Shantaram

Reading novels/story books had re-caught my fancy after a long beak somewhere in 2005/6 I guess. Started with short stories, eventually could never keep my eyes off the fat book with a rusty-red and blue front cover.

My regular visits to crosswords would confirm two to three minutes spent near the shelf holding that book. Eventually one fine day, got it off the rack billed it home. The book was huge. My recent stints with Ayan Rand[1] were not so good- The Fountainhead completed halfway and Atlas Shrugged simply shrugged untouched in my book cabinet.

Before purchasing the same, a few reviews did catch my fancy. They spoke about a live story and always on the edge of your seat kind’ a read. I was a bit wary before starting it though- I mean it’s a fat book! Never before had I read -rather completed -anything that fat.

So I started following the footsteps of this Australian along the shores of Mumbai. Soon in about 2-3 hours a decent set of pages were flung left. I was fast. The story was well narrated and did seem lively. I was easy to imagine all the characters and the plot - like a movie/daily soap playing in front of your eyes.

In a few weeks I did cover good ground, and had no urge to let it down as my protagonist learnt the Marathi language and visited villages. I was good. Then out of habit, I started giving my sessions a pass... soon not a single page was flipped for over 2 weeks. But when I got back to it, it was all back like the soap played into the next episode.

Eventually my lethargy got me addicted to other books, weird but true. Read a few book in-between and eventually would be back to the novel in burst of 2 three sessions in a month or so. This went on… for over 3 years.

Eventually some 2 months back with over roughly three hundred pages left, I got on to it like a leach. And today it stands completed.

Marvelous, got to travel all over Mumbai to "Sunder" village to Goa to Pakistan to Afghanistan, then randomly to US UK Iran Spain etc... it was fabulous! One of the review said, "...was too quick to reach the end of the novel , that I deliberately slowed down and gave huge gaps in reading out of fear that the story might come to an end..." how true. Gripping and fantastic.

I always wanted to finish this novel before the movie was made.
Now I am happy.

Shantaram[1] is a beautiful piece of work and a standing ovation would be an understatement to the author Gregory D Roberts.