Booker Prize - literary world's most prestigious awards

You just have to open your window in Mumbai and a story comes out and hits you

Because of the omnipresence of advertising, of television, the media is everywhere, and people aspire to the same things now; it's not like, formerly, where they just aspired to roti, kapda aur makaan dreams, or to just getting by. And, unfortunately, the capacity of the Indian State to provide the means to get to these dreams through education, fluency in English, healthcare and a good law-and-order system to protect you is limited. The poor do not have access to any of these dreams.

I had access to all four of these as a middle class Indian growing up in Mangalore. I had good education, good English education, good hospitals, and the police to protect me. And, this is why I am where I am today. But for a poor person, especially from UP or Bihar, he has the same dreams as I do, but all these key things are missing for him. What is the way out for him?

What I'm trying to emphasise here is the urgency to fix the situation. We need to fix these key missing ingredients for the poor people so they have legitimate means for achieving their dreams.

A poor person in India today has the same dreams as the middle class'

You said soon after winning the Booker that when you go back to Mumbai life won't be changing much for you. You also said Mumbai has a way of reminding you that writers are not particularly important.

Well, in India, when we talk about everyone watching the Booker, everyone reading books, we're talking only of the middle class which is only 30-40 percent of any city. Sixty percent of Mumbai either lives in slums or on the pavement. They have much bigger concerns than reading a book written by someone who has won the Booker Prize.

What I'm saying that in Mumbai you are surrounded by millions of Indians who are just trying to make a living and they remind you of what is important in life and putting you in place: between the struggle to find dignity, to find a good home, to raise a family, to give the children good education. You are just one of millions and millions in that city. I enjoy being that.

I don't mean that Mumbai has its priorities wrong. I enjoy living in Mumbai. It's a place of tremendous energy. One of the great things about it is that I will be walking the streets again, looking at people, talking to people, and hopefully getting inspired to write again. That's what I look forward to doing, right now.

In another interview you said that to a large number of poor people in India only two things are open: either crime or politics. And the latter is not too far away from crime.

What I meant is that if you are a poor person in India today, one thing that has changed is that you now have the same dreams in the middle class. This was not true 10-15 years ago. The poor had different dreams, more modest dreams: just getting slightly better off, having enough to eat, setting up a small home. Now because of the media being everywhere: the internet, advertising, the poor people in India in a city like Mumbai have exactly the same dreams as the middle class and rich people which is becoming entrepreneurs, setting up a big house, going abroad.

Unfortunately, this is a problem because the means of achieving those dreams are open only to a few number of Indians: the middle class. So, the problem we are facing now is that the dreams are the same shared by all, but the infrastructure like education, healthcare, law and order that allows you to get to those dreams, is only open to 40 or 50 percent of the society. This is going to lead to frustration and more crime and also more criminal politics. Because, really, if you are a poor person and you want to just get slightly better off, then you can do that in an honest way but not if you want to be rich. If you are a driver and you want to become rich like a master of a Honda car in your lifetime, there are only two ways out.

In my book I have a scene where Balram (who goes to become from a chauffer to an entrepreneur using a murderous path) is speaking to other drivers. He asks them what will happen to drivers in 10 years from now. They tell him that his son may go to university and he may have a good life. But Balram wants the good life for himself too; he does not want to wait for his son to get there. There are only two ways for a driver making Rs 3,000 a month to become rich in his lifetime -- to enter politics or become a criminal.

Booker Prize is the Holy Grail

Mumbai-based Aravind Adiga arrived in London last week as one of the six finalists for the Man Booker Prize, one of the literary world's most prestigious awards, hoping to meet with the fellow writers and have a great party after the event.

"Being on the shortlist itself, for the Man Booker Prize, especially with the first novel, is like winning," he said talking from his hotel room in London soon after he was declared the winner for his comedic fable, The White Tiger which also fetches him 50,000 British pounds (app Rs 42,29,750). "I was so happy just to be on the shortlist. I had no expectations of any kind. I assumed that someone else who had been published before would win. I was looking forward to a great party on the night of October 14. None of the six authors on the shortlist for the Man Booker prize is a loser because being on the shortlist is a major achievement and a guarantee of sales in itself."

He added: "All our books had received quite a bit of publicity the moment the list was announced."

"But I had no time for the party at all," he continued, chuckling. "I had to give quite a few interviews."

The 33-year-old author adds to the list of Indians winners: Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai. Among the shortlisted writers this year was Amitav Ghosh for the novel Sea of Poppies.