocent person while driving dunk and doesn’t get punished for that is in my eyes definitely wrong. But on top of that another man gets arrested for his fault. All this only happened because the guilty one had enough money to buy the judges who eventually do anything for money. I can understand that here in India money plays a big role as soon as you can get some, since many people have a low income, so as soon as they have the opportunity to earn more money, the deal has already been made. Yet for me it’s not understandable to send an innocent person to jail, when the guilty one is known. The rich man has paid the judges to reduce the sentence of the innocent one; it might make him feel better but still spending time in jail changes a person completely.
Another event that shocked me in the story was that religion was abused to hide real-estate transaction. Through the newspaper everyone thought the political fighting in town was religious riots but actually what they were fighting about was money. And again here, money plays a big role, but the inhabitants don’t notice.
I think it’s easier to make a village with one newspaper published believe lies, it wouldn’t happen here in Bangalore because we have more than one newspaper publisher and internet access, clearly there are more resources and lies would quickly be uncovered.
What I’ve noticed here in India the communication works very fast. Just like explained in the book, all the guardians at night exchange their latest stories about what happened in town and it would be the truth, because everyone knows a little bit and then they add the little bits together which fit into a logical story. Some might see the breaking news of the next day’s newspaper happen in front of their eyes. I have also experience that Indian communication is quick and all the staffs know each other. When I want to find out where something is and my driver didn’t know, he would call his friends and in minutes he knows where to go. Or another thing most people would have struggled wit was, when I lost my phone and didn’t have any numbers, my driver would find out the number of a particular friend I needed.
The way Indians communicate should be an example to other nations; they don’t need high technology, tit surprises me how they manage to do that. When I see the women working at construction works with their saris and men barefoot carrying everything on their heads. But they are staring to use more machines instead of using their strength and if you look at the IT branch in Bangalore, it is developing tremendous. The whole city is getting more developed.
