I finished reading Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger late last night. It left me feeling uncomfortable and sore. It is dark and grim, but that was expected from the reviews. However, I did not find anything in the book to ‘like’. I am not impressed by the style, narration, depth of portrayal or the imagination of the author. But most of all, I found the story too fantastical to be able to elicit a positive response from a reader. It appeared to me to be an elaborate scrap book with snippets from my regular daily, hashed together to form a story. But that was yesterday. Today, as I read a scanned page from a regional daily covering a foiled kidnapping attempt of an eight-year-old boy by three young men, I am not sure if the book is indeed too surreal. One of the accused, who was caught by police after being chased in a coffee estate, is someone I know in my line of profession. Someone I have known to be hard working and honest and cited as an example of fortitude and ambition. Someone I have reccomended for higher responsibilies recently. This will be the end of what was till yesterday a promising career. Legal just informed that it is a non-bailable offence and the penalty is either life imprisonment or death. It fills me with a strange sadness to know of another life lost.