The White Tiger recap

Balram Halwai, the son of a poor rickshaw puller in rural India, writes to China's premier from Bangalore to explain his rise as an entrepreneur. Intelligent but removed from school, Balram becomes a chauffeur for the wealthy Stork family and drives the American-returned Ashok and his wife Pinky in Delhi. Service exposes him to two Indias: the protected world of malls, apartments, political influence, and bribes, and the precarious lives of servants whose families help keep them obedient. After Pinky kills a child in a road accident, Balram is prepared as the family's scapegoat, though no charge follows. Pinky leaves, Ashok becomes increasingly corrupt and isolated, and Balram turns from admiring him to planning escape. He murders Ashok, steals a bag of bribe money, and flees with his nephew Dharam. In Bangalore, using the name Ashok Sharma, Balram bribes officials and creates a successful taxi fleet. His freedom rests on violence and on adopting many practices of the class he once served.

Writing over several nights to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, Bangalore businessman Balram Halwai begins explaining how he escaped poverty. He grew up in Laxmangarh, a village in the impoverished region he calls the Darkness, where four landlords dominate local life. A teacher gave the nameless boy the name Balram, and a visiting inspector called him a rare white tiger because of his intelligence. Although promised further schooling, Balram was sent to work in a tea shop so his family could repay debts. His father, a rickshaw puller who wanted a better future for him, died of tuberculosis after receiving little effective medical care. Determined not to remain trapped, Balram learns to drive and gains employment with the Stork's wealthy family. He becomes their second driver, serving the Stork's sons Ashok and Mukesh and Ashok's wife Pinky. Balram discovers that the senior driver, Ram Persad, is concealing his Muslim identity and uses the information to force him out, winning the preferred driver's position and a transfer to Delhi.

Balram drives Ashok and Pinky through Delhi, observing how servants wait in basements while their employers move through luxury hotels, malls, and government offices. Ashok's family makes regular payments to politicians to protect its coal interests. Ashok seems personally kinder than Mukesh and uneasy about corruption, but he continues to participate in the system that enriches him. Pinky resents India and her husband's family. On her birthday she becomes drunk, insists on driving, and hits a child in the road before leaving the scene. The family prepares Balram to accept legal responsibility, reminding him that his relatives in Laxmangarh are vulnerable to retaliation. Balram signs a confession he cannot read freely, but the police never pursue a case because no victim's family comes forward. The episode clarifies what his apparent closeness to Ashok is worth: when danger threatens the employers, the servant is expendable.

Pinky gives Balram money, leaves Ashok, and returns to the United States. Ashok grows lonely and relies more heavily on Balram, yet the reduced distance between them does not make them equals. Balram watches Ashok carry large bribes, drink, pursue women, and gradually lose the scruples he brought back from America. Through other drivers and his own secret excursions, Balram learns how servants exploit small openings in their employers' routines, but he also describes the larger restraint as a rooster coop: fear for one's family keeps servants from rebelling even when escape seems possible. His resentment intensifies as he compares the money passing through his car with the life available to him. When Kusum sends his young nephew Dharam to Delhi, Balram must consider that any move against Ashok may bring punishment upon both the boy and the family back home. Nevertheless, he begins weighing the red bag of bribe money as the means to a new identity.

Balram decides to break out of servitude despite the likely cost to his family. After composing a warning for Kusum, he drives Ashok with a large bag of cash intended for politicians. In a secluded place he pretends the car has a problem, lures Ashok out, and kills him with a broken liquor bottle. Balram takes the money and escapes Delhi with Dharam. He believes the Stork's family will murder his relatives in revenge, though he does not learn exactly what happened. In Bangalore, Balram adopts the name Ashok Sharma and uses bribes to establish a taxi fleet serving call centers, eventually becoming a prosperous employer. When one of his drivers kills a boy, Balram protects the company by paying the family and using police influence, behaving much like the powerful people he condemns. He treats his drivers comparatively well and accepts responsibility for Dharam's future, but feels no remorse for Ashok's murder. He closes his account imagining further ventures and insisting that his crime made his independent life possible.

Balram decides that the red bag of bribe money in Ashok's car is his route out of servitude. After sending a warning letter home, he drives Ashok to a secluded area, kills him with a broken bottle, takes the money, and flees Delhi with his young nephew Dharam. He assumes that the Stork's family will retaliate against his relatives in Laxmangarh, though he never confirms their fate. In Bangalore he adopts the name Ashok Sharma, uses part of the stolen money to bribe the police, and builds a taxi company serving call-center workers. When one of his drivers kills a boy in an accident, Balram pays and pressures the bereaved family while protecting the business, repeating the methods of the powerful men he escaped. He nonetheless regards his company and care for Dharam as a freer life. He ends his letters convinced that the murder was the price of becoming an entrepreneur and imagining further business success.