Reading page 22-36
Part 1
Balram’s father was a hard working man and chose to fight and not to beg the landlords for work during the rain, like the rest of the working men in the village. The father had a plan and that was Balram. He wants at least one of his children to live like a man.
One day he yelled at Kusum because Balram came home from school early. Balram got scared when he saw a lizard and his classmates teased him by catching the lizard and holding it in his face. That’s why he ran home.
Since that day he is back in school. A few days later a school inspector stopped by the school on surprise. He saw the classroom in a really bad shape and yelled at the teacher for stealing so much money from the school funds. They don’t have any duster, chairs or uniform at the school. The inspector also started testing one boy after the other. Balram was the only one, who was able to read, to write, to read the time and knew the Great Socialist. The man promised Balram a scholarship in another town and called him ‘The White Tiger’ because he is an intelligent and honest young man in a class full of idiots.
A ‘law’ of the darkness is if something good happens bad news will follow really soon.
That’s what happened to young Balram. His cousin got hitched off to a boy. His family had to give the boy a new bicycle, cash, a silver bracelet and they had to arrange the wedding. To celebrate a huge wedding the family took a big loan from the Stork and because he called in his loan the whole family had to work. My brother Kishan picked me up from school and we walked to the tea shop to get our work. We had to break coal into little pieces by thronging it against a brick. Classmates stopped by after school and made fun of him. Balram felt bad and his brother tried to make him feel better. To turn bad news into something good is the entrepreneur’s prerogative.
The last thing he is talking about the Black Fort, as a child he always wanted to go there but Kusum told him it is too scary to go for him. While working as a driver for Mr. Ashok he finally went there. Up there was nothing really special just the view was really pretty. He started to spat over and over again out of nothing. 8 months later he slit Mr. Ashok’s throat.
Part 2
“There wasn’t much around – just some broken walls and bunch of frightened monkeys watching me from a distance. Putting my foot on the wall, I looked down on the village from there. My little Laxmangarh. I saw the temple tower, the market, the glistening line of sewage, the landlords’ mansions – and my own house, with the dark little cloud outside- the water buffalo. It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth.” Pg 36.
He is talking about the Black Fort in this part. When he finally got up there, there was nothing but a great view. So why was he scared to go there after all? Just because someone told him the biggest lizard lives there? He just believed it and made everyone think he is a scaredy-cat. In the age of 24 he was able to proof them wrong. He made it up there and felt good about himself.
The description from on top of the Black Fort sounds pretty and like he says in the last sentence, “It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth.” Pg 36 It is ironic because everything looks beautiful from far away. The truth is the people have a bad life. They have to work there asses of to get money and then they have to split it up because the landlords get a part of it. The children have to work for the family to get there loan paid of and can’t go to school because of that. I think it’s not far and I really hope the situation is going to get better soon.
Part3
Laxmangarh
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/de/Laxmangarh
http://www.indianetzone.com/12/laxmangarh_rajasthan.htm
Laxmangarh Fort
Town view of Laxmangarh
Nice links, Kathrin!
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