It took me a real long time to pick up Shantaram. It would stare at me from the bestselling section of Crosswords and I would pick it up, read the back cover and put in my basket along with a dozen other books to spend some time with. At the end, it would still be in the basket while I walked with one or two other selections to the counter. I guess the rejecting factor was the size of it--a whopping 936-page novel in fine print.
Nevertheless, "que sera sera...", I finally bought it and was instantly hooked from page 1 till I orphaned it in the rickshaw on my way to office. I couldn't bear to miss out on the book. So I picked up another copy and read it to its end.
Shantaram is a novel about an Australian convict hiding out in Mumbai. While he is at it, he learns Marathi and Hindi (complete with its vulgar words), starts a cholera clinic while living in squalor in a slum and indulges in the foreign currency black market before being arrested and thrown into an Indian prison. His rollercoaster life then takes a sinister twist when he joins Khader's underworld and eventually the mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Amidst all this, he finds time for love and not once wavers from loving all around him, be it his well-wishers or his torturers. The reader is fully supplied with doses of masala, romance, action, machoism, philosophy and history. The last bit did not strike a chord with me--I wonder why did Roberts have to include a lot of history about Indira Gandhi in the conversation between him and Didier.
Here's one of the excerpts to the existential astrophysics of our lives. Lin is questioning his own actions in the light of good and evil and Khader gently gives him this--
As the universe expanded and cooled down, these very tiny bits of things came together
to make particles. Then the particles came together to make the first of the atoms. Then
the atoms came together to make molecules. Then the molecules came together to make
the first of the stars. Those first stars went through their cycles, and exploded in a shower
of new atoms. The new atoms came together to make more stars and planets. All the
stuff we are made of came from those dying stars. We are made out of stars, you and I.
Do you agree with me so far?
Apart from it being a saga of one man scuttling around in search of identity and freedom, the consistent strain running through each facet of protagonist Lin's life is the affirmation of love and the indomitable human spirit. And which better place in the world to set it at than the hustling bustling chaotic rush of Mumbai.
Nevertheless, "que sera sera...", I finally bought it and was instantly hooked from page 1 till I orphaned it in the rickshaw on my way to office. I couldn't bear to miss out on the book. So I picked up another copy and read it to its end.
Shantaram is a novel about an Australian convict hiding out in Mumbai. While he is at it, he learns Marathi and Hindi (complete with its vulgar words), starts a cholera clinic while living in squalor in a slum and indulges in the foreign currency black market before being arrested and thrown into an Indian prison. His rollercoaster life then takes a sinister twist when he joins Khader's underworld and eventually the mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Amidst all this, he finds time for love and not once wavers from loving all around him, be it his well-wishers or his torturers. The reader is fully supplied with doses of masala, romance, action, machoism, philosophy and history. The last bit did not strike a chord with me--I wonder why did Roberts have to include a lot of history about Indira Gandhi in the conversation between him and Didier.
Here's one of the excerpts to the existential astrophysics of our lives. Lin is questioning his own actions in the light of good and evil and Khader gently gives him this--
As the universe expanded and cooled down, these very tiny bits of things came together
to make particles. Then the particles came together to make the first of the atoms. Then
the atoms came together to make molecules. Then the molecules came together to make
the first of the stars. Those first stars went through their cycles, and exploded in a shower
of new atoms. The new atoms came together to make more stars and planets. All the
stuff we are made of came from those dying stars. We are made out of stars, you and I.
Do you agree with me so far?
Apart from it being a saga of one man scuttling around in search of identity and freedom, the consistent strain running through each facet of protagonist Lin's life is the affirmation of love and the indomitable human spirit. And which better place in the world to set it at than the hustling bustling chaotic rush of Mumbai.
0 comments:
Post a Comment