Pretty good novel. An Australian man escapes prison in his home country, makes his way to India, and joins the Bombay Mafia. This is a story about how you can reinvent yourself through immersion in a radically different culture with radically different people. You can become something new, although not necessarily better.
This book is also about fate: accepting your fate and letting it play out, even welcoming it happily. And it's about paying attention, because you might miss something very important, and someone's life may depend on that important thing you missed.
Shantaram reads like the India it describes, with all kinds of characters coming and going, amazing coincidences, ridiculous situations, and so much happening that it's just impossible to keep track of everything. The book is a metaphor for its subject.
The author is a competent but not great writer. At times his writing pulls the reader out of the story, rather than in, as he attempts lyric and descriptive passages beyond his ability.
One other thought: Chapter 31 has a brief discussion of the military junta controlling Pakistan during the 1980s, which skillfully played various interest groups and ethnic groups against each other, while profiting massively from the neighboring Soviet-Afghan war. It really gets you to think, awful as it is, about how much profit there is in war, how much opportunity, and therefore why there's so much of it.
Finally, since I'm reading, writing and speaking lately about inflation, I couldn't help but notice at the time of this story (the early 1980s) the rupee was worth about 6c US or 17 rupees to the dollar. Now it's only 1.2c or about 83 to the dollar. In other words, India has debased its currency some 80% versus the dollar, over a period during which the dollar also lost some two-thirds of its value! Imagine.
Notes:
Chapter 1:
Our main character enters with a lively group of New Zealanders whom he got to know on the flight, the passport officials assumed he was with this group, and gave his forged New Zealand passport only a cursory check. He loves Bombay from the very beginning, he sees the freedom and happiness of it, he loves the absolute contrasts of poverty and wealth, modernity and the past. A street tout, Prabaker Kharre, greets him the second he steps off a bus; Lin decides to trust the man, "it was one of the best decisions of my life." A woman, Karla, saved our main character from being hit by a bus. Prabaker gives our main character a nickname: Lin and Linbaba. "I'm telling you, this is a fine name, a very power name, very lucky, a too lucky name! The people will love this name, when they hear it." The name is related to the Hindi word for penis. Lin asks Prabhu to show him around Bombay for a full week. On the "tourist" price (4x), the "business" price (2x), and the "friendship" price for things in India.
"The simple and astonishing truth about India and Indian people is that when you go there, and deal with them, your heart always guides you more wisely than your head." On haggling, deciding to haggle aggressively or not: a scarcity-minded pair of Canadian tourists talk about how you have to look out for these people, they're going to screw you over, you have to beat 'em down in price, while Lin quickly discovers the exact opposite is true.
The author uses foreshadowing quite competently as device to hook the reader: "I look back, now, and I know that the naming moment, which seemed so insignificant then... was in fact a pivotal moment in my life." See also when Lin decides to trust Prabhu, "I didn't know it then, but it was one of the best decisions of my life." It's a useful device.
Chapter 2:
Side-valving: speaking out of the corner of your mouth, like a prisoner under the eyes of the warders. Didier explains the background of the crime organizations in Bombay. Learning about the gangsters in Bombay, the power structure. "It leaks" Didier, the gay Frenchman dismissing the Taj Mahalo. Didier makes people think that he is harmless and helpless, a shabbily-dressed drunk, etc. We meet other characters: Ulla, Modena, Maurizio, Kavita, Letitia.
Chapter 3:
Lin and Prabaker are in a cab that gets into a car accident; Prabaker, in terror, yells to get away; the crowd begins beating the cabdriver. This scene is quite gripping and disturbing. "He has a very quickly Karma, this fellow." And then Prabhu just continues showing Lin around Bombay as if nothing happened. Prabaker also calls up one of his cousins who was looking for a taxi-driving job, because now that the mob beat up their taxi driver, there's going to be a new taxi driving job available! They then visit a live market where children are sold: families who have suffered from natural disasters, wars, extreme poverty (or all three) here would sell one child to make it more likely they and their remaining children survive.
