Shantaram

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Shantaram - My favorite book of the year

"What kind of book the Shantaram is?" T asked me. I said it was a book about a man who robbed a bank, prisoned because of the robbery, escaped afterwards, traveled to Indian on a false passport, was robbed in Bombay, lived in Slum, joined Bombay mafia, and returned to prison to finish his sentence. "Oh, so the central idea about this book is crime." T decided. Looking into his eyes, I knew he is no longer interested in this book.

But why central ideas matter that much? Did all the big ideas often untruth themselves? Bible says the existence of the God. But it is the non-existence of the God proves his existence. Capitalism intends to eliminate the poor. But it is the poor who make the rich possible. Communism vows to wipe out the rich. But it is the rich who the poor wants to become. If you agree with me, Shantaram could be your book.

The author, Gregory David Roberts is a sensitive and inquisitive man. Love, hatred, jealousy, insecurity, proud, trust, mistrust...all the emotions that made us human, he has them all. He is very honest about this feeling. He loves easily, but he never trust. He is proud, but often has a inferior feeling. He likes to help people, but his selfishness often comes first He thinks that crime is bad deed, but he has a nature tendency to commit to crimes. All the crimes that he committed were driven by the fear in his heart, but in his heart, he knows that he puts fear in other people's hear by committing crimes. He saw the conflicts in his emotions, but he never struggles with them.  Also importantly, he is a good write. He recorded all the details of his feelings. You had to experience them as if you are also on the run.

To me, another important aspect of this book is that the author had no hopes when the story started. You know, having hopes and working towards them is such a beautiful thing. Many of the books written to tell how people pursue their hopes. We liked those books, and liked the joys brought by hopes. But what if we had no hopes? The reality is that we often have no hopes, but we have to move on anyway. We moved on without knowing where are we going. In the most desperate situations, we have children to give us hopes. Nobody liked a life like that. We then invent hopes just to fool ourselves. 

No hope means complete darkness to many people, and it is such a fearful thing. But in Shantaram, there is no hopes. Opening his book, you start a journal in which you had no hopes. Gregory is the most qualified to invite you to join his journey. His tone is so soft, and you soon decide that he is harmless. He had so much fear, and you would forgive him for all his crimes. His love is absolute, and you would love for him. He unfolds a different world for you, in which you had no hopes.

Hope in the end, you will find the same truth as what I found - Although hopes are lights that enable us to see, they broke our hearts. ...Sometimes, we need the darkness to sleep and repair our broken hearts...Darkness is a good thing...as well as hopeless.


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Critical analysis of Mengzi (3)

梁惠王曰："寡人之于国也，尽心焉耳矣。河内凶，则移其民于河东，移其粟于河内。河东凶亦然。察邻国之政，无如寡人之用心者。邻国之民不加少，寡人之民不加多，何也？"

孟子对曰："王好战，请以战喻。填然鼓之，兵刃既接，弃甲曳兵而走。或百步而后止，或五十步而后止。以五十步笑百步，则何如？"

曰："不可，直不百步耳，是亦走也。"

曰："王如知此，则无望民之多于邻国也。不违农时，谷不可胜食也；数罟不入洿池，鱼鳖不可胜食也；斧斤以时入山林，材木不可胜用也。谷与鱼鳖不可胜食，材木不可胜用，是使民养生丧死无憾也。养生丧死无憾，王道之始也。

King Lianghui said: "I am truly devoted to my country. For example, when Henei had a drought, I transferred some farmers from Henei to Hedong and sent some food to Henei. No other kings are as devoted as me. But population in the neighboring countries is not less and our population is not more. Why?"

Mengzi replied:"Your majesty, since you are fond of wars, I hope to use war as an example. When a war started, some soldier abandoned their weapon and started to run. Some run 50 steps and some 100 steps. The one who run 50 steps laughed the one who run 100 steps. Why is that?"

King said:"I don't know why. No matter how many steps they run, they all did run and they were cowards."

Mengzi said:"Your majesty. That is exactly the reason. If farmers can plant seeds on time, we shall have abundant food. If the fish nets could allow undersized fishes to pass through, we shall have enough fishes. If we collect appropriate amount timber at appropriate time, we shall have a sustainable timber production. If we act according to the course of nature, we shall have no regrets. This is the true ruling of a country."

 

this conversation, Mengzi tried to educate the king about the concept of sustainable development. I have learned the importance of sustainable development during my undergraduate training. But 10 years later, I found that universally, governments still have problems to implement sustainable development. The major difficulties seem to be balancing the short term interests and long term interests. Factories need to release pollutants and law makers need tax dollars. Ordinary people need non-toxic air, water and food, jobs in factories and also protections from governments. How can one quantify the benefit of the sustainable development? Such benefit can only be seen after a decade or possibly a hundred years. But the tax dollars from environmentally unfriendly factories can be easily quantified and they can make an immediate impact on the economic statues of a country.

 

We are logical…but we are often logical on a wrong subject, at a wrong time and at a wrong location….