The fact that this was to be made into a movie with Johny Depp playing the lead and Mira Nair directing was the sole inspiration to go through this one.The Gregory David Roberts saga is very "filmy" with all its very predictable "twists" and aptly based in the city of bombay!
"A literary masterpiece.......... it has the grit and pace of a thriller" screams the cover.
Trust me, it isn't even close to being any of those.
He of course does his bit to promote two already well established notions. "India, the city of cows and slums" and "Indians, a heart of gold" which we know to be false.
So heres Lin(short for LING(dick for the uninitiated))
playing lover,fugitive, drug addict, actor, doctor(yes!), mujahid(huh!) one after the other and u wonder if it is the same book! A bizarre hotch-potch story results.
"True story of 8 years of the bombay underworld" says another screamer.
hah! yes i trust that!!!!
I went to the Leopolds in Bombay. Wasnt even close to the description in the book.
hardly any foreigners. a few guys drinking. no banter. no crowd. all this in the evening at 5, not even a white lady (he speaks of white prostitutes and in numbers!!).
The leopolds guy though was making his buck from the book. He was selling hard bound copies of Shantaram inside!!!!
A very very overrated book. All books that get popular these days get a rave. Thats probably because they are all found on shopping portals. Unfortunately, it does not work the other way.
