First I read A Suitable Boy and then I read Shantaram. Well one thing is for sure I do not have any fear of fat books any more. Shantaram was a cool 900+ pages which I read with relative ease and a lot of dedication.
These were my thoughts when I picked up the book as a birthday gift from my sister. Thanks Sis! I was thinking, hmm interesting topic ( Escaped convict, mumbai slums and a lot of crazy things in between), fat book - so there should be a lot of snob value attached in reading the book! You can say anything you like, but seeing a fat book in the hand does evoke a lot of questions...!
Anyway, enough about why I bought the book....This book is fascinating. There are a number of reasons why I loved it and I am going to list it point wise
1. I have always had a fascination for the Mumbai slums. This book gets me as close as possible to them without getting my hands dirty ( you know what i mean ).
2. Through out the book, Gregory talks about the various restaurants in Mumbai which actually exist.I mean in a regular novel one does not need to mention actual restaurants but here it has got me all the more interested. I am keen to check out Leopold's and Mocambo after reading about them. I have already seen Shamiana. These restaurants make the story just the more believable and helps the reader to identify with Shantaram and his world.
3. There is a good amount of philosophy involved in the book which does not go over the head. It has been presented to the reader in a digestable manner.
4. There are some incidents and places mentioned on Mumbai which sound utterly crazy and unbelievable, for instance the Standing Babas!
There are hundreds of more reasons hidden in the book to make it interesting. I suggest go explore!
Read it!!
2 comments:
something you will find interesting-shantaram is being turned into a film.And johnny depp is playing the title character.This was in development for some time but if i aint wrong they have started shooting already.If you keep your eyes peeled,you might get to meet him face to face!
hmm... i have heard about the movie. though it will be quite a challenge to fit in a novel like this into a 2 hour standard movie format. I think a bollywood type length would do more justice to the movie. 3 hours must be devoted to cover a good part of them movie
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