Hippy Bogus - ness

This is a long overdue post and it's divided into two parts. The first part is about Shantaram, the book, and the second part is about Shantaram, the man!. Shantaram the man will follow in a few days :)

Finished reading Shantaram (written by Gregory David Roberts) a month ago. It’s an exhilarating read. I began reading this book on a Monday night, around the third week of February. Read it for 3 consecutive nights from 11 to 4 in the morning, and dropped myself to work like a hypnotized Zombie. Finally on Thursday of the same week, I was so enthralled by the story, that I continued reading the book at work. (To all the people at work, if you saw me reading this thick red book with enormous concentration and thought it was Usability Inspection Methods by Jakob Nielsen, you were wrong;)) In between concerned workmates asking me what issue I was concentrating so hard on, I nearly got to the end of the book, and decided to leave the last 25 pages to savor at home. I was sad when the book ended, because I wanted to know more about the man’s life, and his real life story, after the book ended.

Shantaram is a 950 odd pages long, loosely autobiographical story of Gregory David. In Greg’s own words, Shantaram is described as being a fictionalized version of his own life. He elaborates “All the characters and events in the book are fictional, but loosely based upon people and events in my own life”I decided to wait a while before posting about this book because when I want to be completely objective about the subject at hand, and stepping away from it gave me a clearer perspective. The book is a must read for people who have lived in Bombay for a while. All the much loved chill-out places to grab drinks, or simply hang-out have now been elevated to iconic status with this book. Don't be surprised if people in Brazil know about Leopolds and Colaba causeway.

Leos (Leopolds) for me is very special because I brought in Christmas for the last 4years there. Gregory's book is a facinating journey through Australia, Bombay (the swanky parts of colaba and the slums, and lots of other hole-in-the-wall places for someone who has spent 21 years in the city), a small village in Maharashtra (not revealed in the book), Pakistan, and Afghanistan!