Frontiers is One!
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Applying Science into Our Daily Lives
How do we apply scientific formulas or theories into our daily lives? According to Associate Professor Dr Hon Wei Min, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at UCSI University,
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happenings
Kuala Lumpur International Dragon Boat Festival
By Edrea Sun Since its inception many hundred years ago, the dragon boat race had traditionally drawn huge crowds in the thousands comprising rowers, supporters, foreign tourists, curious onlookers and locals alike. This time around the festival has come early and was held at the Kepong Metropolitan Lake Garden, the first ever water activity held
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Leisure & Lifestyle
Nocturne:Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
By Khoo Kok Kian Nocturne is derived from the French word, Noctunal and from Latin, Nocturnus. People usually interpret it as a music piece which is inspired by night. A very famous classical music piece by Frederic Chopin was also named based on this word. Kazuo Ishiguro, a prominent author, who is also penned The
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Talk To Us
By Conrad Edmund Bateman Mitch Albom once said that, “The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” In conjunction with a yearlong celebration of UCSI University’s Silver Jubilee, the
"Light UP Lives Charity"
The White Tiger: Shadowy Substance
India. Her name conjures up scenes of Taj Mahal, temples, Bollywood movies, booming economy, and tourist attractions. Things we know from the surface, so superficial, so shallow. How much of India would anyone actually know? The right people to ask are people who have experienced it first-hand. People who live there and breathe Indian air.
The cover of the Booker Prize 2008 winning novel
Meet Balram Halwai, the self-proclaimed Thinking Man, the entrepreneur extraordinaire, ‘The White Tiger’. Ask him about India and he will tell you. He will bring you on a powerful and shocking journey into India’s ‘heart’…its dirty secrets and its underbelly. He knows truth. That is why he believes it is his responsibility to stop the Chinese Prime Minister from doing a state visit to India.
Consequences of Balram’s ‘selfless’ deed: The White Tiger, a series of 7 darkly humorous and matter-of-fact letters written to the Chinese premier, an exposé of India’s deepest and most unknown dark alleys, a first-person account of India at its best and its worst.
Balram Halwai did not have a privileged childhood. No sir, he did not. He is one of the hundreds millions of people who live in India’s forgotten slums. Is it the bitterness of growing up so undernourished or working as a chauffeur to someone who was ‘extra-nourished’ in every sense of the word, that drove Balram to make a change so drastic that it involved murder?
This masterpiece debut by Aravind Adiga, Time Asia’s correspondent, aims to highlight the racial problems or caste systems that are so well-known and spoken about. That, to take Balram’s words, would be “a f**king joke.” It is, in fact, a portrayal of India’s current most pressing problem: the material divides between the rich and the poor.
The author of The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
It is not a novel that everyone would understand or appreciate, but Balram Halwai’s rise from a mere driver to one of Bangalore’s most successful entrepreneurs is not only a story of poverty, corruption and cover-ups, but also a story of hope and lack of it. Balram Halwai said that Bangalore city is under a veil… maybe he meant that description for today’s India as well.
Riveting and absolutely worth every bit of your money, The White Tiger will open your eyes to one of the world’s oldest civilizations, and will make you reflect on how much she has changed and how much she has to change for the good of the country’s future. Two thumbs up!
The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2008.
