Script Analysis: “The White Tiger” — Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on the exercise — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

This week: The White Tiger (2021). You may download the script here.

Written for the screen by Ramin Bahrani, based on the book by Aravind Adiga.

Plot summary: An ambitious Indian driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top. An epic journey based on the New York Times bestseller.

THE WHITE TIGER
Scene-by-Scene Breakdown
by Shikha Mahajan
GoIntoTheStory.com

Pages 1–2: In New Delhi of 2007, BALRAM (early 20s), dressed as a Maharaja, is settled in the back seat of a speeding car. He notices the statue of Gandhi, leading the procession on Dandi March. PINKY, wife of ASHOK (both early 30s), drives the car in a fog of pollution. Both are drunk. They laugh off and sing merrily as the car swerves around a couple of time before a SMALL FIGURE darts in front of the car. Balram shouts; the frame freezes on Balram.

3–4: Older Balram (late 20s), moustachioed and potbellied, introduces himself (through his V/O) in an email to the Chinese Premier, WEN JIABAO, as he watches news of him visiting India to meet the entrepreneurs. Older Balram talks about India’s lack of basic infrastructure and professionalism, but it still having entrepreneurs. He himself is now an entrepreneur of a taxi service in Bangalore.

4–5: Balram introduces his family in Laxmangarh village (V/O continues): sly old GRANDMOTHER, elder brother KISHAN (14), smashing coal at a tea shop, FATHER, straining to pull a heavy rickshaw, and young Balram, gawking at white man and woman doing yoga poses, symbolizing India of light, and Sadhu bathing, woman washing clothes, and men brushing teeth in a filthy river, symbolizing India of darkness.

5–6: A brief intercut to the present: Balram prints a poster of his barely recognizable face with heading ‘Assistance sought in search of a missing man’. He asks Wen Jiabao to not judge him before he tells his glorious story.

6–11: Introduction continues: Balram, with his intelligence and wit, impresses a SCHOOL INSPECTOR, who calls him a WHITE TIGER and promises him a scholarship to study further in Delhi. Balram, happy with this, has a happy moment with his father teaching him names of body parts in English. At night, he reads from a book, while the rest of the large family sleep together in two groups — men and women.

The STORK (late 40s) and his mongoose son MUKESH (20s), landlords of the village, come and harass village men for illegal taxes, especially Balram’s father, who’s always in debt to them.

Young Kishan takes Balram from school to the tea shop to work there. Balram (through the V/O) tells he never saw inside of the school again. His father gets sick with tuberculosis, and dies in Balram’s arms in a hospital that has no doctors. During the final rites, Balram sees his father’s feet curl up and resist fire. Balram faints.

11–12 : Balram tells the Chinese Premier about the Rooster Coop, which he says is ‘the greatest thing that has come out of the country in its ten thousand year history.’ Along with his V/O are visuals of chickens stuffed in wire cages. A butcher de-feathers and cuts throat of a rooster, while others look on indifferently. Likewise, Indian streets crowded with working class, servants and rickshaw pullers. He says servants in India do not cheat on their masters, not because they are honest and spiritual but because they are caught in the rooster coop.

12–14 : Adult Balram (early 20s) breaks coal and waits table in the same tea shop, along with eavesdropping on customers. The older Stork (60), Mukesh (40) and Stork’s younger son ASHOK (early 30s) arrive princely in a shiny SUV. Balram instantly decides that America-returned Ashok will be his master. Balram, later, tells his grandmother that Stork’s family is looking for a driver for Ashok, and ask for INR 300 to learn how to drive and become his servant. The grandmother, against her better judgement, agrees. Balram, ecstatic, leaves for Dhanbad.

15 Balram learns to drive.

16–21: Balram flatters his way to Ashok’s driver job and after the background check of family, he is hired for the job at INR 1,500 per month, to be raised to INR 2,000 per month after two months. Balram also knows if he commits any mistake, as worthy, he and his family will be shot dead. And this is how, Older Balram tells, through V/O, the rooster coop works.

