I have been reading this masterpiece, and so I thought I would share it with you guys in a review. The 7 of you that read my blog anyway. Its a book by Gregory David Roberts and its called “Shantaram”. Its not one of those itty bitty thin novelettes this. Ohhhh nooooo its a big fat book, which promises to eat up hours as soon as you open the first page.
Basically Shantaram is a story of an Australian con who escapes from prison to India and experiences some pretty life changing experiences from then on. If someone has not been to Mumbai and can get a hold of this masterpiece they will simply fall in love with the city. Trust me after reading this I really want to go back to Mumbai so bad it is unbelievable. The book is like a textured and multicolored map of Mumbai with windows into the rest of India through the eyes of the Con, the writer has just done a phenomenal job of recreating the atmosphere through the whole book.
You know how good books are? They can immerse you in a moment? Well let me illustrate further, Shantaram will take you there. When the main charecter is in a place like Leopalds it just does’nt feel like you are in that bar with him, you can almost smell the cigarette smoke, the vividness of description is of that magnitude.
Anyways I havent finished reading it all yet, did i mention it eats up time? But hey I can safely say this is writing of a lot higher class than “The White Tiger” which was pretty darn good in its own right.
A must read for all!!!
Side note : Its being made into a movie!!
8.5/10 for me.