Chapter 4:
We meet Vikram Patel, along with more foreshadowing: "Later... I learned that he was a hero." Some of the dialogue here makes me think of this book as "Melrose Place in India." Interesting scene here where the narrator finds out how the water tank in his hotel gets filled: a team of men climbing six flights of stairs with carry pots on their heads. He feels guilty for taking up to three showers a day because of the heat, but Prabaker tells him, "You should have three showers, four showers, even five showers every day" because of tourists like Lin these men have a job that can support their families from their wages. [This is an interesting perspective on tourism, and it makes me think about the mass tourism that takes place in many countries, where the industry seems to produce very low-paying service jobs, but perhaps this book's viewpoint is a better way to think about it.]
Chapter 5:
"'Okay! We go now!' the porter rumbled and roared in a voice that he'd found in a bear's cave, and cured in the barrel of a rusted cannon." [This is one example of this author's mixed attempts at turning a phrase.] An interesting scene here where they board the train in circumstances of near-violence as everyone is fighting over seats, but once everyone is seated (uh, or not seated as the case may be) and the train leaves the station, everybody is unfailingly courteous. Lin commits a shocking breach of etiquette by giving his seat up to an older man. "And I learned more, during those fourteen constricted and largely silent hours in the crowded economy-class section, communicating without language, than I could have learned in a month of traveling first class." The reader learns about over-underpants and under-underpants, when Prabhu's family prepares a shower for Lin.
Chapter 6:
Good sidestory here about bandits/dacoits who molested the village for a while until Prabaker's mother urged everyone to rise up against them; also an anecdote about the monsoon rains and the river rising, on the community making bets on how high the river would rise. The villagers also give Lin a new name: Shantaram, "man of God's peace."
Chapter 7:
Lin gets a place to stay in the slums after being robbed of all his money; his visa has expired, so he can no longer stay in hotels.
Chapter 8:
He enters the slum and right away there's a fire that spreads through the various huts, kerosene stoves explode, etc. The author turns it into a sort of battle scene, a creative device here. Later he helps the burn victims with first aid, gets the nickname "Doc" and becomes famous in the slum.
Chapter 9:
Flashback to Lin's prison escape in Australia; now (in the present time) he meets a Bombay Mafia leader. They go to various clubs in the Bombay underworld. Learning the "particularly Indian custom of amiable abduction." "Little by little, I learned to relax, and submit, and trust my instincts..."
Chapter 10:
Lin is taken to a small leper community to obtain black market medicines from the leader there. This scene is well done, it's creepy and eerie at the same time.
Chapter 11:
Preparing the slum for the monsoon season, various dramas and events in the slums.
Chapter 12:
More life in the slum, Karla visits Lin there; we learn about the origins of this particular slum, it was originally itinerant laborer housing required by law in order to build the World Trade Center towers nearby. It was a legal slum initially, later it developed its own ecosystem of vendors, shops, etc., and then an illegal slum grew up around it. The main character and Karla, the love interest character, kiss for the first time.
Chapter 13:
We learn about Madame Zhou, a madam who runs a famous brothel in Bombay; she has dirt on all kinds of important people throughout Indian society. Karla wants Lin to help her free one of Madame Zhou's girls. Karla acts strangely during this conversation.
Chapter 14:
Lin is invited to a sort of gangster capo discussion group, under the guise of the men wanting to practice English. This chapter is about a discussion the group has on suffering.
Chapter 15:
Lin stitches a huge gash in a young man's arm, a sword wound. Lin is summoned to a prison where the men dressed in blue, the bear trainers (and the Bear) are. Lin agrees to teach English (and slum life) to Khaderbhai's nephew Tariq.
Chapter 16:
Implausible scene here with Lisa, the girl they got out of the brothel. Lin and Tariq have to fight off a pack of dogs, they're almost doomed but then Abdullah comes to join the fight.
Chapter 17:
Lin is at the scene of another car accident, this time with some African dudes. Lin helps them fend off a mob at the accident scene.
Chapter 18:
A cholera outbreak in the slum. Karla joins Lin to help care for victims, Karla tells Lin her backstory.
Chapter 19:
Karla and Lin make love, Lin gets arrested and jailed.
Chapter 20:
The prison hierarchy; Lin is transferred to another, larger prison. He walks the gauntlet rather than runs it.
