Shantaram

It was a week ago when I couldn't set the book down and finally finished an epic story that Shantaram was. At the end of the book it just left me with a "wow"! A book about an escape prison inmate from Australia who had escaped to New Zealand and then to Mumbai, and the story is of his ten years in India. He's known as Lin/Lin baba/Shantaram. Although a novel, it's also an autobiography. wow...Even after a week of setting it down it leaves me with a "wow". A book that definitely should be read. Of course, the size of it all probably sets many off but his writing style is just amazing. The characters, the places he goes through become so real that often you cry at their losses. I have never pictured smugglers, "mafia" dons could still touch ones heart. But his writing is creative to a point I have never found in others before. Even with the size it's an easy and fast read and often you don't want to set the book down!

Taken from Amazon.com..

"Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in Shantaram, a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means "man of God's peace," which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies peformed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that's only the beginning.

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"

The first part of the book was the most enjoyable. It was his stories about life in the slums, the people he gets to know, and the second half just gets ugly with life in the Mumbai Mafia world, where the violence increases and his creative writing doesn't give your imagination a break! wow!

If this book did one thing, it helped me see Mumbai in a different light, a better one. He took the time to understand the people, the reasons behind their behaviour and not comparing them to anyone else and anywhere else as we often do when visiting places. In reality the escapee gets caught, serves his remainder of time in prison in Australia and has moved back to Mumbai since.

As I read the book, I was thinking what a great movie this would make, and no less...two weeks ago I had read that Warner Brothers has signed on to make this movie with Johny Depp as Lin Baba & Amitabh Bachchan playing the role in the movie. Should be an interesting one as Johny Depp would somehow make it well. I am curious to see how it's done. I still believe though a movie can never replace the amazing writing style of the author.