O tigre branco, de Aravind Adiga, ou a globalização vista do lado de lá.

Distinguido com o Man Booker Prize de 2008, o livro de Aravind Adiga, uma longa carta dirigida ao primeiro ministro chinês Wen Jiabao de visita a Bangalore(1), dá-nos, com humor negro e sarcasmo, uma visão realista e deprimente da Índia dos nossos dias, através dos olhos dum jovem nascido numa pequena vila do Norte da Índia, da sua peregrinação desde a patética escola de aldeia, pela casa de chá para onde vai trabalhar aos oito anos, como motorista duma família rica na capital Nova Delhi, e na altura em que a carta é escrita, já empresário de sucesso, dono duma empresa de táxis em Bangalore, capital high tech da Índia e grande fornecedora de serviços de call center aos EUA.
Enquanto não temos tradução, um pequeno extracto no original da carta de Balram Halwai, o tigre branco, a Sua Excelência Wen Jiabao:

To begin with, let me tell you of my great admiration for the ancient nation of China. I read about your history in a book, Exciting Tales of the Exotic East, that I found on the pavement, back in the days when I was trying to get some enlightenment by going through the Sunday secondhand book market in Old Delhi. This book was mostly about pirates and gold in Hong Kong, but it did have some useful background information too: it said that Chinese are great lovers of freedom and individual liberty. The British tried to make you their servants, but you never let them do it. I admire that, Mr. Premier.
I was a servant once, you see.

Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China Afghanistan and Abyssinia. These are the only three nations I admire.
Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage, and drug abuse, I offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore.
By telling you my life story.

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don´t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs – we entrepreneurs – have set all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.

(1) Wen Jiabao visitou de facto Bangalore em Abril de 2005.

Nota
O Bibliotecário de Babel informa-nos que uma tradução do Tigre Branco, da Presença, chegará às livrarias em Março.