Between The Assassinations
By Aravind Adiga
DAY ONE: THE TRAIN STATION:
In my point of view, the story Day One: The Train Station, which is the opening story of the book, was very interesting because for someone who is never been to India it describes a typical Indian town with its shops, restaurants that serve traditional Indian food (samosa) and also with the most import structure symbol of the Hinduism present in every city or town in India, a temple. It also shows an example of the mix of religions in India and also how they coexist together. We understand that the Muslims are hated and also discriminated by the Hindus in the town; there is a conflict between these two different ethnic groups and this conflict is illustrated by the fact that all the shops and restaurants were refusing a job to Ziauddin only because he was Muslim except one place, the Ideal Store, run by Ramanna Shetty: “ None of the other shopkeepers near the railway station would hire a Muslim, but Ramanna Shetty, who ran The Ideal Store, a tea-and-samosa place, had told Ziauddin it was okay for him to stay, provided he promised to work hard and keep away from all hanky-panky.
Through this story we also see an example of the struggle of a poor family who send their younger son to the city hoping that he will succeed and have a better life. Ziauddin’s struggle in Kittur to find a job and be able to raise some money for him and for his family is a real life example that I’ve seen in Bangalore many times during the past year. Children go on the roads trying to sell flowers, flags or anything that is salable to raise some money and be able to feed their families. This story shows contrast that exists in India and that we see everyday; all those kids who have to walk kilometers to go to school and most of the time they have to walk bear foot because they don’t have enough money to buy a pair of shoes.
For me this first story is the best compared to the others because it really shows the real life, the difficult life that have the Indians and how they struggle sometimes to feed their family and the difficult choices they have to make to at least have the hope to save one of their children by sending into the city where they will have to find a job that doesn’t pay much but at least it will assure them to survive.
I think that Day One: The Train Station gives the reader an objective and a general image of the life in India. For example when Ziauddin met the Pathan who offered him 5 rupees that at the beginning he refused but he finally accepted and he was happy because he could feed himself during a week with that money. I base my statement on the fact that unlikely 47% of the Indian population lives with less than 2 dollars per day and it also gives the reader an outline of the big contrast between pour and rich present in India. . We see this contrast on our everyday life for example all the poor villages we pass on the way to school for who 5 rupees represents a meal for their family.
DAY TWO: THE BUNDER:
When I read Day Two: The Bunder, I was very surprised because as I foreigner I heard that there was a lot of corruption and if you want to solve something fast (e.g: buy an apartment) or if you want to create something without respecting the rules or whatever you just give a tip to the police or an official representing the government and everything will be fine but I didn’t know that even Indians themselves suffer of that and have to pay too like Abbasi who had to pay the electricity man, half the Income Tax Department of Kittur and many other official to be able to keep his shirt factory or Kalam who had to pay the inspector of the port thinking he will be able to get in to the port but the inspector keeps asking him for more money.
Through this story, the author illustrates to the reader the weight of corruption and its negative impact in India and how people react to it. We see at the beginning of the story what Abbasi did to the glass of whiskey he gave to the official from the state Electricity Board who came to get his money: “Pressing the middle and index fingers of his right hand together, he stuck them deep into his rectum; then he dipped them into one of the glasses of whiskey and stirred” and that fact shows the reader that the sellers weren’t happy of the official’s visits; well I understand them because they only claim their money nothing else.
The story, Day Two: The Bunder, also gives the reader an outline of what does a Muslim part of a town look like with the major and most important structure that you can’t miss, the mosque, symbol of the Islamic religion. In this story we all see how people form the same religious background are solidary with each other. For example the people with who Abassi was having tea are all from totally different backgrounds one of them is a thief, the other a drug dealer; extremely dangerous persons for me but who won’t hurt Abassi only because he is muslim like them; they are all united and liked by a common religion.
When I finished reading this story, I remembered the first thing I said in my first week when I arrived to India, which was: “How can a gab that big between poor and rich exist in a country where, we, foreigner have privileged lives and how 47% of Indians have got less fortunate lives of suffering to get 3 meals a day? Why is the government not doing anything trying to help all these families by creating jobs or providing them at least one of their meals?”
DAY TWO (AFTERNOON): LIGHTHOUSE HILL:
In my point view, Day Two (Afternoon: Lighthouse Hill was a really surprising story because it opens on a superb description of the Lighthouse Hill with its historical and famous lighthouse,with its fabulous view on the Arabian Sea, built by the Portuguese and renovated by the British and it ends up in a really sad with the description of a man who has broken both his legs in consequence by the police for trying to sell Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a prohibited book (it’s a violation of the laws of the
Republic of India). Even after this untimely event and even through his handicap, the man still tries to earn a living doing his usual job, selling photocopied books, in order to feed his daughter.
Through this story, we see the struggle of a father trying to work honestly to earn some money but also to not have to do the same as his father that Xerox finds humiliating. The job that Xerox’s father did his entire life was to take the crap out of the houses of rich landlords which was the traditional occupation of people of his caste but Xerox didn’t want to do that, he didn’t want to “hang around the back wall of the landlord’s house, waiting for the smell of human shit; as soon as he smelled that smell, he came up to the house and waited, with bent knees”, Xerox wanted to do a descend and a respectable job so he decided to sell photocopied books with his daughter, Ritu, accompanying him and it is for that reason that I consider him as a respectable and honest person. In my experience not that many people would have done like Xerox, most of the people in India would have chose the easy and dishonest way to earn money; they would have stole objects (e.g. phones, jewelry, etc) and sell them back to resellers or they would just wait close by the traffic lights and when the cars stop they will go the drivers for money.
