Book Review Rating 5/5
While I was in the middle of the book , I got a sudden thought that how could I afford to miss this book hitherto. Such a good book this is!
Shantaram is a fabulously authored by Gregory David Roberts and this took 13 long years to write this book - of course, the author was in jail and faced many obstacles including the scripts gotten torn twice there.
But what a author is , who gives up his writing due to encumbrance coming along.
The narrator is nicked as 'Lin' in this book , who lost his daughter, got the incessant habit of drugs ,bereaved his family, got jailed, and then managed to escape the imprisonment of long 20 years. With no option in hand and with bad name and habit for drugs , he reached Bombay (India) . Lin was not that bad as he was thinking of himself .The time filled all his old wounds but gave a few new ones in Bombay.
He got a good fraternity of Didley,Modena, Ulla, Kavita and Lettie there in Bombay while involved in drugs deal. Love had victimized him and the girl was a German blonde - Karla. But, his fate sent him to a slum where he spent enormous period of time - initially because he didn't have money and later on because he didn't want to leave. He met there a contingent people - Prabhakar,Johnny,Qasim et al, and cherished the 'real' life in slum . While his fate was tossing there in slum along ups and downs , he could not sneak when did he start working for Bombay Mafia don Khader khan.
It's always bad for bad person to be a very good one and reverse it also true. His bad history, his loyality towards Khader, his obsession for Karla and his affection for slum people fueled Lin's life moving in a direction - he himself was not aware of. The irony was that he could not give up any of them . He loved the girl - Karla, who had her own story and didn't had feelings of any sort . So, for Lin love was just an epitome of 'act of giving' . He served Khader both in Bombay and in Afghanistan blindly to keep his word , but sometimes 'loyalty' is good for animals only and strive to emulate them give you a beast life only.
Along with the death of Khader - the don, a new mafia mushroomed in Bombay and Lin was still concerned to keep the unfulfilled promises of Khader. Karla was numb and she left with a goodbye and Lin got to revisit the true love he had got in the slum where his best late friend Prabhakar's mother Rukhamani Bai affectionately re-pronounced him- ' Shantaram!'
Of course - Such is life !
The story is flimsy but the wouldn't allow you to loose the grip . It's good blend of love, life and loyalty .
I liked several quotes in this book specially those of Karla.
While I was in the middle of the book , I got a sudden thought that how could I afford to miss this book hitherto. Such a good book this is!
Shantaram is a fabulously authored by Gregory David Roberts and this took 13 long years to write this book - of course, the author was in jail and faced many obstacles including the scripts gotten torn twice there.
But what a author is , who gives up his writing due to encumbrance coming along.
The narrator is nicked as 'Lin' in this book , who lost his daughter, got the incessant habit of drugs ,bereaved his family, got jailed, and then managed to escape the imprisonment of long 20 years. With no option in hand and with bad name and habit for drugs , he reached Bombay (India) . Lin was not that bad as he was thinking of himself .The time filled all his old wounds but gave a few new ones in Bombay.
He got a good fraternity of Didley,Modena, Ulla, Kavita and Lettie there in Bombay while involved in drugs deal. Love had victimized him and the girl was a German blonde - Karla. But, his fate sent him to a slum where he spent enormous period of time - initially because he didn't have money and later on because he didn't want to leave. He met there a contingent people - Prabhakar,Johnny,Qasim et al, and cherished the 'real' life in slum . While his fate was tossing there in slum along ups and downs , he could not sneak when did he start working for Bombay Mafia don Khader khan.
It's always bad for bad person to be a very good one and reverse it also true. His bad history, his loyality towards Khader, his obsession for Karla and his affection for slum people fueled Lin's life moving in a direction - he himself was not aware of. The irony was that he could not give up any of them . He loved the girl - Karla, who had her own story and didn't had feelings of any sort . So, for Lin love was just an epitome of 'act of giving' . He served Khader both in Bombay and in Afghanistan blindly to keep his word , but sometimes 'loyalty' is good for animals only and strive to emulate them give you a beast life only.
Along with the death of Khader - the don, a new mafia mushroomed in Bombay and Lin was still concerned to keep the unfulfilled promises of Khader. Karla was numb and she left with a goodbye and Lin got to revisit the true love he had got in the slum where his best late friend Prabhakar's mother Rukhamani Bai affectionately re-pronounced him- ' Shantaram!'
Of course - Such is life !
The story is flimsy but the wouldn't allow you to loose the grip . It's good blend of love, life and loyalty .
I liked several quotes in this book specially those of Karla.
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