Pawanraj Sadhwani

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is a first person narration by Lin, an Australian fugitive who escapes to Mumbai, where adventures happen. Magical, unbelievable, grandiose Bollywood-movie adventures. In the book, he escapes from Australian prison to Bombay, becomes a street thug, lives and runs a health clinic in the slums, goes to prison in India, joins the mafia, and even fights alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

And in true Bollywood style, there's love, betrayal, anger, drama, violence, sex, singing and dancing in good measure. A solid 900 pages of it, in fact.

Now, I don't have a problem with ambitious stories with a large scope. For example, this is one of my favourite books. Nor do I have a problem with books that are full of wordplay, metaphors and lyrical prose.

The problem I do have is that descriptive, metaphorical prose comes at the expense of the important bits like story progression, character development and pacing.

I understand that descriptions are there to immerse you into, what might be for a lot of readers, a foreign world. However, too many metaphors / similes are just self-indulgent, trying to demonstrate how "clever" the author is, while actually being mediocre, and achieving nothing substantial. Some turns of phrase are just ... cringy. Descriptions of Mumbai seem exaggerated towards stereotypical. Places and characters feel like they've been written to pander to a very specific idea of of India and Indians, that might be held by folks who've not visited or interacted with the country or its people.

Most of the characters are flatter than the sheet of paper they're written on. They're put in a time and place, and they hardly ever change.

And the main one - Lin - is probably one of the least likeable protagonists ever. He either has a giant hero complex or comes across as incredibly vain while trying really hard to come across as "wise" and "nice". Every little anecdote that happens to him is followed by a (mostly) trite philosophical reflection. Every. single. one. All terrible things does, he kinda-sorta rationalizes badly. Every character he meets, he either just "likes" or "dislikes" - and we don't know why. The name Shantaram gets relegated to a footnote. IT IS THE TITLE OF THE BOOK FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!

Honestly, there are 900 pages available to the author. And the idea of a foreigner coming to India, and becoming "Indian" has so much scope for interesting interactions. Give me backstories, give me emotional upheaval, give me solid reasons to root for the characters. Make it compelling. We get very little of that. People just fall into things occurring, or, worse still, have a flimsy pseudo-philosophical justifications to do "the wrong thing for the right reasons."

Not everything is like that of course - some observations about people living in less than ideal conditions ring true. There are nuggets about freedom, love & morality that I liked. Roberts obviously is clever, and has the talent to write well. Parts 4 and 5 in particular, read like a thrilling adventure without the focus on over-embellished prose and philosophical musings.

And maybe this would've been better as a series of short stories, or even a 500 page book written more in the style of Parts 4/5. But in its current form - it was hard to find a central theme or focus for the book. It felt a bit try-hard, maybe written for a movie deal. And made for uncompelling, even tedious reading. It felt like work. 2/5 stars.