Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

By Michael Hooper

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is an epic story about one man’s struggle for freedom, friendship, adventure, love, camaraderie, peace and redemption.

The book is about a man who escapes a prison in Australia and moves to Bombay, where he reinvents himself. He calls himself Lin, which is the name on his fake passport.

In Bombay, he falls into a crowd of expatriates and slum dwellers. One of the first people he meets is Prabakar, a runner/salesman, who meets tourists at train stations, and brings them to hotels and restaurants and takes a cut from the proprietors. He also helps them exchange money, and score hashish. Prabakar takes a liking to Lin and recruits him into his business as a runner helping tourists. Prabaker calls him Linbaba.

I can relate to this job because I worked as a runner helping tourists find hotel rooms in Athens, Greece, when I was a young man.

Prabakar introduces Lin to his mother, who gives him a new name Shantaram, which means man of peace. Although he is not afraid to fight for his freedom, it seems that Lin is struggling for peace and redemption. He had been a heroin addict in Australia, where he lost his wife and child in a divorce. He was arrested for burglary and armed robbery, put in jail but he escapes over the wall and travels to Bombay.

In Bombay, he falls in love with the city, the first thing he notices is its smell, "its sweet sweating smell of hope" and its "sour stifled smell of greed."

One of my favorite places in the book is Leopold’s, a coffee shop bar where he and his friends meet on a regular basis to talk about politics and business and gossip. There he meets people like Karla and Didier Levy, Vickram and Ulla.

His friend Prabakar invites him to live in the slum with him and his family. There  he sees great need for medical care, and he starts a free medical clinic. Needing antibiotics and other medical supplies he makes a connection with the lepers of Bombay, who somehow acquire these medical supplies and sell them to him at a discount. He is not a medical doctor, but they call him a doctor. He’s actually trained in ambulatory care  He helps people get through many struggles, cuts, bruising, inflections and an outbreak of cholera.

Love is an abiding theme in this book, there is brotherly love, the love of friends and camaraderie, and the love of a father, or a father figure and romantic love.

He falls in love with Karla, who is a very mysterious person with a past in Europe and America. She speaks multiple languages and blends in beautifully into the Bombay lifestyle. Lin is enchanted with her green eyes and beautiful hair and lovely clothing but perhaps most of all he is curious about her mysterious history. His love for Karla is complex taking on various forms -- from friendship to making love to her on a beach under moonlight. He loves their ability to talk for hours and connect.

This book is one part James Michener and one part Ernest Hemingway and another part uniquely Australian.

It captures the pure Wonderlust of Australians. I’ve met so many Australians, who have traveled the world, they’ve been everywhere and done all kinds of different things. The author Gregory David Roberts wrote this book so well because he lived it. He actually did lose his wife and child, while addicted to heroin and getting busted for armed robbery and ending up in jail in Australia. He broke out of jail and went to Bombay to start his life all over again. 

One of the most powerful man in Bombay is Abdel Khader Khan, a poet, philosopher and lord of gang of people who work in the black market trades, false passport industry, the gold trade, and the money exchange trade. 

Lin works for Khader Khan, who wants him to learn everything about his business.The book goes into detail on how his goondas make money in these trades.

Abdel Kader Khan believes there are various levels of evil depending on the sin. Some sins are worse than others. Lin is really amazed at the man’s commanding presence and ability to generate extreme loyalty. While working in the false passport trade with two specialists, Lin acquires for himself about five passports. When someone’s visa is out of order, they could fix that with a specialty stamp. 

Lin goes to great links for Khader Khan.

Another fascinating character in the book is Didier Levy, a 35 year old French Jew, who is a wonderful gossip talk head, who spends a lot of time at Leopold‘s, drinking alcohol and talking with friends, and watching business transact all around them, and getting a cut here and there from some of this business. 

He talks about the hashish trade and the local gangsters.

And he talks about Karla. He says she has the power to make men shine like the stars, or crush them to dust.

Karla and Didier once lived together for about a year in Bombay sharing a crazy fractured little apartment. Page 58.

There are many funny and shocking stories in the book, including a description of how the locals in Bombay treat a person who is at fault for a car accident. The locals actually drag the driver out of the car and beat him up. There's also an endearing story about a beloved bear who gets locked up in prison. His caretakers stay in prison with him, so he is not lonely.

Perhaps my favorite theme in the book is camaraderie among friends, especially when they gather at Leopold’s. I believe every person needs a group of friends. It’s tough being alone in this world, indeed it's even tougher when you are in a foreign country and you don't know anybody.

There is some evidence that a person will live longer if they have regular contact with people. I go to a local coffee two or three times a week to visit with my friends. My comrades there are very special to me. 

Yet Leopold's is a different kind of place, because it attracts people from all walks of life, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Franch, American, Indian, and Iranians, and Afghans and Arabs and Africans all gathering at this place. There’s nothing quite like it in Topeka, but when I was in Barcelona in 1990 I fell into a crowd of expatriates. I was walking along Las Ramblas, enjoying the sights of people and places along this famous boardwalk. I saw a group of young men led by a tall, gregarious man. He said hello to me, and I said hello back and he asked if I were English, I said America. He asked, "Do you get high?" and I said, "yes," and he said "follow me." We ended at a coffee shop in a Square just off Las Ramblas, where we drank beer and smoked spliff’s. Perhaps my favorite birthday was when I announced that in five minutes, I would be 27 years old. Everybody started singing, happy birthday to me and sharing drinks and joints. We stayed up all night partying and I ended up sleeping on the beach with my comrade Eamon strumming his guitar. It was one of the most exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating experiences in my life. 

Shantaram is a huge book at 933 pages. I enjoyed 95% of it. There is some warlord gang fighting that occurs toward the end of the book and this seems to drag on for a while but all in all, I enjoyed the book very much

Shantaram is on Apple TV. The 12 part miniseries is fantastic, but unfortunately was discontinued. I believe Gregory David Roberts was involved in writing the script. In some ways, the book is much better with more detail about life in India.

There is a great deal of charity in the soul of Linbaba, he is always trying to support his friends, and the poor people who live in the slums.

I think the spirit of Linbaba is a man who loves people, who cares about the suffering in the world. Shantaram is an appropriate name for this evolving man of the world.