22–23: Balram gets a room to stay, along with Ram Persad (the number one driver), and a uniform too. The guard, BAHADUR, smacks him and orders him to dust a pile of carpets. While he does all the household chores, dusting and cleaning, Ram Persad gets to play with Mukesh’s kids and roam around with no work. Balram gets envious of him. He spies on him.

23–27: One day, when Balram cleans a terrace table, he sees Pinky and Ashok in their room. When Ashok notices Balram, he looks away. Ashok calls Balram to his room to ask him about his knowledge of internet, computers and Facebook. With abrupt answers from Balram, Ashok tells Pinky how Balram represent biggest untapped market in India.

Balram, unhappy with his own ignorance, reads newspapers and goes to a cyber café. Next time, when he tells Ashok about his new knowledge of internet and outsourcing in front of Stork and Mukesh, he gets smacked by Mukesh for talking in front of them.

27–29: Balram gets paid by Mukesh; the money he dutifully hands over to his brother, Kishan, every month. He is allowed to keep INR 200 every month. He tells his brother about Pinky, how liberal she is for the household, and that the couple faced problem at the time of their wedding because they both belonged to different castes.

29: One morning Balram spies on Ram Persad and finds out, when Ram Persasd enters a mosque to pray during Ramadan, that he is a Muslim. Something that the Stork and Mukesh hated. Ram Persad had hidden from them his true identity to get this job.

30–32: One day, the GREAT SOCIALIST — the Chief Minister of the state, along with her staff and bodyguards, arrives at the Stork’s home. Balram eavesdrops on their conversation. The Great Socialist demands a huge bribe for illegal coal mining the Stork was doing. When they try to negotiate, the Great Socialist calls Balram over and calls his owners names in front of him.

Balram again eavesdrops at night, when the Stork, Mukesh, Ashok and Pinky are aggressively talking about the solution to the issue — bribing the opposition party instead. Mukesh gets upset with Pinky interfering in matters of men, but Pinky declares that Ashok and she will go to Delhi to resolve the tax fraud.

32–34: Mukesh choses Ram Persad to drive Ashok to Delhi. Balram threatens Ram Persad with disclosing his identity in front of his owners. Ram Persad, for the fear of outcome, leaves quietly one day.

34–37: Balram drives Ashok, Pinky and Mukesh to Delhi — large tree-lined boulevards, majestic government buildings, cows, auto rickshaws and beggars, all around. They reach Ashok’s luxury apartment that has a sky-line view. Balram enters, enamoured by the view. Mukesh smacks him and orders him to keep the luggage and clean the place.

Balram drives to the basement, where all the servants and the drivers lived. VITILIGO-LIPS, introducing him to the city, shows him around the place and his room. The place is dingy and dirty, infested by mosquitoes. While other drivers heckle him sometimes, he gets to his room and writes his name on the wall, proud to have a room to himself.

38–43: For the next few days, Balram drives Ashok, Mukesh and a red bag around New Delhi to different political party houses and ministry offices. Once he misses a turn, Mukesh smacks him and tells Ashok to get his replacement. Once, Ashok comes out of a Minister’s office, sullen. He feels bad to have bribed and crossing Gandhi’s statue of Dandi March.

Balram and Ashok see off Mukesh at railway station; Balram buys him a dosa and removes potatoes from it, knowing it doesn’t suit him. In return, he lectures Balram to not be irresponsible around his master’s resources.

With Mukesh gone, Balram happily drives Ashok back. When Ashok smokes a joint and asks him to keep it a secret, Balram dutifully abides. When Ashok practices his serve, Balram dodges balls and collects them. When Ashok plays video games, Balram accompanies him.

44–46: One night, Balram drops Pinky and Ashok at a club. Other drivers, including Vitiligo-lips, make fun of him, calling him the country-mouse. Upset with this, he moves to a secluded storage room in the apartment basement.

46–50: Balram drives Ashok and Pinky to a relative in Laxmangarh. On the way, he fools them by making up religious and spiritual stories around trees, temples and sacred paths.

