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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