Chapter 21:
More prison life here: beatings by the guards, the inmate skillfully killing lice, etc. For some reason the person hierarchy beats up anyone who tries to help Lin in any way, and the reader doesn't know what's going on yet. Vikram comes and pays off the prison administration to get Lin out. Karla left Bombay and no one knows where she went. Lin finds out that he has an enemy in a high place somewhere in Bombay, Vikram persuades Lin to work for Khader.
Chapter 22:
Lin joins Khaderbhai's mafia in order to find out who put him in prison and get revenge. Khaled Ansari, a former Palestinian guerrilla fighter, teaches Lin about the currency black market. Lin learns why he survived prison, the police leadership learned what he had done in the slums. Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards. Discussion of Gandhi's Operation Bluestar. Lin learns he was betrayed by a beautiful woman.
Chapter 23:
Long philosophical discussion between Lin and Khaderbhai on crime and sin; Lin talks about his prison escape back in Australia, they discuss good and evil, complexity and morality. Lin backs up Abdullah in a fight and earns his love and respect. This chapter also features several hilariously Dickensian meetings on the street with previous characters of the novel. Lin bumps into Ulla on the street, she claims to know where Karla is.
Chapter 24:
Lin finds Karla in Goa. The author sort of manufactures an implausible quarrel with these two characters.
Chapter 25:
Lin returns to Bombay; one of their guys, Masjid, who ran the gold smuggling operation, is murdered by Sapna, a little-understood revolutionary organization in India. Lin meets Krishna and Villu, who run the passport forgery operation. Lin plays a role in getting Vikram and Letitia married; also some large African guys are suddenly looking to kill Lin. The vibe of the plot has turned dark here as Lin is for some reason not meshing well with his former friends. [Also the reader is subjected to various story threads here are sort of wedged into the narrative here, this part of the plot and the novel is a little bit loose.] It turns out that Mauricio blamed Lin for one of his own deals that went bad, and this is why the African guys are trying to kill Lin.
Chapter 26:
More philosophical discussions with Khaderbai about ethics; Lin contracts to get foreigners into movies; he meets with Kavita who is now a journalist, Lin tries to get her to write a story about one of his acquaintances from the slum, Anand Rao, who killed a con man for convincing two sisters to sell their kidneys. This resolves a story thread a couple of chapters ago where Lin ignored something important that Anand wanted to tell him.
Chapter 27:
Discussion of the forged and stolen passport business. It's quite interesting on a few levels: they even match airlines with arrival dates for falsified visas and arrival stamps, just in case anybody checks. See also the "double shuffle" technique to get tickets into asylum countries, where Lin and an asylum seeker would fly together on a domestic flight inside India and then trade boarding passes so the asylum seeker could stay on board for the second international flight. Lin gets dragged into a Bollywood movie as an extra; more drama with Lisa, Ulla, Maurizio and Modena.
Chapter 28:
Maurizio is dead in Lisa and Ulla's apartment; this is the residual story thread after the heroin deal that went bad with the Nigerians: recall that Mauricio fingered Lin as the thief and Lin had to go with some of his henchmen and beat up the Nigerians and then beat up Maurizio later. Lin meets Anand in prison serving his sentence for killing the con man Rasheed, he refuses Lin's help, wishing to "earn" his punishment.
Chapter 29:
The weddings; Kavita the journalist tells Lin that Abdullah might be the Sapna killer. Then the reader learns Abdullah was already shot dead by the police. Then, piling on, Prabaker has a car accident and has his face horribly disfigured, days later he dies. The story is really piling on the tragedies here.
Chapter 30:
Lin starts back on drugs. Khader and Karla find him, he spent the next several weeks going through withdrawal, then returns to training. He learns to ride a horse so he can join Khader on a trip to take arms and supplies to the mujahideen in Afghanistan to help them against the Russians. Reunites with Karla, they make love and then part.
Chapter 31:
The supply job starts with a journey to Pakistan. A discussion of the military junta that took over after executing Ali Bhutto (Benazir Bhutto's father). Lin learns from Didier that Madame Zhou was the one who bribed the police to pick him up to take to prison to be tortured.
Chapter 32:
The reader learns more about Khaderbhai's past. We meet various characters on the way to Afghanistan.
Chapter 33:
They come under attack and lose men and horses.
