Assistant Professor, Department. of English, Bilasipara College,Assam, India.
Abstract
Aravind Adiga’s novel “The White Tiger” is an authenticated document which beautifully delineates cultural encounters among various sections of the Indian society. Here, Adiga has portrayed cultural encounters within India; as we believe unity within a vast diversity is the beauty of our nation. As a matter of fact, our country has innumerable diverse cultures, as such within our nation so many cultural encounters are taking place. It is a well known fact that India is fast developing country and in this economic pursuit it has to encounter a series of cultural encounters. Besides, in the process there is a large part of India that has been ignored and these ignorant people have been compelled towards a conflict with the richer section of the society.In fact, the encounters, between the ‘have’ and ‘have not’unfold many questions in the minds of the knowledgeable readers of the novel in question. Cultural encounters hint at the cultural homogeneity of our society. Tradition, customs, conventions, rituals etc. have been exposed to modern day prism. Cultural encounters are always associated with identity. The novelist primarily presents cultural encounters between two societies: Urban and Rural by saying an India of Light and an India of Darkness. The novel under study also portrays Indian society that is changing owing to the influence of Western society. It also highlights the inability of the rural society that cannot keep pace with Indian urban society. The rural India finds itself neglected and deprived and this has prompted the central character of the novel to indulge in revolt causing various cultural conflicts. Eventually Balram,the central character becomes a successful entrepreneur by treading all social and economic conventions of India. In this piece of work an attempt has been made to bring forth various episodes of cultural encounters portrayed by the author without having any sort of emotional inclination towards any corner what so ever it may be.
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