Meet Balram Halwai the White Tiger: servant philosopher entrepreneur murderer. Balram was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop crushing coal and wiping tables but nurses a dream escape. When he learns that a rich village landlord needs a chauffeur he takes his opportunity and is soon on his way to Delhi at the wheel of a Honda. Amid todays Indias cockroaches and call-centres its 36000004 gods slums shopping malls and crippling traffic jams Balram learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. Driven by desire to better himself he comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage . . . through murder.