Shantaram literally means a man of peace. The protagonist of
the book is rechristened as Shantaram.
It’s ironic considering the fact that the protagonist
happens to be a heroin addict who robs stores at gun point to feed his
addiction. He gets caught and is sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment in
Australia. He escapes and flees to New Zealand and using a fake passport
eventually lands in Mumbai, India where most of the story is based.
All of this is exactly what happened in the author’s life in
reality.
And so Shantaram is considered an autobiography and the
author’s narration does reinforce this belief. However, that is not the case.
All of the characters in the book are fictional. And so are the events, except
the major ones. For example, the author was actually renamed as Shantaram in a
remote Indian village for coexisting peacefully with the villagers for 5 months
as if he was one of them.
And therein lays the beauty of the book- in irony, in
contrast, in antithesis.
The story begins with the protagonist “Lin” landing in
Mumbai and hiring a tour guide “Prabhaker”. As the plot progresses Lin befriends
Prabhaker and goes to stay with him in his village Sunder where he is
christened as Shantaram by Prabhaker’s mother. On their way back to Mumbai,
they are robbed and Lin, having lost all his possessions, is forced to live in
the Mumbai slums due to his poverty. In the slum, he sets up a free clinic. The
fact that the only medical knowledge Lin has is from his first aid training in
Australia just describes the condition of the slum dwellers and yet, Lin adapts
to the community and even learns the local language. He also falls in love with
Karla and gets involved with the local mafia which gets him in trouble with the
local police and he is thrown in Arthur road jail. In prison he almost dies of
torture but is released, again due to influence of the mafia. His sense of
loyalty to the mafia takes him to Afghanistan to help the Mujahideen. Upon his
return, he realizes he has become everything that he loathes and decides to
build an honest life.
For those of you not familiar with Mumbai, the city is
characterized by its rains, population and its slums. And they don’t exactly
make the city pleasant. Its proximity to the sea combined with the Indian sun
and pollution makes it a permanent sauna and leaves a person leaving perennially
sweaty and sticky. The slum houses the poorest in the city where people are crowded
in huts and live without proper water and power supply or even basic sanitation
facilities.
And yet, the author finds beauty and happiness in this very
city. His narration is such that he leaves the reader with a craving to visit
the city. He captures the reader’s attention and imagination with his opening
line (insert opening line) and he holds it throughout the 900 page narrative. 900
pages of a story which seems as fantastic as it seems real. And the author
weaves this magic with contrast in events, in ideas and in people. A most
wanted fugitive runs a free clinic for the poor, a mafia Don uses arguments and
theories of physics to debate morality, the poorest people are the happiest,
true freedom is experienced in a prison and the most disgusting and annoying
features of the city actually make it beautiful.
And this is just the beginning. The narrative has lots of
subplots which give interesting insights into the working of mafia and the
insides of the Indian film industry and the life of the richest and also the
poorest. The author has truly captured the essence of the city.
The book forces a person to broaden their view points and to
think beyond just right and wrong. It makes the readers realize that there is a
fine grey area which exists between black and white and a person cannot be
judged as just good or bad based solely on his actions. And this is exactly why
it makes for such an interesting read.
If you still don’t want to read a 900 page book, just wait
for the Hollywood movie-
