Book Summary:Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

“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. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life”

Shantaram is the story of a man who, even in a life of violence, genuinely loves those in his life and the city that became his home, Bombay.A fictionalized account of the life of author Gregory David Roberts who escaped an Australian prison and moved to Bombay to spend almost a decade of his life in the slums and underworld of this city.

The narrator is a man called Lindsay, who escapes an Australian jail and arrives in Bombay on a fake passport. Here he befriends taxi driver Prabakar, who finds him a place to live in a slum away from the eyes of the law. This slum is to be the home of Linbaba, as Lindsay is called, for the next few years. While he runs a makeshift first-aid center in the slum, he also engages in criminal activities like smuggling and counterfeiting, and eventually starts gun-running to Afghanistan. Lin’s experiences in Bombay range from falling in love with the beautiful Karla, who introduces him to the world of prostitutes, to meeting the motherly Rukhmabai of Sundargaon, who christens him “Shantaram”, or man of peace.

Interspersed amid the numerous characters like Rukhmabai, Prabakar, Karla, and Kader are the sweat and grime, dirt and squalor, disease and fire and extreme poverty – all narrated with genuine affection, passion and generosity. This love and generosity towards the characters and circumstances is what sets Robert’s work apart. What could have been a mere narrative of poor people’s lives is transformed into an extraordinary piece of fiction.

It is not just a book, it is a sojourn, a spiritual journey into life that shows that even the most complex and powerful systems have at their core a simple and beautiful pattern.

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