Author: Gregory David Roberts
Rating: 7/10
"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."
So
begins an epic, mesmerizing debut novel by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian
bank robber and a heroin addict, who flees from Pentridge prison in Australia
and spends a tumultuous portion of his life in Bombay, a teeming mass of
chaotic potpourri of cultures, philosophy and emotions, before being captured
in Germany. In Bombay, Roberts meets Prabaker, the man with the radiant smile and
whose family rechristens him as Shantaram. He meets Abdel Khader Khan,
mafia-don, philosopher, jihad leader : all rolled into one. He meets Karla,
Swiss-born, beautiful and with enough secrets to send a shiver up Roberts’
spine. Murders, betrayals(note the plural), Bollywood, Bombay mafia and the
mujahedeen guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan are few of the situations Roberts
finds himself entwined in, voluntarily or otherwise.
Set at approximately 930-pages, this novel is a tad too long, albeit with some extraordinary characters fleshed out. Give it a whirl and you will not be disappointed.
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