1. How does Adiga make this a dramatic moment in the novel.

Don't waste your money on those American books. They're so yesterday.

I am tomorrow.

In terms of formal education, I may be somewhat lacking. I never finished school, to put it
bluntly. Who cares! I haven't read many books, but I've read all the ones that count. I know
by heart the works of the four greatest poets of all timeRumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and a
fourth fellow whose name I forget. I am a self-taught entrepreneur.

That's the best kind there is, trust me.

When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and became one of its most
successful (though probably least known) businessmen, you will know everything there is to
know about how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious
twenty-first century of man.

The century, more specifically, of the yellow and the brown man.

You and me.

It is a little before midnight now, Mr. Jiabao. A good time for me to talk.

I stay up the whole night, Your Excellency. And there's no one else in this 150-square-foot
office of mine. Just me and a chandelier above me, although the chandelier has a a
personality of its own. It's a huge thing, full of small diamond-shaped glass pieces, just like
the ones they used to show in the films of the 1970s. Though it's cool enough at night in
Bangalore, I've put a midget fan five cobwebby bladesright above the chandelier. See,
when it turns, the small blades chop up the chandelier's light and fling it across the room. Just
like the strobe light at the best discos in Bangalore.

This is the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier! But it's still a hole
in the wall, and I sit here the whole night.

The entrepreneur's curse. He has to watch his business all the time.

Now I'm going to turn the midget fan on, so that the chandelier's light spins around the room.

I am relaxed, sir. As I hope you are.

Let us begin.

Before we do that, sir, the phrase in English that I learned from my ex-employer the late Mr.
Ashok's ex-wife Pinky Madam is:

What a fucking joke.

I am tomorrow. This scene is dramatic as we find Balram convincing Mr. Jiabao that he is
singular. This three-word enunciation enhances the solemnness of Balrams tone and the
dramatic significance of the extract. This moment in the novel is also, in manifold ways, an
exposure of Balrams character and also serves various dramatic purposes.

Balram is talking about those American books which teach people about how become an
entrepreneur. Balram qualifies those as yesterday. We are here given a glance at how
Balram dissociates himself with others. He is an exception and does not belong to any
mainstream herd of entrepreneurs. To this light, he resembles the Nietzschean ubermensch
the over man, who rejects orthodoxy to establish his own ideologies. He is tomorrow.
Note the recurrence of the theme of dichotomy with the juxtaposition of
yesterday/tomorrow. We recall the distinction between Light and Darkness. Balram is Light.
This extracts displays dualities in a dramatic way and it is important for the reader to
assimilate this concept as it a fundamental one in this novel.

Furthermore, Adiga makes this moment particularly dramatic as Balram is confessing to be

lacking. The writer, here, is showing, how his character is not very literate, but also, and
more importantly, how this is the fatal case of most Indians. Later in the novel, Balram will be
described as half-baked. Most Indians, because of their lack of fundamental knowledge, are
half-baked. Adiga is ingeniously demonstrating this and he will even qualify this as the whole
tragedy of this country. This is significantly impactful on the development of the novel as we
learn the educative traits of Balram. Thus, the dramatic implication is Adigas unveiling of the
illiteracy of many Indians.

This extract is also dramatic as the character of Balram is showing his pretention. He claims
to know poets who, according to him, are the greatest. We see that Balram is also naive as
he claims to know who are the ones that count. It can be said that Balram is complacent in
his ignorance. Furthermore, by enumerating the few poets he knows, Adiga is suggesting that
Balram is frustrated and he is overcoming this frustration by attempting to look like a
connoisseur when he is not as there is a fourth fellow whose name he cannot recall. Who
cares! Balram is somehow ridiculous this is emphasised by the exclamation mark. For him,
formal education does not matter, whilst everybody knows it does. We recall Alexander Pope
who stated: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not of the Pierian
Spring. This moment is dramatic as it sheds the light on the ignorance and frustration of
Balrams character.