Cynicism as Black Comedy
Arvind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, “The White Tiger.” Adiga's novel was described as a "compelling, angry and darkly humorous" novel about a man's journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. It was described by one reviewer as an "unadorned portrait" of India seen "from the bottom of the heap". Time and again reviewers highlighted the “Black comedy” and “Dark humour” contained in the novel.
The novel charts the journey of Balram Halwai alias Munna from Lakshmangarh to Dhanbad, to Delhi and finally to Bangalore. It is full of punch lines, put downs and snide remarks on human idiosyncrasies, particularly Indian. Adiga punctures a lot of assumptions of Indian particularities which are supposed to make the visiting foreigner wonder at the “Indian way of life”. What has amused his admirers was probably Adiga’s laughter and merciless assault on the daily conduct and ways of lives of Indians. But beyond a point, Adiga’s funny asides sound trite and meaningless; they even sound deliberate appealing to a particular audience in mind.
In his now famous letter to Wen Jiabao, Munnu informs the Chinese Premier, how it is customary of people in India to start a story by praying to a higher power. But Munnu wonders whether he should start by kissing some God’s arse! (How darkly humorous, one wonders!). But Munnu’s dilemma is, “Which god’s arse though?” Muslims have one god, Christians three and Hindus 56,000,000 which would make a total of 56,000,004! The ‘black comedy’ of Adiga runs wild as he ridicules Indian propensity for appealing to the super nature as nothing more than licking the arses of gods! If this is ‘dark humour’, then the sense of humour of the reviewers needs a lot to be desired.
The common thread running through the novel is the aimless ridicule poured at individuals per se, servants, sons, fathers, wives and children, businessmen, film stars, bud conductors, and travellers. Practically everybody and everything is made fun of and the daily lives of ordinary people thrown open to vicarious and sadistic violence. Now, one can argue that this is what a writer should normally do, particularly one who claims to tear open the veneer of respectability which coats some of Indian systems and beliefs and even daily mores. No arguments about that, but what is demeaning is the vigour which Adiga shows to prise open the conduct of even the commonest of people, e.g. taxi drivers, watchmen, servants and the venom which underlies his snide remarks about them. This is appalling beyond a point and reflects on the lack of empathy of a writer towards his subjects.
Adiga has every right to follow his heart without any moral pretensions influencing his story line. But should it descend into cynicism? In White Tiger, Munnu kills his master, runs away with his money and settles down at Bangalore. He in fact, flourishes in his business and runs a fleet of taxis catering to the needs of the software professionals there. Many would call it realistic of the Indian situation, but it also betrays his naiveté.
It is Adiga’s naiveté which gives his game away, that individual progress and advancement is the result of a quirk of circumstances without a moral basis. Adiga’s merciless and brutal ridicule of all people, both weak and strong, big and small, significant and insignificant, and more importantly, the thrashing of their daily lives brings everybody on a common pedestal where human conduct cannot be differentiated into good and bad, correct and incorrect. Adiga’s understanding of this universe is that it is populated by meaningless ways of human behaviour which could be opened and laid bare for all to see with the help of black comedy.
After having made a future out of his taxi business, Munnu threatening to enter into ‘Real Estate’. Adiga’s next novel, ‘Last Man in Tower’ is unmistakably about real estate!
Much the same ridicule is continued in the little epic of 400 odd pages. The story centres around the attempt of “Masterji” to occupy and remain in his flat at Vishram Society in the face of overwhelming odds, when practically everybody – friends and sympathisers – scheme to get the Masterji to vacate his flat so that they could get a good deal from the real estate tycoon, Dharman Shah. One would expect the writer, if not to empathise with Masterji, at least to portray him as someone who had fought the system and failed. Adiga does not do anything like that. He metes out to Masterji what he had meted out to Munnu in White Tiger. Masterji’s thoughts of an afterlife, his memories of his dead wife and daughter, the food he eats, toilet used, his travel, his visits to his son and friends, in short the life lived by him, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks an year is a crude little joke which is to be ridiculed - not even to be laughed at, much less sympathised. It is this cynicism bordering on moral depravity which passes for ‘dark humour’ and ‘black comedy’.
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