Shantaram (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of Shantaram 6 days ago.

• "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 this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

Vatsap? edited the quotations of Shantaram Saturday, October 24 2009.

• Added a quotation: “When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.”Didier
• Added a quotation: “It's a fact of life on run that you often love more people than you trust.”Shantaram

Vatsap? edited the quotations of Shantaram Saturday, October 24 2009.

• Added a quotation: “They are not perfect, of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other, and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another.”Didier
• Added a quotation: “There's a dark feeling - less than hatred, but more than loathing that ugly men feel for handsome men. It's unreasonable and unjustified, of course, but it's always there, hiding in the long shadow thrown by envy. It creeps out, into the light of your eyes, when you're falling in love with a beautiful woman.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “It's impossible to be really sad when you're asleep. You can be happy and afraid and angry in your dreams, but you have to be wide awake to be sad, don't you think?”Ulla
• Added a quotation: “No man is as cool as he looks.”Karla
• Added a quotation: “Every city in the world has a village in its heart. You will never understand the city unless you first understand the village.”Didier
• Added a quotation: “There is no such thing as forever. I don't know why we use the word.”Karla
• Added a quotation: “I want everything. You know, I said that once, to a friend of mine, and told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.”Karla
• Added a quotation: “Sometimes, in India, you have to surrender before you win.”Karla
• Added a quotation: “There's a kind of luck that's not much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that's not much more than doing the right thing in the right way, and both only really happen to you when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose, and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.”Shantaram

Vatsap? edited the quotations of Shantaram Saturday, October 24 2009.

• Added a quotation: “I am French. I am gay, I am Jewish, and I am a criminal, more or less in that order. Bombay is the only city I have ever found that allows me to be all four of those things, at the same time.”Didier
• Added a quotation: “I hate it when people take so long to drink a single glass. It is like putting on a condom to masturbate.”Didier
• Added a quotation: “Friendship is like a kind of algebra test that nobody passes.”Karla
• Added a quotation: “Prison wasn't hell, but there was no heaven it it, either. It its own way, that was just as bad.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out - your friends, everyone you used to know.”Karla

Vatsap? edited the quotations of Shantaram Saturday, October 24 2009.

• Added a quotation: “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. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “Every day, when you're on the run, is the whole of your life. Every free minute is a short story with a happy ending.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “Love survives in us precisely because it is not wise.”Shantaram
• Added a quotation: “Craziness is the basis of many a fine relationships. In fact, craziness is the basis of every fine relationship!”Didier
• Added a quotation: “The dishonest bribe is the same in every country, but the honest bribe is India's alone.”Didier

Ankit Sachan . edited the quotations of Shantaram Saturday, September 5 2009.

• Added a quotation: “Happiness is a myth, it was invented to make us buy things.”Karla

Anthony M edited the ridiculously simplified synopsis of Shantaram Wednesday, August 5 2009.

• Added: It's the perfect traveling companion,if you are alone.Watch out if you aren't as you find yourself having to choose

Shelfari edited the description of Shantaram Friday, July 31 2009.

• "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 this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Shantaram Wednesday, July 22 2009.

• Added a contributor: Gregory David Roberts: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Shantaram Thursday, July 16 2009.

• 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.