This story, Day Two (Afternoon): Lighthouse Hill, also gives the reader an outline of the discrimination shown by the police towards the street sellers and also the power they hold in their hands. In India, the police and the government play a big role and control everything that happens and they make sure that everyone follows their path using threats and violence most of the time and we can take the example of what the police did to Xerox when he wanted to commit a violation of the laws of the Republic of India by selling a prohibited book; they broke his legs with a metal stick.
I found the end of the story really sad because of what happened to Xerox who is a respectable man just trying to earn money to feed his family and who didn’t deserve to get his legs broken.
DAY TWO (CONTINUED): OUR SCHOOL:
When I read Day Two (Continued): Our School, I was really disappointed because of Shankara’s act; he detonated a bomb using a bag of fertilizer and a detonator during Chemistry class just to get his revenge from his Chemistry teacher, Mr. Lasrado. I’ve never thought that someone could do that in India, in Europe it happens all the time but I thought here in India, the students were more scared and had more respect for the teacher. This story is really surprising because it opens with the superb description of one of the oldest educational establishments in the state of Karnataka, the St. Alfonso’s Boys’ High School and Junior College and all of a sudden we hear about a bomb that exploded during Mr. Lasrado’s chemistry class.
In this story we meet up again with a theme that was also present in the story Day One: The Train Station which the discrimination but in this story the discrimination is not based on the religion, it is on skin color. I don’t understand how can people judge others based on their background, religion or skin color, for it is just uncivilized and inhuman. In Kittur, there were two castes: the Hoykas and the Brahmins and Shankara is a difficult position because he is a Hoyka from his mum and a Brahmin from his dad that he hasn’t seen for 6 years. Shankara was part of both castes but everyone considered him as a Hoyak and he was called “low caste” even if he was rich. In this story we see again a representation of the conflict that exists in India between Muslim and Hindus, which has been on for more, then 100 years and is still relevant nowadays. This conflict reminds me of all times me and my parents had to stay home for safety reasons because the Muslims and the Hindus were fighting each other and even though the Parliament ruled in favor of one of the two parties there are still tensions present between this two religious parties.
In my point of view, Day Two (Continued): Our School, is a sad story because even if Shankara detonated a bomb during Mr. Lasrado’d class, I feel pity for him. Shankara is a child who didn’t live with his father and who has for only family his mum that he doesn’t really and his four best friends with who he forms “the bad boys gang”. On top of that his teachers and the priest keep calling him “a low caste” and it is not easy for a child to live, enjoy life with all that tension and pressure involved all around him in his everyday life and we see that, we understand what pushed him to detonate a bomb in his school but we see that Shankara is not a bad kid because at the end he calls the police wanting to denounce himself to the police regretting what he did.
DAY THREE: ANGEL TALKIES:
The story, Day Three: Angel Talkies, was one the stories that I enjoyed the most reading because there wasn’t nothing surprising. I found the opening description of the cinema really funny because during the past year in India, I have never seen a place opened until midnight, everything closes at eleven p.m usually and I also have never seen a cinema diffusing that type of movies because as I have discovered it India is a very puritan, conservative and religious country where women have to cover themselves properly meaning that they should wear something that would avoid men to be attracted by women, physical attraction toward a woman is considered as a manifestation of satan.
Through this story, we discover another important thing present in India other than corruption which the censure of the media in India. I said earlier in the description of Day Two (Aternoon): Lighthouse Hill, the governement controls everything in the country even the media which proves that there is no liberty of media or liberty of writing like in Europe or in America, the media and the books are censured for example some books are prohibited to be sold in Inida like Mein Kamf written by Adolf Hitler. During the past year I lived in India I discovered that this country wasn’t really a democracy in the fact that first the governement controls everything even the elections and second the people don’t have any right to say or criticize anything which is the opposite of a democracy .A democracy is supposed to be roles by the people who vote and elect their president but India is the opposite of that and that’s why when people talk about India they qualify it as a dictatorship using the reign of terror which means they use the fear of peole against them to be able to contol them (people are scared so they just follow without any question).
Even if the story, Day Three: Angel Talkies, was one the most interesting stories of Between The Assasination it was the most difficult one for me to right a description about and also link it to my experience in India.
As an overall, I really liked reading the book “Between The Assassinations” by Aravind Adiga which is for me a superb author who presented and described India to the reader in a sort of way that even if you have never been to India you will like you have been there. I also liked the fact that he talked truthfully about the real problems present in India like poverty, corruption and discrimination/racism, he didn’t describe India as a pardise on earth; he gave the good points of it but also the most important the bad points of it. Even if I enjoyed reading I wouldn’t recommend this book to one of my friends or a member of my family because each story was different form one and other that you get lost sometimes and even bored even if the stories where somehow linked.
