September 28, 2010

Page 146-189

Introductivly Balram tells Mr. Jiabo things  about the Indian culture, like that the most of Indias citicens are servants and just a few are masters, but the servants wouldn't change that even if they could. He says that they are living in some kind of a rooster coop. But if they try to get out of there, their masters would kill them or destroy their family. Balram says that only a perverted person may do things like that.
Back in the former part of the story Balram is scared of going to jail, because of the incident with the child. He thinks about running away or tellingthe truth about the incident. but then the Stork comes to Delhi. As Balram takes notice of that he is really excited and hopes that he gets rescued by the Stork. It happens like that and the Sork tells Balram thathis help isn't needed anymore, because there was nobody who witnessed the accident with the child. That is a great relief for Balram. The Stork and the Mongoose stay for another four days and then go back to Dhanbad. The same day at night Balram takes Pinky Madam to the airport and goes back to the USA without saying good bye to Mr. Ashok.
As Mr. Ashok notices that, he makes Balram responsible for that and almost kills him in his madness. Mr. Ashok gets depressed and Balram suffers with him although he almost has been killed him. After one week the Mongoose comes to support Mr.Ashok.
In that time Balram gets a letter from Kusum. She writes that Kishan, Balrams brother, has married and that she doesn't want to force Balram to get married as well. Balram thiks she wants to blackmail him, to send some money, because he doesn't do that. If Kusum tells the Stork that Balram isn't sending money every month Balram, probably would get fired.
One day Balram takes Mr. Ashok to the shopping mall and after that to a hotel. He comes with a girl out of that hotel. Balram thinks it is a whore. They want to go to PVR Saket, a business complex with lots of shops and a cinema. There is one big market in it where Mr.Ashok goes with his chaperonage. Balram goes to a smaller market. There is a giant pile of books. Balram is interested in that, but all of the books and magazines are in English. He talks to the men who sales the books until he has to drive Mr. Ashok and his girl home. They are pretty drunk and go straight up to his appartment.
Balram dresses as Maharaja again and drives through the streets with music and A/C system turned on.
The next morning Balram hears nothing from Mr. Ashok and so he goes up and rings at the appartments door, but nobody opens. He eavesdrops a conversation between Mr. Ashok and the girl from last night. Balram recognizes that the girl is Mr. Ashoks old lover and not a pick-up. They talk about thingsout of the past.
after a phonecall from Dhanbad, Ashok tells her that he has to go to meet a cabinet minister. She leaves on her own. Mr. Ashok collects money from four different cash machines. After he has delivered the bribe to the minister a fat man, who is the ministers side-kick, comes out with Mr. Ashok and forces him to spend the evening together. The fat man tells Ashok that he has seen how a judge got beaten up in his own court by lawyers, because they didn't liked the order he had given. That makes him think that a civil war is coming up to India. They keep talking and during that the fat man forces Ashok to try a whore he knows, which is from Ukraine. They do it at a hotel and then Balram drives him home, but goes back to the hotel afer that, because he wants to see the Ukrainian girl walking out the hotel. Nothing happens, except that a policeman takes notice of Balram. When he comes up to him, Balram starts the car and drives home.


Servants in India


What I found interesting in that part of the book was that there are so many servants in India. I would have estimated th number of servants up to maybe 30-40%, but it reads in the book that if you are an Indian you areeither a servant or a master. Furthermore it reads, that 99.9% of all the citicens are servants. Ireally wouldn't have expected that. That means that there is a huge gap between rich and poor.
I think that is a fact which shows how democratic India really is, because in a democracy it isn't like that almost everybody has to suffer and some few have a real nice life because of that. What they have in India seems to me more like slavery.


2 Kommentare:

  1. Very well and quite comprehensive so far (at least at first glance), Sebastian. I nevertheless recommend using a dictionary and a word processor to eliminate unnecessary mistakes.

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  2. I really appreciate that link to the article on the murder issue!

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