After dropping them off at their relative place, Balram goes to visit his family in Laxmangarh village. Unhappy grandmother becomes content when Balram hands over money to his brother Kishan, who counts it in front of her. The grandmother then serves him chicken and tells him about a probable wedding she has fixed for him. Balram expresses his disinterest in getting married. Following a heated argument with his grandmother, Balram leaves angrily.

50–52: On their way back, Ashok hints Balram about their unpleasant trip to their relative’s place. He also tells Balram about Bangalore, which he says is future of outsourcing. Balram tells him that he can drive him to Bangalore right away, but becomes unhappy when Ashok tells him that he has to make proper plans before doing that. Older Balram, through his V/O, tells ‘Rich men are born with opportunities they can waste. But a poor man…?’

52–55: In their apartment, Pinky talks to her friend about Ashok’s disinterest in talking about moving back to the US. Balram brings in tea, scratching his groin. They get disgusted from this, his mouth full of paan and his filthy uniform. They ask him to take the tea back. Pinky’s friend tells her, when he’s walking back, that people from lower caste behave like that.

After the friend leaves, Pinky talks to Balram about the need to finish his education and starting his family. When Balram tells her that he is happy serving them, she tells him her childhood story of struggle and curses caste system in India.

Balram looks at the reflection of his stained teeth in a silver tray. He buys toothpaste, black shoes, and a shirt from road-side hawkers. Later, he brushes his teeth again, and then again, but is unable to remove the stains. Older Balram (through his V/O) thinks — ‘If only a man could spit his past out so easily.’

55–63: Balram, dressed like a Maharaja (like the opening scene), surprises Pinky on her birthday with balloons and a tray of pizza boxes. Pinky gets all excited.

Later, he waits outside a club for his masters. He notices Vitiligo-lips and other drivers but refuses to join them. Rather he dozes off in the car, only to be startled by Pinky when she bangs on the window. Ashok and Pinky are drunk and they rib Balram. In the car, they try to make out, and stop when Ashok catches Balram’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. At a signal, Pinky buys a Buddha idol from a little beggar girl. Balram snubs the girl for touching the car. Pinky doesn’t like this. She leaves Balram with the idol on the signal, as she drives off with Ashok. They come back after a while, laughing and takes Balram along.

Pinky drives fast and erratic. (We have caught up to the opening scene.) Balram looks out at the Dandi March. The car swerves around a rickshaw, a cow, before a small figure darts in front of the car. Pinky smashes right into it. They stop after a beat. They realize it is a small child. While Ashok and Pinky want to call the police and take the child to the hospital. Balram, realizing there’s no one around, pushes them inside the car, telling Pinky will be in trouble if anyone sees them. Balram drives them away.

Balram washes off the tyres of the car in the garage as Ashok looks on. He calms Ashok’s nerves down and suggests him to rest.

Balram lies in his bed with a smile, knowing he has helped his master beyond the call of his duty.

63–69: A smiling Mukesh welcomes Balram to Ashok’s apartment, where the Stork, Ashok and a lawyer are waiting for him. Stork makes him sit with him on the sofa, and Mukesh feeds him a pan. After confirming that Balram hasn’t shared the details of the accident with anyone, they give him a paper and ask him to read it. It is a confession letter, supposedly written by Balram, confessing that he has hit the child on the road, and that he was alone in the car. Mukesh tells Balram that he has thumb approval of his grandmother as a witness on the same document. Ashok remains silent, and averts his eyes. Stunned, Balram signs the letter with shaking hands.

Balram walks out; the sun blinds him. The fear grips him; he hides in some weed, trying to save himself. He curls in his bed in fear. He drinks by the road-side. Balram (through his V/O) tells that there’s only one way to break free. Knowing what his master’s family can do to his family, he tells it ‘takes no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of nature. It would, in fact, take a White Tiger.’

69–71: Balram enters Ashok’s house. The Stork and Mukesh hurl abuses at him; their behaviour is in complete contrast to the last time they met to get him sign the confession letter. Pinky and Ashok enter. Realizing Mukesh hasn’t given him the news, Pinky sits on the floor near Balram and tells him that no one reported the accident to the police, so he is not needed in the case. Balram, stunned with relief, puts his head to the Stork’s knee with gratitude. The Stork kicks him back. Pinky gets upset; she strikes the Stork in return. The family drama follows, and Pinky leaves the room.

