Reading Shantaram!

(# From The Reading Room's FB Page)

And I happily crossed Shantaram from my to-read book list! For almost four years it was topping the list, and indeed it was worth a wait! It is one of the books which you would resist to stop reading once you start to read one.

Just like a typical color scheme, a particular brush spread makes an artistic painting tell about it's hidden ideas out loud or a beautiful camera setting, makes a photograph poetic, the words of this book, makes you fall in love with the book or the characters or the situations. They just speak. Sitting there silently, they make you realize their presence. They force you to hide under the pretext of fiction and make you believe that the characters are your real life friends instead. I know it feels bad and you are heartfelt when you notice that what you are reading is just another chapter from a lifeless book! So many times you have to make yourself understand - it's not real, and at times you need to get out of that fiction - it's not life! But lesser you know the power of those words - they tend to make you unarmored and you start reading again! It is one of those captivating moments wherein even if someone grabs your hand and tries to take you out of that fantasy, I am sure, he would lose.

The starting of the book reads -

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life."

And I knew I would be hooked. So was I. I transitioned to a different world and was completely smitten by the words! Whatever I feel about Mumbai, I was reading it. How I feel about India, it was there. The plight I undergo if ever I visit a slum or a zoo, it was on that page! I went on my pleasure island.

The book has questions, metaphors and paradoxes. It has simplicity, honesty, generosity, satisfaction, greed, passion, expletives, every other moment, every other feeling, all described eloquently! It makes you wonder. It makes you think:

Was it was right for Lin to run away from the prison? Because he was running away from his fate and unknowingly he ran into an altogether different world, a world more darker, more greedier, more corrupt or as mentioned in the book "honest bribe" world! (Did you notice those words? Amazing right? Can anyone think of bribery as honest? Definitely not. On a second thought, isn't it apt?)

Every other small gesture is included in the book. I am sure even in daily life we might overlook it, but it's mentioned. And you cannot help but mesmerize about the author's sensitivity. This small gesture from the book:

Karla visits Lin in the slum. Lin's neighbor's curious son peeps into his house to see the new guest and quickly runs away to bring a cup of tea with some biscuits (3) with his younger brother on his shoulder (yeah, everyone is curious!). He gives one biscuit to Karla, one to Lin. He divides equally the last of the three biscuits into two, gives the larger piece to Karla and the comparatively smaller piece to his cousin! (yes, the fact, that, while breaking anything into half manually, usually the parts are not equal). Such a minute observation depicting the generous nature of the kid (atithi devo bhava!).

Like on a perfect rainy day, the silent breeze makes you forget all your worries or the silent gaze towards the sea at sunset makes you feel satisfied and at ease, this book wraps itself around you, cradles you and makes you forget your surroundings.

Yes, I fell for the rhythm of the book or the way each and every character is introduced. So many human portraits, so lifelike, each one shaping out perfectly. The mystery never lets you settle down and the pace makes you to speed up your reading. I mourned with Lin when he lost his best friends, I was pained when he was outrageously thrashed in the prison and felt for the slum at the time of fire or the cholera break in. I was disturbed, enchanted, enamored, but who wouldn't? After all, that book includes - freedom, love, friendship, fatherhood, violence, choices, fate and philosophy! All intricately woven in the same plot, with some profound ideas!

And if you come across something like these -

> “Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn”  

> “Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

> “I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.” 

> “If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke.” 

> "What we call cowardice is often just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than simply being well prepared."

> "I was going through deep and silent water. Nothing and no-one could make me happy. Nothing and no-one could make me sad. I was tough. Which is probably the saddest thing you can say about a man."

> "Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but it's worry that keeps the knife sharp, and worry that gets most of us, in the end."

> "Anything that can be put in a nutshell should remain there."

> "There is no man, and no place, without a war. The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get - who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life."

> "For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on."

is the reason well enough to buy / grab that book and finish off reading?