How is the story of the holy River Ganges (ganga) subverted? Why is this done? How is the River used as a means of changing Balram’s perspective?

“This mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight the black mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her in. It was so thick, and more of it was becoming created every moment as the river washed into the ghat. Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start licking her. And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here."

Balram, 14-15

In this intricately constructed passage, Balram uses gruesome, highly vivid imagery to depict his mother's burial. With disjointed clauses and repetition, Adiga reflects at the level of sentence structure the struggle of the mother's body against the thick mud. The mud of the Ganga River is a potent symbol for the oppressive cycle of repression that traps India's poor in the Darkness. Balram's despair at the thought of being eternally caught in this cycle forms the impetus for his journey of self-improvement. His ability to see symbols in life is largely responsible for his ability to refashion identities (think of the "White Tiger," the chandelier, or the "Rooster Coop"), and he here reveals that he had that instinct for symbolism even as a young boy.