72–73: Before the Stork and Mukesh board the train, Mukesh tells him that he will always have his confession letter with him.

Balram, lost in his thoughts, wanders off the lanes of Old Delhi, noticing poverty all around.

73–75: Pinky wakes Balram in the middle of the night and asks him to drive her. Balram notices her suitcases.

Balram drives her to the airport. Once there, Pinky hands a brown envelope to Balram and leaves.

Back in the apartment, Ashok is angry with Balram to drive Pinky to the airport behind his back. He smacks Balram, grabs him by his collar and shakes him around. It gets intense until Balram shoves him off, sending Ashok flying into the sofa. They are both surprised. Balram leaves.

76–79: When Balram doesn’t get called by Ashok for two days, he goes to the apartment to find drunk Ashok in a mess. He cleans Ashok’s face when he pukes in the bathroom and tells him to believe in God. He makes lemonade for Ashok, but Ashok has passed out. He taps him. Nothing. He slaps him hard and then harder, but Ashok is out cold. He sits on a sofa, stretching his legs on the table, thinking aloud (through V/O), ‘Do we loathe our masters behind a façade of love, or do we love them behind a façade of loathing?’

Balram puts Ashok on bed, pulls a cover on him, while Ashok urges him to not leave him. Later, Balram slips into one of the Ashok’s jackets, combs his hair like Ashok, and enjoys a top-line whiskey in the living room.

Balram, knowing it was his duty to be like Ashok’s wife now, takes him to a road-side eatery. Ashok enjoys his meal while Balram sweet talks to him.

Balram takes Ashok to a temple and they pray for Pinky’s return.

79–81: Ashok and Balram receive Mukesh at the station. At home, he tells Ashok that Pinky has asked for divorce. Ashok breaks down; Mukesh tries to placate him. Balram brings in food, insisting Ashok to eat his favorite meal. Ashok throws away the food and Mukesh curses Balram to get away.

81–84: Balram walks back, thinking, ‘the desire to be a servant had been bred into me, poured into my blood. Hammered into my skull.’ He looks at the odd figure of money that Pinky gave her at the airport, and realizes they owned her much more than that for signing the confession. Balram talks to Vitiligo-lips and figures out ways to cheat on one’s master.

Next few days, he makes money by getting false repair bills, selling off his master’s petrol, using the car as a cab.

84–87: Balram gets to his room, and finds drunk Ashok waiting for him. He thinks he’s caught, but Ashok is there just to have some light time in his company.

87–89: Balram drives Ashok, Mukesh and the red bag. At a signal, Balram hands a rupee to a beggar. Mukesh gets annoyed with him doing so, and calls him names. Ashok is equally upset with Balram and snubs him.

Back at the apartment, Balram eavesdrops on Mukesh and Ashok, when they talk about his replacement.

89–92: Ashok walks to Balram with his red bag and tells him to drive to the Parliament house. Just then, he realizes he has left his phone in the apartment. He hands the red bag to Balram and goes back to get the phone. Balram can’t believe it; he puts the bag inside the car, looks around and then opens the bag — Stacks of 100 rupee notes. He shoves it back, and zips the bag.

Balram drives Ashok around for the next few days, and tries to not look at the bag. Ashok dispenses cash from the ATM and adds it to the bag. Balram sees his dead father, driving a rickshaw on the roads of Delhi. His father tells him — ‘Even if you were to steal it, it wouldn’t be stealing.’

After dropping Ashok off at a meeting, Balram wanders on railway station, thinking about his destination, if he came there with the red bag.

He has a nightmare that a thug beats his brother to death, shoots his family and stabs his grandmother.

After he drives Ashok home, he talks absurd. Ashok tells him that he understands that he misses his home. He asks Balram to plan a trip home, and that he will take care of the expenses. Ashok hands him a few hundred rupees, enough for only one-way ticket and leaves. Balram crumples up the money.

93–94: Ashok shouts at Balram for driving through a road blocked by supporters of the Great Socialist, to celebrate her victory in the recent elections.

