Reading and location: Shantaram’s Mumbai
Shantaram is another book that should be read while gathering impressions of a place. It is a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts, in which a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict escapes from Pentridge Prison and flees to India. The novel is commended by many for its vivid portrayal of life in Bombay in the 1980s and many of the places described in the book are still in full swing.
While Shantaram reads as an autobiography, it’s a novel wherein de narrative is structured in a way to read like fiction but feel like fact. The novel offers vivid descriptions of the Colaba part of the city, the old downtown of Mumbai and its touristic and expat epicenter. Colaba is a shopping mecca, and many of the other famous and semi-famous attractions in Mumbai are located there, or on the way to there from the airport.
Next to the Gateway monument is the legendary Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. It was probably already Mumbai’s most famous hotel, and the 2008 terror attacks made it even more known. Just a few blocks away is the legendary Café Leopold, around which Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram revolves. Less known is the fact that also Leopold was attacked by the same terrorists before they went on to Taj Mahal Hotel.
The main slum described in Gregory Roberts’ novel “Shantaram” is Navy Nagar, where the protagonist Lin, a character inspired by Roberts, lives and establishes connections. The novel also depicts life in a slum near Cuffe Parade, where Lin becomes part of the local community. Other slums and areas of Mumbai are mentioned in the book, but Navy Nagar and the slum near Cuffe Parade were the slums wherein Lin was forced to live, sheltering him from the authorities. After a massive fire on the day of his arrival in the slum, he set up a free health clinic as a way to contribute to the community. He learned about the local culture and customs in this cramped environment, got to know and love the people he encounters, and even became fluent in Marathi, the local language. He also witnessed and battles outbreaks of cholera and firestorms, became involved in trading with the lepers, and experiences how ethnic and marital conflicts were resolved in this densely crowded and diverse community.
A sequel entitled The Mountain Shadow was released on 13 October 2015 by Little Brown, but I can’t tell you much about it since I didn’t read it. The blurb tells that it narrates how Lin strives to survive in the new Mumbai, now run by another mafia than the one he was familiar with in the first book.
