Jack: …after Chiang Mai and Pai I’m heading to India
Shannon: So, you’ve read Shantaram?
Jack: Urm, no…
Shannon: Well, you must. It’s wonderful.
Jack: Okay..?!
I bought it at the next opportunity; at Chiang Mai airport.

The story is written in the first person by a character called, variably, Mr Lynsey, Lin, Linbaba, or, eponymously, Shantaram. He is an Australian drug-addict and armed robber who has escaped from prison during a 20-year sentence, run to New Zealand and then headed to India with a fake passport. The story starts at his arrival at Bombay airport, as I was about to in around 18 hours time.

The truth behind the story remains to be seen, but is largely irrelevant. The author is clearly as in love with India as the protagonist of the story, and the passion oozes contagiously from the book from the outset. It is written in such a romantic and eloquent manner, and the story is told with such extremes intensity that it reads like a thriller and is almost impossible to put down. Not being a prolific reader myself, I’ve never been so enthralled for almost a thousand pages before in my life.

My favourite example of his incredible writing comes towards the end of the book. I won’t explain the turn of events that leads to this realisation for him, because you should read it.

You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is a passionate search for truth other than your own, and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it’s a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die.
- Gregory David Roberts. Shantaram.

Seriously, read it.

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