"Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts

Gregory David RobertsIf you are interested in India and ex-pat criminals hiding out in the slums of India, Gregory David Robert's "Shantaram" could very well be the perfect airplane read for you.

Gregory David Roberts is more than likely not someone you would want to model your own life after. He is an escaped prisoner, a former junkie, and once served the lowest of the low as a petty criminal in India. That said, his novel "Shantaram" offers some interesting insights into the expat communities of India and if you skip enough boring pages, is a pretty good read. "Shantarum" was written from prison and because of the parallels to his own life, many believe the book is highly auto-biographical in nature.

The front cover of my copy has a quote from The Daily Telegraph promising a "literary masterpiece". Again, I would like to remind you that Gregory David Roberts is no Ernest Hemingway and that the expat life he describes on the streets of Bombay revolves more around criminals and junkies than anyone who is likely to become the next Gertrude Stein. And, although he wrote much of the book from behind prison walls, he is no Hurricane Carter or Nelson Mandela in either depth or world understanding.

His  writing could perhaps use an editor's cut of about 200 pages, but he does describe the local characters in the novel with color. As he enters the streets of Bombay, he is entranced not by a local woman, but by a Swiss-American woman named Karla who keeps herself at a close distance from him and declares himself to be "in love at first sight". Whether or not this love is advanced or not by his prison escape remains unsaid. Another integral person in his life is the taxi driver whom he immediately befriends. The taxi driver then bestows him with a great nick name that sticks: Lin, which reportedly means "penis".

He also goes into detail about some of the more interesting conversations with the mysterious "Madame Zhou" who runs the best brothel for foreigners in the area. "I am not happy with you Karla." says the mysterious madame in one scene. Karla, who is absolutely never one to be undone, replies: "Happiness is a myth. It was just invented for us to buy things."

Not every part of the book is dedicated to these kinds of  "deep conversations". He does go into detail about his particular line of work, which is counterfeiting passports (something I would imagine to be more difficult in this day and age). Personally, I was disappointed with the lack of depth of his descriptions of living in an Indian slum and less than impressed with many of his accounts of his own philosophical ideas, which I had been hoping would be more based on Hinduism and more reflective of the local flavor.