Eye of The (White) Tiger
(Image Courtesy: imdb.com) Cows mulling on the road. People. Strings of marigold flowers. Cheesy ‘Indian-sounding’ background music. Multiple shots of the slums. Trains. A toothless beggar woman smiling at the camera. These are a few standard tropes that play out in almost every film about India made by a non-Indian director, including the infamous Slumdog Millionaire. I call these ‘tropes’ because even though they are a part of daily Indian life, you hardly see these tropes affect everyday life in our society and country (except maybe for the cow). These are still a part of the outsider’s view of India. Only an insider knows the issues that actually plague the country; poverty, caste, class, patriarchy, and the evergreen rich vs poor. The White Tiger, directed by Ramin Bahrani, despite the standard tropes, chooses to focus on the latter, and that’s what makes this film stand apart. The White Tiger, based on the Booker prize-winning book written by Aravind Adiga, is a story about how B