Outside the Sheraton hotel, Balram holds the door for the Great Socialist to sit in the car. Inside, Ashok talks sweet, wishes her for her grand victory, and extends his family’s desire to donate 10 lacs to her party. The Great Socialist turns her face away, and demands 40.

94: Balram finds a wrench at a construction site and swings it into a concrete block. He swings it again.

94–95: Balram returns to his secluded room to find a young boy, DHARAM, waiting outside. Dharam is a distant cousin and is here to be groomed to become a driver one day. He has a letter from Balram’s grandmother, who reminds him to send her money, and also that she has arranged for his marriage. And if Balram refuses, she will send the girl to him, and if he still refuses, she will write a letter to his master, explaining everything. Agitated, Balram slaps Dharam hard, and shocked with his own behavior, he tosses the wench aside and walks away.

96–97: Ashok gives Balram a holiday, but Balram soon realizes that his boss is trying a replacement.

He takes Dharam to a zoo; where they see a White Tiger. The White tiger paces behind the bars, looking straight into Balram eyes. Balram sees his father pulling a rickshaw, grandmother laughing at him, his father’s foot curling up in fire, Pinky smiling at him, Ashok clapping and smiling at him. Balram sweats, his eyes flutter. He sees Ashok slapping him in his face. He faints.

Older Balram (through V/O) quotes Iqbal, a great Muslim poet, ‘The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave.’

97–100: Balram prepares the car- cleans it and lights incense sticks inside it. He places a plastic bag with clothes and a broken glass bottle by the floorboard of his seat. At night, he puts a few hundred rupees in Dharam’s pocket, hoping he would know to run, when he wouldn’t return the next day.

Balram drives Ashok and the red bag in the rainy night. On a secluded road, Balram stops the car and tells Ashok that something is off with the wheel. He picks up the broken bottle and exits the car. Ashok is busy on his phone. Outside, he places the bottle by road-side. After ensuring the road is deserted, he requests Ashok to look at the tire. Ashok comes out, and gets to his knees to look at the tire. After some hesitation, Balram rams the bottle down into Ashok’s skull. He thrusts it down three times. Ashok crawls about in the mud. Balram cuts Ashok’s throat and kills him. He has done it, he is free.

101–103: Balram, in changed clothes, holding onto the red bag, waits for the train at the station. He sees a homeless family and a kid at the platform. Balram leaves the station, and gets back with Dharam.

Anxious and scared, Balram stares out of the window; red bag in his lap and Dharam by his side.

He holds up in a hotel room for four weeks, before his nerves calm down. He gets a shave and goes around the Bangalore city with Dharam. When he notices SUVs coming in and out of the call centers, he realizes what he was going to do.

He bribes a police officer to raid a taxi service, hassle drivers and arrest the owner.

104–106: Present. Older Balram (through his V/O) tells about his company — White Tiger Drivers! Thirty drivers and twenty-six vehicles. Also, he calls himself ‘Ashok’ these days.

Balram pays his drivers, while Dharam does the book-keeping. He keeps a professional relationship with his drivers. And when one of his drivers runs into an accident, he takes full blame of the accident, unlike his masters. He pays the family of the deceased and offers to employ their other son with him.

Reading a newspaper, he realizes he won’t ever know what happened to his family.

106–107: Balram briefly meets the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, before his delegation whisks him away to the hotel. He reminds him of his email and tells him that the future is real estate.

107–108: Balram drives around, and later, in his office, writing his email. Through his V/O, he tells ‘I do think about my ex a lot, and I do miss him. He didn’t deserve his fate… AH, I should have cut the Mongoose’s neck.’ Later he thinks that he won’t ever regret even if he’s caught. Because it was all worthwhile to know, even for a minute, what it means not to be a servant.

He exits the frame, after his last lines — I have switched sides. I’ve made it. I’ve broken out of the coop.

A trailer for the movie:

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown , go here.

Major kudos to Shikha Mahajan for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To see 100+ screenplay scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.

For an in-depth analysis of White Tiger go here.

To read dozens of Go Into The Story Script Reading & Analysis Series, go here.