• Dr Manju
• Dr Vinod Kumar

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga's first novel, was published in 2008. With the book's depressing depiction of India as a corrupt and enslaved nation, he took a lot of heat for smearing India's reputation just as the country was rising to worldwide economic prominence. Adiga, who has been a resident of Mumbai for almost a decade, insists that the bleak portrait of India he paints in his book "is the reality for a lot of Indian people and it's important that it gets written about rather than just hearing about the 5% who are doing well. Thus, in The White Tiger, we see the unseen side of the Shining India of the new century—a world that is dark, chaotic, and amoral—a side that many people would rather not discuss. It is my contention that Adiga uses the picaresque genre in his work to expose and brutally criticise what we may presently term modern India. Américo Castro argues that readers might get a better knowledge of the society they reflect on by reading picaresque novels as a type of rebellion popular,' a social protest of the poor, and a critique of the world of aristocratic luxury. In this paper, I argue that The White Tiger is best read and interpreted as a societal satire that ultimately calls for reform, making it a picaresque book. To give a very broad definition, the picaresque is typically thought of as a fictional autobiography, the unrestricted first-person narration of a roguish protagonist named the picaro. The Picaro is an outcast willing to do anything to improve his social status. He is often a young kid who has had his innocence shattered and is now struggling to survive in a dangerous world. He learns deception and treachery from his surroundings. "The picaresque would return during days of irony and discouragement," said literary critic Claudio Guillén, and "the picaresque character is a reflection of a society undergoing profound social changes," wrote critic Angela Hague. Adiga's protagonist, Balram Halwai, travels like a picaro across the rapidly changing landscape of twenty-first-century India.

Arvind Adiga’s “The White Tiger”: A Study of the Indian Picaresque Novel of 21st Century

"Arvind Adiga's “The White Tiger”: A Study of the Indian Picaresque Novel of 21st Century ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 3, page no.b366-b372, March-2024, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2403148.pdf

"Arvind Adiga's “The White Tiger”: A Study of the Indian Picaresque Novel of 21st Century ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 3, page no. ppb366-b372, March-2024, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2403148.pdf