Taming Tigers

If you have not read this book, get you hands on it quick!

Yes, I'm serious, it is that good.

why?

simply because it is unforgivingly, brutally honest.

What I love of this book is basically the fact that not a single word has gone to waste. Every single description is relevant, and makes for a pinpoint analogy of each scenario in the book. When you traverse each sentence, you already have an idea what the author is trying to portray in the way he describes what the characters do, wear, walk, talk. the simple gestures represent the very soul of the culture so imminently depicted in this book.

And the main character, Balram, seems so real that you could almost believe that he actually runs around in the streets, er, slums of India. The complexity of emotions and the inner turmoil he felt as he expresses his views on the issues.

The author's ideas of a new-age caste of small-bellied and big-bellied people and the Rooster Coop has been compellingly displayed along the storyline, and you could actually understand the conflict going on in this book and sense the subtle criticisms and the desire for change in certain areas of the system. (I could even match some of the ideologies to the local scene =P).

Some people might regard this as political fiction, but the fact that the author effectively utilises dark humor and satire in his storytelling makes it a sarcastic yet entertaining read.

Similarly so, Slumdog Millionaire (which I have yet to watch) seems like another unforgivingly, brutally honest work of art.

Whereas, the local flick, Budak Kelantan, is somewhat the portrayal of the gedebe-ness of Kelantanese boys. However, lest we assume that only Kelantanese boys are like that. The idea of the film is basically to reflect on the good and the bad in our own society. All the other rowdy kids of the other states have also had 'dangerous adventures' like that depicted by the character in the movie, it is unfair to condemn the Kelantanese alone who perpetrate all that misbehavior, but the gedebe (gangster-like) Kelantanese boy is portrayed in this flick simply because the Kelantanese themselves have a unique culture (their dialect, hell yeah, it's my first language at school), some good, some bad, but all the same human- and Malaysian.

Just because the Indians are protrayed as ruthless, conniving people in The White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire, and the Kelantanese are portrayed as gedebe, doesn't mean that other people don't have it in them too. They do, only up to some degree, but the fact is, they do. It can actually be applicable to anyone , for those who actually care to stop and observe the world today.

These masterpieces don't actually degrade a certain culture, but rather opens our eyes with the unforgiving, brutal honesty that they serve, and might, perhaps, imply a desire of shifting paradigms.