As sheepishly mentioned before,I bought it with great enthusiasm hoping that I would read the book and enjoy Deepa Mehta’s movie better .For the uninitiated, read this
Now this idea was almost shelved, after many ifs and buts,I finally decided to give the 933 paged book a try .
The story begins with Roberts escaping from a maximum security prison in Australia and landing up in India,here begins his journey ,a fantastic,almost fictional tale(I would say so since his experiences are narrated superbly -quite hard to believe)
The central characters are strongly highlighted all throughout the book.Prabhaker-the naïve yet smart guide,Karla-the woman who stole Robert’s heart,Khader Bhai-the leader of the Bombay Mafia..All the characters are etched out beautifully and just blend with the backdrop of his tale .
Robert’s tale is inspiring,interesting and makes you look at India both in awe and disgust.With corruption,drugs,mafia and scandals galore it shows you the deep,dark Mumbai,yet the people at the slum,Prabhaker’s zest towards life and several other things bring about a smile to your face.
The book makes you laugh,cry,sympathize,worry,complain--A mixed bag of all emotions !
I was hooked on to the book thoroughly and thanks to Google images,I checked out what Roberts looks like..I was quite taken aback .I also saw the Leopold café that is the backdrop for most of the events occurring throughout the book .
Shantaram is the gripping tale of a man’s journey throughout Mumbai and his vast multitude of experiences. I am so eager to visit some of the places described in his work,that is the power of his narration .Roberts has mastered Hindi after his stay in India and also speaks Marathi !The novel was trashed twice after Roberts wrote it in prison.
I strongly recommend Shantaram to anyone who would be interested in getting a closer look at Mumbai- in its entirety.
Yes,the book can get quite a bit boring in between but it’s an experience in itself to finish the book.I was left craving for more,I wanted to know what happened to Roberts after his stay in Mumbai .Some sites tell me he has plans to write another book on what happened next in his life . Do give this book a try,you wouldn’t want to miss it :)
More recently,Gregory David Roberts was spotted at the LIFW on 30th March’08
In the first week, we began rehearsing vigorously for our Departmental Talents Day Show.
In the second week, Mukthi happened. Read my Mukthi post here
It is a two day FOSS event that aims to build greater awareness about open source through talks and demos on the latest trends in Open Source and involves interacting with people from the industry. More on Mukthi in a separate post.
During this period, I took to reading “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts, I shall admit the book is about 900 and odd pages and I didn’t want to stop reading it half way due to lack of time .
But soon I was lost in the fantastic, almost fictional tale and I strongly recommend the book to anyone .The Hitch is- in between, the book has a slightly slower pace .this is the point where most readers (whom I have come across) tend to quit reading it. Stay patient and you will enjoy the book.
I did not experience this burst of boredom anywhere while I was reading the book. I will sheepishly tell you that I was imagining Johnny depp as Shantaram all the while and it made my read thoroughly interesting! I am so eager to watch the movie, but with all the rumors flying around I doubt if it will happen soon. Read my post on Shantaram here.
I finished the book and then the internals landed on me, phew! I wrote some amazing pieces of non-technical jargon :-) and managed to get some decent scores in only a couple of subjects. The saddest thing about our university VTU and this course called Engineering is you wake up only when the exams and internals are only a week away and cram like there’s no tomorrow..
On the final day of my internals was our Talent’s Day...it was a beautiful show put up by our voISE Team and a huge success. Will write a post on it soon, no, I am not kidding, promise :-)
In between all this,I managed to catch "The Bucket List" ,I liked the movie,It set me thinking about a lot of things in life,what would you do if you really had only 6 months to live? Read my Bucket List here
In the last week of March we had our annual intra-college fest called Udbhav.
Ok I am repeating this again, but the experience of Udbhav shouldn’t be described in just a line :-) so will blog about it too SOON!
I am so tempted to quote this
“You will find time for things only that you really want to do! “
Adios
PS : I also signed up for Indiblogger this month and I love the experience of interacting with so many new people and checking out their writings too :-)
