Shantaram

i finally finished the book. It ended so abruptly it took me some time to get used to it. Shantaram, written by Gregory David Roberts is, to put it simply, one heck of a book!!!

A friend of mine who has never and i repeat NEVER read a book in his life told me he was reading it and he actually liked it. Then when he gave me a copy i kept wondering how he'd finish atleast half the book cos it's one HUGE book!!

Gregory David Roberts, a convict running from the Australian Prison who adopted the name Lindsay in New Zealand and to Lin'baba' in Bombay and Shantaram in the village of Sunder, lets us peep into his highly adventurous and sometimes scary life in Bombay.

It was different reading this book because i was really aware of the fact that the people in the book were real, breathing and existing at one time or another. I don't know why that really gave me the goosebumps! I've finished reading the book i still want to know more. I want to know EVERYTHING!!! lol i know it's crazy but that's how it is. I want to go Leopold's cafe, to the zopadhpatti near the World Trade Centre and meet Johnny Cigar and the others!!I want to meet Didier and Vikram and Lettie! I want to see them atleast. That's the effect the book's had on me. I cannot stop thinking about the book which may be partly because i'm pretty jobless but majorly because it's so well written. I keep wondering about their lives and how it's changed over the years. :)

After i started reading the book i wanted to see what Linbaba looked like so i googled him. what i expected what not what i got!lol but now that i know the face of Linbaba it somehow fits in its own way. The fact that all this is true doesn't fail to amaze me everytime i think about the book. It's just...WOW! comparing my life to all the lives mentioned in the book i feel like i know nothing about anything!!!

This is the only time ever that i've wished there was time machine so that i could go back in time and look over everything that happened. The closest i've come to that is reading the book and in a way that's the only time machine there is. I'm so glad i read the book because it's taught me loads. Some of the ideas expressed in them is so different from what i've been taught and what i've learnt that i'm forced to reconsider and adapt to the new ideas. They say a book can change ur life but i never read a book that did. This may be the closest i've come to change something about me and my life.

I can't really explain it. Abdel Khader Khan's words make sense to some extent for me. I don't agree with everything yet maybe because i don't know much yet or maybe because i just don't see it like he does. But it does have an impact.

Lastly Linbaba gave a tour to Madonna recently. He showed her Leopold's and all the other places. I saw it on tv. lol all i wanna say is Madonna isn't the only one who wants to experience the magic of Leopold's and Haji Ali Mosque and Strands and the other places that's been so vividly explained in the book!!!!! :)
*hint hint* Linbaba!! :)