The Seventh Night

The Seventh Night 249-276

Part1

The last chapter is about Balrams live change from a hunted criminal to a solid pillar in Bangalore.

Back on the last day of Balram’s life as driver he made him self a plan how to get to Bangalore. He wanted to travel in zigzag which turned out to be really hard because he had to keep the red bag and Dharam in each hand. On the third day in Hyderabad Balram bought a cup of tea when he saw his police poster on the wall.

A man looked at him and when Balram wanted to run away the man caught him by his wrist. He was another guy from the darkness and wanted to know what’s written on the posters because he couldn’t read.

Balram told him those were police posters and two of them were terrorist from Kishan and the third poster was from the man who caught them. That was Balram’s poster but he didn’t tell him. 

When they finally arrived in Bangalore Balram and Dharam lived in a hotel for four weeks because Balram took so long to recover his nerves. He wasn’t that kind of guy who could just move on after killing someone.

So after those four weeks they moved into an apartment and Balram started to think about how to earn money. He sat down and listened to the city. Everything came together to outsourcing. That means you are working in India on the phone for an American company. The work time is the night and Balram was wondering how the people came to and back form there work place. That’s how he would fit in and that’s how the entrepreneurs came in. He went to a Toyota Qualis dealer and wanted to rent a car.

Balram called every outsourcing company to offer a taxi pick up service but every company already had one. He was depressed for a day but then thought what Ashok would have done. He went to the police with his red bag and made a deal with the police. He offered ten thousand rupees and a little bit more and the police checked the taxi services for drivers’ licenses. Two days later Balram had his White Tiger Drivers company.

In the beginning Balram was a driver too but the stopped. Now he has sixteen drivers, twenty-six air-conditioned vehicles, a lot more money than he borrowed from Mr. Ashok and a website. On the website are a lot of pictures from each driver and his cars and if anyone needs his help he just has to click “contact Ashok Sharma now”, that’s how he calls him self now.

In his company he treats his employees like employees and does not slap, bully, mock or insult anyone. The relation ship between master and employee is just on the working base. Everything else would he to dangerous for a White Tiger.

He also explained the long interruption the other day in this chapter. One of his drivers killed a young boy on his bike when he drove a group of girls home. When Balram arrived at the place of the accident the police was already there. The driver got yelled at from the dead boys’ brother. They convinced the brother to go to the station. The police officers knew Balram and the brother understood why Balram took him to the station.

But Balram felt bad and made the driver find the address. He drove there offered the family money and a joy at his company. He mother didn’t take the money and refused the job offer. The father thought differently about it. Balram felt better after he went there but he was scared that his employees noticed it and tried to cheat him.

Three moths after Balram came to Bangalore he went to a temple and talked in a pray to his whole family and told them to leave him in peace. Dharam, the last family member Balram really has, hoes to a good English school in Bangalore and gets what he wants. Balram thought he keeps the secret as long as he gets food, because without Balram he wouldn’t have such a good life.

In the end of the chapter Balram talks about him self. He sees him self as a part of the new Bangalore and the new India together with all the work that is going on in the city, all the companies that are coming to Bangalore and all the buildings which are getting build. He dreams about getting into real estate because it’s the Bangalore of “tomorrow” and he would sell his company to another entrepreneur. Even if this won’t happen or he get’s caught some day he would say it was all worth it.

Part2

Pg. 275 “I’ve made it. I’ve broken out of the coop!”

I really like that Balram is proud of him self and that he would not do a thing differently in his life. It shows how self-confident he became during his life. But in the same moment I don’t like and understand how he could be so cold to his family. I thought the Indian families would stick together and won’t be so mad at each other. He should have sent some of his money to his family. It won’t get in my head that he doesn’t really care if his family died because of his acting or not.

The ending made me interested in how his life would continue. He last sentence was pg 276 “ I think I am ready to have children, Mr Premier.” Is he really going to marry? Who would he marry? A woman with golden hair or a Nepali woman? Does he get caught? How would Dharams’ life be?

Part3