Chapter 34:
They deliver the weapons and supplies and begin the return journey. Discussion of English colonial history in Afghanistan. Lin learns that Karla was the one who recruited him to work for Khaderbhai, also that Khaled Ansari was planted alongside Karla the whole time; he learns basically that Karla saw him as a mark--even when she saved him from being hit by the bus at the beginning of the novel. Also the medicines brought to Lin's slum clinic via the leper community were being tested for safety (in other words the slum residents were guinea pigs) before being sent to Afghanistan. Lin learns that he has been manipulated and led all along to set the stage for this Afghanistan mission. Lin remains behind while Khaderbhai returns to India.
Chapter 35:
Nazeer returns, dragging Khaderbhai's dead body and Ahmed, the Algerian, dying. Then the village itself comes under attack. Most of the supplies they brought for the war effort ended up being destroyed in this attack. They decide to counter-attack, then they are attacked yet again, this time by a Russian helicopter, and most of their men are killed and almost all of the supplies are lost. Lin and the other survivors are forced to hide for weeks.
Chapter 36:
The remaining men learn they are surrounded, they decide to fight their way out. Lin and Khaled talk about Karla. The men attempt a breakout, Lin is wounded by a mortar shell and blacks out.
Chapter 37:
Recovery from injury, downloading of what happened in the battle, and the escape to Pakistan afterward; also Nazeer and Khaled survive along with Lin. They make their way back to Bombay. Lin meets Didier in Leopold's, tells him Khader is dead, then learns that Madame Zhou's building was burned down by a mob. Lin and Didier leave to settle Lin's score with her.
Chapter 38:
Lin goes to kill Madame Zhou and fights her assistant Rajan, who has a twin brother; with Didier's help he wins the fight but lets Madame Zhou, old and decrepit, live. He returns to Leopold's and learns Karla is in Bombay with a new boyfriend. He also learns the traitor in Khaderbhai's organization is Abdul Ghani, who he had just met with earlier in the day.
Chapter 39:
Expository on what happens with Abdul Ghani's betrayal of Khaderbhai and the aftermath, Lin gets put in charge of the passport business. Lisa offers to have Lin move in with her, she also shares details about Karla's past in the United States. Lin has a moment of crisis and also imagines Abdullah in a dream/waking dream state. But it turns out that Abdullah is alive, he survived being shot.
Chapter 40:
Debates within the mafia council on whether they should allow prostitution, heroin, pornography into their zone of the city. Lin finds Modena, his face horribly disfigured after the attack from Maurizio, still delusionally believing that Ulla will come back to him.
Chapter 41:
Back at Leopold's restaurant: a big table of friends, Lin meets Ranjit, Karla's new boyfriend, he can't help but like him. Lin resolves much of his emotions about Karla. Semi-comedic story about sneaking the bear and the bear trainers out of the slum. Musings on why Lin was happier living in the slum, and why that community was so sincere, genuine and cooperative. Lin and the gangsters plan a first strike against one of the other gangster councils. The raid is successful, although they lose some of their men.
Chapter 42:
Denoument: the gangsters go Bombay's island mosque to pray for their lost brothers, Abdullah asks Lin to join him in a mission in Sri Lanka, Lin meets with Karla and realize that she has no power over him anymore. We learn that Karla arranged the fire at Madame Zhou's place, also Karla explains her involvement in Khaderbhai's gang. Lin and Karla say goodbye and then Lin walks through the slum again and meets Prabaker's parents, widow and his young son, who looks and smiles just like a mini-Prabaker.
Vocab:
Chemurgic: chemurgy is a branch of applied chemistry concerned with preparing industrial products from agricultural raw materials.
Soporific: tending to induce drowsiness or sleep
Ambit: the scope, extent, or bounds of something; "within the ambit of federal law"
Architrave: in classical architecture "chief beam" also called an epistyle from Greek epistylon "on the column"; the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns.
Apoditic: clearly established or beyond dispute
Faience: glazed ceramic ware, in particular decorated tin-glazed earthenware of the type which includes delftware and maiolica. (French adaptation of the Italian city of Faenza)
Gamine: a young woman with a mischievous, boyish charm
Vicinal: neighboring; adjacent; relating to or denoting substituents attached to adjacent atoms in a ring or chain
Canorous: pleasant sounding; melodious
To Read:
Isidore Ducasse: Maldoror