Book Review: Shantaram

This is what a fellow blogger-friend had to write about the book. Couldn't agree more with him. I'm sharing it along with some of my own inputs in it...

*****

One of the most thought-provoking books my little reading has made me privy to - 'Shantaram' by Gregory David Roberts. It is about an unbelievably amazing story about an Australian Criminal finding a new way of life in Mumbai. The book seems to contain everything. EVERYTHING! From Crime to Passion, from Love to Hatred, from slums to riches and from negativity to divinity! My heart sank when I first had the glimpse of the 900+ page brick of a book. But little did I know then that it would be one of the most enjoyable and fast paced 900 pages I have ever read. So let me reassure you here not to be intimidated by the size of the book. Let me sketch the outline of the book a bit here... Gregory David Roberts (GDR), the author, once was convicted in Australia for armed robberies that he had been undertaking in order to feed his Heroin addiction. He breaks out of the highest security prison in Australia and escapes to India on a fake New Zealand Passport. He lands in Bombay, becomes associated with local people and makes lot of friends. Fate takes him through several turns in life in which he becomes (mostly by choice) a slum dweller, a 'doctor', a Cholera warrior, a Passport faker, a black market currency exchanger, a smuggler...just to name a few roles! He sees the real India starting from Mumbai to a remote village in Maharashtra. He is put in an Indian jail, survives hired assassins, survives road accidents and survives one more heroin addiction. Of course, all 900+ pages are full with lot of such incidents. What makes this book special however is that it is (mostly) biographical. I would assume fiction has been used to a good extent but still most of the story really took place with the person. But going through a tough life is one thing, and putting it down as a book to which readers can relate to is other. This is exactly the place where GDR’s writing career before his Heroin days in Australia comes to help (Yep, was quite intrigued with all this, so had done a Wiki on the same guy). Hence there is this book that is at its best in telling a true story, in a way that stirs you. Several times in the book you identify yourself with one or the other characters making it an extremely interesting book. Of course the portraying of characters is so well done that Didier, Khader, Karla and last but not the least Prabhakar (his "Lin Baba" is so from-the-heart :-) ) do not seem like strangers anymore after a few pages. You would start relating to those people independent of the other characters and I am sure you will map them to people you have known. The book is also unique because it's one of the rare books in which a foreigner has taken a deep plunge into the deepest of Indian society's complexities and also done a successful job of understanding the underlying unifying theme (phew, quite an alliteration there :-P). Of course he admires Indians for what it is but never hesitates a moment before showing things that are obviously wrong. And the best of all are the one-liners from several characters in the book that leave you pondering over them for hours or years depending on your own shallowness or depth. I think most of the credit for making the book 'great' goes to these random notes that appear to be so original and fit as much in the story as they do in your own life. Yes, there are flip sides to this book. At least in my opinion it becomes too ‘poetic’ at places. Several times in the book you will find sentences like "the ocean of her eyes had the freshness of first rain over the dryness of my heart" (I made this line up but you get the idea, right? ;-) ) There are several such metaphors and other figures of speech that could have been done away with. Then I think the book could have been trimmed a bit by a couple of hundred pages; A tighter editing would not have hurt (the Afghanistan-Taliban part gets too monotonous) So read this book if you are looking for an excellent literary work that takes you through so many aspects of life that you could possibly not have been able to go through on your own. This is one book that makes you feel all your efforts invested in reading habit worthwhile. I'd been so deeply engrossed in the book when I read it that I can't possibly wait to watch the movie - Johnny Depp plays the protagonist and our very own BIG B plays Khaderbhai! PS: The common question from most - but why the name Shantaram? See, I'm not interested in being a spoiler (aah, professional critic :-P)...I'd be glad if you check it out yourself. This book is vaguely in the league of Papillon by Henri Charriere . So if you liked that book, chances are that you will like this one too. I have read that book and well, liked it a lot. Q: Such a big review??? A: Shouldn't there be some proportion with the book-size and I love Direct Proportion :-P