By Aravind Adiga

Rs 699

In his last letter to the Chinese Premier, Balram Halwai, the White Tiger in Adiga’s eponymous novel, writes, “I am thinking of real estate next. You see, I’m always a man who sees ‘tomorrow’ when others see ‘today’.” That was in 2008. Three years later, Balram Halwai has metamorphosed into Dharmen Shah, the Mumbai real estate developer, the chief antagonist in Adiga’s new novel, Last Man in Tower. Balram and

Dharmen are “self-made men”, cunning and successful entrepreneurs in contemporary India. The story of The White Tiger is narrated by Balram himself in direct, unsubtle and often brutal style. In Last Man in Tower, the author is the narrator; the canvas is wider with a larger cast of characters. Though the later book lacks the intensity and passion of The White Tiger, it is an equally compelling read. Adiga has a way of telling stories.
Tower A of Vishram Housing Society is a six-storied building built in the 1950s in Vakola, a poorer, eastern suburb of Mumbai. The building, the oldest in the area, is in need of major repair. More than four decades of monsoon, erosion and weathering have taken their toll on Vishram Society and the building “stands in reasonable chance of complete collapse in the next monsoon”. Most of those who live in Vishram have lived there for long and many have grown old together. They are solidly middle class and seem to have missed the golden bus of Shining India. Vishram is their oasis and their prison and they live in the unshakeable belief that like them, the building will survive the ravages of time.
This then is the setting of the novel. Adiga has moved his focus from the anger of the subaltern of The White Tiger and has trained his camera on another stratum of urban India, those for whom caste and religion are of little consequence. Instead, what binds them is their respectability and it seems, they will not trade it for all the wealth in the world.
The events narrated in Last Man in Tower take place between May and October in present-day Mumbai. The residents of Vishram Society receive an offer from Dharmen Shah to sell their flats to him for a sum of money which is much higher than the market rate. But Shah has set a deadline. All have to sell their flats before midnight of October 2. Otherwise the deal is off. Most of the residents find the offer unbelievably attractive and see it as a way to escape the drudgery of their constricted existence. A few are holding out. Among them are the Pintos. Mrs Pinto is nearly blind and fears that she will not survive in unfamiliar surroundings. Their dear friend, Yogesh Murthy, a retired school teacher (Masterji, as the residents respectfully call him) agrees to stay on with them. And then there is Mrs Rego, the Leftist social worker who opposes the sale on principle.
How Dharmen Shah, with the help of his “left-hand man” Shanmugham, breaks down the resistance of the few who oppose the offer forms one of the principal movements in the narrative. The only man who continues to remain steadfast in his rejection of the offer is Yogesh Murthy, the last man in the tower. Initially, the residents plead with him to change his mind and as the deadline approaches, their desperation grows and as the plot gains speed and hurtles towards its climax, these perfectly ordinary and decent men and women are filled with hatred and anger towards the man they once admired, for he is responsible for thwarting all their dreams. The closing chapters of the book take on a dark tone and how the conflict is resolved must remain outside the scope of this review.
Adiga’s first novel, The White Tiger, gripped the reader with its sheer pace. Its social commentary struck us later. Last Man in Tower is a more mature work with nuanced delineation of the characters and their motives. The central figures, Yogesh Murthy, the honest, noble-minded school teacher, pitched against Dharmen Shah, the unprincipled, land-grabbing builder, conform to our accepted perception of social stereotypes. Adiga’s success lies in breaking this mould. When we examine Masterji’s motives carefully, we aren’t entirely convinced. Since all the others, including the Pintos, have agreed to sell to Shah, what holds him back? Is it the memory of his dead wife and daughter? Or is it sheer, stupid obstinacy? He cannot be altruistic because he is hurting people like the Puris. For them, Shah’s money might help provide for their son, Ramu, struck at birth by Down’s syndrome. Ironically it is Ramu who is most distressed by the residents’ alienation from Masterji.
And what of Dharmen Shah? After all, his offer is more than just and Vishram is on the verge of collapse anyway. Shah dreams of building Shanghai, a multi-storied apartment block where Vishram now stands. He respects human greed and uses it with subtlety to gain his ends. But that hardly brands him as a demon; in fact, he is battling his own demons: a fatal lung disease caused by the dust of the buildings he breaks down and builds and a delinquent, teenage son whose one chilling line stops Dharmen Shah in his tracks: “One day, father, we’ll be proud of each other.”
Adiga as a novelist is perceived by many as one who shines a torch on the dark underbelly of urban India. That interpretation does not do justice to Last Man in Tower. His prose may seem imperfect to some with its heavy-handed symbolism and a mix of startling and outlandish imagery. But he has something important to say: that ordinary men and women struggling to survive in an iniquitous world are sometimes confronted with difficult moral choices and have to take the consequences of their decisions. In the end, that is the disturbing thought that lingers.

The author can be contacted at alokeroy@hotmail.com