The White Tiger: A Novel

Iqbal, who is one of the four best poets in the world—the others being Rumi, Mirza Ghalib, and a fourth fellow, also a Muslim, whose name I’ve forgotten—has written a poem where he says this about slaves:
They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world.
That’s the truest thing anyone ever said.
A great poet, this fellow Iqbal—even if he was a Muslim.
(By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail.)

y country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time.