“The White Tiger,” March 20, 2021, Netflix. Adapted by Ramin Bahrani from the 2008 Booker Prize winning novel of the same name by Aravind Adiga, this Indian/American, Hindi/English hybrid looks at the new and old India clashing in the era of globalization. This India is one of political corruption and payoffs, of brutally repressive village life and first world glitter and third world privation. This is no longer a land of a thousand castes. Rather, there are two: upper and lower. Caste and class merge even as caste and class collide as Balram, a poor, yet aspiring, young man from villages dominated by brutal, higher caste landlords, seeks to leave home as a servant/driver to his ruler’s American-trained son (Rakumar Rao) and Indian-American wife (Priyanka Chopra). Balram narrates his own story as he writes to a visiting Chinese dignitary. Injustice and brutality are normalized aspects of his life, and he is set up to take the fall for deadly mistakes by his masters. He understands himself as a penned rooster awaiting execution, held hostage by the never-ending threat to his tentative security and to his extended family in the village. But while he’s a typically naïve and obsequious servant, he’s also sharp and knows he’s a force to be reckoned with. He’s the rarest of animals, a White Tiger, in this case, a man on the make. He is no Naxalite, but neither will he accept his lower-caste fate. And he sets out to recreate himself and the environment in this new India, even as others around him pay the cost for his actions. Pay attention to the excellent English/Hindi soundtrack including “Jungle Mantra” by Divine featuring Vince Staples and Pusha T over the final credits.