He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident "doctor." With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.
Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughought the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel. --Valerie Ryan
Wow. Absolutely one of the best novels I've read. The power of Roberts' lyrical style and uncanny genius to capture the power of a moment and a person let alone the context in which the story takes place is simply remarkable…
Take a trip through India while you dance in the mind of a genius fugitive.
I don't often read books twice. Not (just) because I have particuarly high standards, but because I am both blessed and cursed with in the word's of another: “an elephantine memory”. Not so much for detail, but for the order and substance of experience. I have an ongoing internal chronologue of what happened when, why it happened, and more importantly how I felt about it.
More so in the past than in the now—a tangible blessing of my ongoing practise of meditation—is the ever more vivid emergence of the eternal now, the light of which obscures in increasing brightness the shadows of the forgettable then. In this respect I am more than cheerfully losing my mind!
With regard to books, for this is in fact a book review, I remember the reading experience too well to cheapen the author's work by reliving their tale less than whole-heartedly at a premature date. Shantaram, however, by Gregory David Roberts, I would quite happily read twice and then again if but time did permit.
“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.”
Shantaram is the autobiographical novel of the author's real life journey from bank robber and addict to prisoner and then fugitive, from Australia to India, and from only an actor in his own life to its' playwright and author.
“Truth is the bully we all pretend to like.”
Beginning with armed robbery and Australian prison to the slums of Bombay and it's mafia wars; from battlefield gun-running to the fabulously surreal filmsets of Bollywood, the 933 pages of this book take place on a scale of experience vaster than just larger than life, and I am certain for some quite beyond belief.
I personally found no reason to doubt the author's probity. To me it mattered not whether this book is verifiable fact. Even if it were only three quarters true, it is a tale of heart and not of fact, of life lived and felt rather than observed and described.
“Sometimes, you have to surrender before you win.”
A journey of several continents and more than ten years, it is really the story of intuition followed and dharma learnt. A man near lost in a maelstrom of his own making accepts the guidance of fate's unseen hand and the certitude of the whisper within to find redemption and spiritual growth.
As chief protagonist as well as author, Gregory David Roberts is a warrior-poet of the modern age, a man familiar with the path of violence but adhering strictly to the code of honour and right, all the while recording on paper his thoughts and experiences for retelling at a later date.
“There is no heart like the Indian heart. It's the heart that keeps us all together.”
Shantaram is a journey on two levels. Literally it is a journey to the heart of India, the land where in the author's words “the heart is king”. Personally it is a journey of the heart through experience, from “Mr. Lindsay” of passport stolen to the affectionately nicknamed “Linbaba”, and finally to the name “Shantaram” (man of God's peace)—the name given to the author by his adopted Indian family. It is a journey of who he was in his own eyes, has now become in the eyes' of others, to who he himself seeks to be.
Learn more about the author:
Author's website
Interview with Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram the movie (imdb)
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Every human heartbeat, he’d said many times, is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he’d meant. He’d been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I’d always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter now good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love
We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.”
Couldn't believe this was the actually life of someone, when I first saw the size of the book - it's not super handy while travelling, but once you start reading you can't put it down. And everywhere on my travels people kept just saying great book… and couldn't help but agree ;-)