Shantaram

I will never be able to thank Adwait enough for encouraging me to read this one. By far the best book I have read yet. It does take a lot of patience to finish it, but once you start reading you know you will have to finish it.

This book is about a lot of things. Essentially it is about an escaped prisoner from Australia who seeks refuge in a recently Independent India. He spends most of his time in India in Mumbai… Then called Bombay… and falls in love with the city and it’s original flavour (known only to others who have lived in that city). From living in the zhopadpatti (slums) to being incorporated in the mafia, and traveling to Afghanistan to fight against the Russians ; to acting in Bollywood movies, this is a book about a mans journey through life and India, and the lessons it teaches him.

What makes this book even more special is the thoughts that have been put across so well at every step; on every page, and how much sense they make to me as an individual striving trough the usual ups and downs of life.

The book is full of beautiful thought provoking quotes. Here are the ones that most liked.

“The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say”

“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. There’s nowhere else in the world where that’s quite so true. I didn’t know that then, as I closed my eyes in the dark and breathing silence on that first night in Bombay. I was running on instinct, and pushing my luck. I didn’t know that I’d already given my heart to the woman, and the city. And knowing none of it, I fell, before the smile faded from my lips, into a dreamless, gentle sleep.”

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears”

It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.

Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.