BOOK REVIEW
Book-Shantaram
Author-Gregory David Roberts
Pages-936
Price-Rs.495
Gregory David Roberts, an escaped prisoner, an armed robber, a heroin addict and “The Gentleman Bandit” has lived his life at the knife’s edge. However, what is bewildering is that not only has he managed to survive the anarchy of life, living on the margins, but has also managed to hammer down a twisting chronicle tracing the atrocities of fate and mind in the form of his bestseller Shantaram.
Shantaram is a sprawling tale of a man who escapes from prison, only to vanish in the slums of a foreign land (in this case India) and ultimately becomes enmeshed in the power structures of the filthy underbelly of Mumbai. Although the book is partly autobiographical, some of its major characters like Prabaker and the protagonist’s recurring romantic interest Karla are fictional. Roberts’ tale not only pumps life into the caricatures of imagination but also endows the city (Mumbai) with a life of its own. A city bubbling with enthusiasm and sagging with the pace of human activity. Everything becomes a vivid visualization, like visions running past a moving vehicle, precisely because Roberts lived so much of this enthralling journey.
The book becomes an escape, both at the literal and sub-textual level. An escape for the narrator not only from the authorities and prisons but also from his own past, his own fragmented consciousness. Over its 1000 pages the book weaves together various narratives and includes in its Diaspora many exotic worlds of romance, thrill, philosophy and life. At the core of this saga dwells the passionate love for an alien land breeding in the heart of the narrator who is a “ revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime and a poet who lost his soul in prison.” Panoramic in this conception, the novel inculcates within its circumference a vast range of human experiences, from burning slums to a pastiche clinic, agonies of prisons and essence of bollywood films, from mujaheddin guerrillas to the collapse of the Iron Curtain. To some extent, Roberts’ text also assumes the form of a social and political commentary.
Shantaram portrays the identity crises of a wanted criminal, Lin (again a pseudonym) and unveils the dark side of his character by tracing its connections to two major characters of the novel-Khader Khan, the mafia godfather and Karla. It is often said that best books take us to places that we never knew existed. Gregory David Roberts takes his readers on such a tour of a dark and lonely place: his soul.
The book has recently caught the cinematic gaze of Warner Bros and would be soon turned into a movie casting Johnny Depp in the lead role. So those who have not already tasted Roberts’ lapses into pure beauty, this is the time. Fear not the size but the journey this book shall immerse you into, a journey full of personal reflections and illusionary mirrors. Don’t think about the temporal restrictions too “for so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on.”
Monday, May 14, 2007
come.....my love...
Open thy eyes to the beautiful world my love,
To the dawn which awakens thee,
And sings to me drowsy lullabies...
Guard me in my sleep now my love,
Just like under the watchful eye of the night,
I did guard thee.
Take a stroll in the pastures of my closed eyes,
And drive my insane devils away,
Slide yours arms around me,
And crown me the queen of thy day.
Scatter the ashes of the night’s burnt robe,
And send thy balmy words through the whispering breeze.
Let them reverberate the chords of my mind gently,
And let them my withered spirits uncrease.
Make me thy song my love,
And sing it to the nightingale on golden boughs.
Let me resonate through your body my love,
And let me your passions arouse.
Look for my yearning for thee,
In that falling autumnal leaf.
Let your thoughts fly to my bedside,
As I prepare to kiss thee in my sleep.
Stretch thy sleepy body and let thy mirrors shatter,
Look at the seeping rays of gold.
And with every turn of thy body,
See my form within yours fold.
Oh! Don’t part the curtains yet my love,
Lest the waking sun troubles my dreamy reveries.
Trace my features in the shadows of thy eyes,
Pray let me with your thoughts another moment seize.
Make me the words of thy morning prayer,
And let my spirit for thy faith kneel.
As I rest my head on the cushion of thy memories,
And for thy calm my anguish I veil.
Let me be the first pearl of water on thy face,
For thy touch I have the whole night craved.
And then like a drop of shimmering silver,
Feel me on thy sensuous lips engraved.
Be thou my graceful knight my love,
And shield me from the piercing arrows.
Live thou in the glimmer of my eyes my love,
And be thou my smile in my sorrows.
Oh! Come lets write some great word, you and I,
And through rosy glasses our beautiful world see.
Come my love before the sun gets too high,
And feel yourself breathe within me.
Come lets lose ourselves,
In the land between the dark and dawn.
While the sun claims its lost territories,
We slyly see the moon’s starry dwarfs yawn.
Come, Come my love!
Waste no time now in empty reverie.
Fasten thy step and enter my soul,
Oh my love! Be Thou Me!
Open thy eyes to the beautiful world my love,
To the dawn which awakens thee,
And sings to me drowsy lullabies...
Guard me in my sleep now my love,
Just like I did guard thee.
To the dawn which awakens thee,
And sings to me drowsy lullabies...
Guard me in my sleep now my love,
Just like under the watchful eye of the night,
I did guard thee.
Take a stroll in the pastures of my closed eyes,
And drive my insane devils away,
Slide yours arms around me,
And crown me the queen of thy day.
Scatter the ashes of the night’s burnt robe,
And send thy balmy words through the whispering breeze.
Let them reverberate the chords of my mind gently,
And let them my withered spirits uncrease.
Make me thy song my love,
And sing it to the nightingale on golden boughs.
Let me resonate through your body my love,
And let me your passions arouse.
Look for my yearning for thee,
In that falling autumnal leaf.
Let your thoughts fly to my bedside,
As I prepare to kiss thee in my sleep.
Stretch thy sleepy body and let thy mirrors shatter,
Look at the seeping rays of gold.
And with every turn of thy body,
See my form within yours fold.
Oh! Don’t part the curtains yet my love,
Lest the waking sun troubles my dreamy reveries.
Trace my features in the shadows of thy eyes,
Pray let me with your thoughts another moment seize.
Make me the words of thy morning prayer,
And let my spirit for thy faith kneel.
As I rest my head on the cushion of thy memories,
And for thy calm my anguish I veil.
Let me be the first pearl of water on thy face,
For thy touch I have the whole night craved.
And then like a drop of shimmering silver,
Feel me on thy sensuous lips engraved.
Be thou my graceful knight my love,
And shield me from the piercing arrows.
Live thou in the glimmer of my eyes my love,
And be thou my smile in my sorrows.
Oh! Come lets write some great word, you and I,
And through rosy glasses our beautiful world see.
Come my love before the sun gets too high,
And feel yourself breathe within me.
Come lets lose ourselves,
In the land between the dark and dawn.
While the sun claims its lost territories,
We slyly see the moon’s starry dwarfs yawn.
Come, Come my love!
Waste no time now in empty reverie.
Fasten thy step and enter my soul,
Oh my love! Be Thou Me!
Open thy eyes to the beautiful world my love,
To the dawn which awakens thee,
And sings to me drowsy lullabies...
Guard me in my sleep now my love,
Just like I did guard thee.
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