Shantaram

Shantaram is a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts. Written as a semi-autobiographical telling of his adventures as one of the most wanted men in 1980s Australia, Shantaram tells the story of Lindsay Ford (who usually goes by “Lin”), who, after fleeing from an Australian prison, escapes to Mumbai. He falls in love with the country and rises through the ranks of a criminal organization led by Abdel Khader Khan.

At the time of its publication, Shantaram was well received, though there has been a reappraisal of the work in the decades that followed due to its narrative that exoticizes Mumbai through the perspective of a white narrator.

Note: Throughout the book, Mumbai is referred to as Bombay because the book is set in the 1980s when the British colonial name for Mumbai was still in regular use in Western countries. Unless in quotes, the city is referred to as Mumbai in this guide.

Content Warning: This guide and the source material reference sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, child slavery, sex slavery, and torture.

Plot Summary

Unfolding in five parts, the novel jumps between timelines as Lin narrates his past and present. After escaping from prison in Australia, Lin arrives in Mumbai and meets Prabu, a short man who will become his friend and guide. He also instantly falls in love with a Swiss woman named Karla after she pulls him out of the path of an oncoming bus.

Lin meets a group of expatriates who often meet at a restaurant called Leopold’s. Slowly, Prabu and the others introduce him to the city and to India’s culture. Lin finds Mumbai to be an exhilarating, free city, despite the great inequality and the sheer number of people coexisting in a relatively small space. He visits Prabu’s village, and Prabu’s parents adopt him. Prabu’s mother gives him the name “Shantaram,” which means “man of God’s peace.”

In the backdrop, a killer known as Sapna is terrorizing people with gruesome murders. Little is known about Sapna, other than the fact that the crimes are frightening and cruel, and Sapna purports to serve the poor while terrorizing and stealing from the rich.

After returning from Prabu’s village, muggers take Lin’s money. He cannot use his fake passport to travel. As an emergency measure, Lin begins living in a slum with some help from Prabu. He adjusts quickly, although it is not easy. He makes friends and is surprised at how peaceful he feels. When a large fire erupts, Lin helps fight the blaze. Afterward, he treats a baby girl with burned legs using his rudimentary first aid training. Soon, people learn about his training, and Lin’s hut becomes a makeshift doctor’s office.

Lin soon receives a message from an eminent crime boss: Abdel Khader Khan. Khan has heard that Lin needs medicine to help tend to his friends and neighbors. Because he appreciates Lin’s work in the slum that Khan owns, he agrees to help him if Lin will tutor his nephew, Tariq, in English. Lin is reluctant but bonds with Tariq and enjoys his company. Lin also becomes friends with Abdullah, a Persian enforcer who works for Khan. He and Lim quickly feel as if they are brothers. Abdullah trains Lin in various fighting arts.

Lin’s life is steady until Karla visits the slum to ask for his help. She needs him to help gain the freedom of her friend, Lisa Carter. Lisa is entrapped at a brothel run by a sadistic woman named Madame Zhou. Lin manages to help her escape by posing as a British diplomat, but Zhou learns his identity. Later, Karla visits Lin at the slum and helps him during a cholera outbreak. Lin also helps rebuild the slum after a monsoon.

One night, the police arrest Lin and take him to the brutal Arthur Road Prison. He doesn’t know who is responsible and no one will tell him, but he will learn that Madame Zhou was responsible for his new incarceration. Lin is tortured and beaten for months under inhuman conditions. Khan eventually learns where Lin is and sends an envoy to pay for his release.

After returning to Mumbai, Lin leaves the slum and begins working for Khan, officially entering the world of organized crime as an apprentice. He works with a man named Abdul Ghani and two Sri Lankans who oversee a fake passport business. As Lin’s responsibilities expand, he must travel. Although he is no longer confined to Mumbai, Lin still feels like a captive because he cannot tell anyone who he really is.

Lin is devastated when Prabu is killed in a car accident. He was driving the taxi that Lin bought for him as a wedding gift. Lin spends the next few months in an opium den. When Khan learns where he is, he sends his driver, Nazeer, and Karla to retrieve him. After going through withdrawals with the help of Nazeer and Karla, Lin agrees to accompany Khan to Afghanistan to help him fight against the Soviet Union with the mujahedeen.

Lin learns that Khan targeted him for recruitment, with Karla’s help, shortly after he arrived in India. Khan always planned on coming to Afghanistan, and his plan always included the assistance of a white foreigner. Lin is furious. When Khan leaves for Pakistan, Lin stays behind.

They learn that Khan is killed three days later. Nazeer, Khan’s driver, delivers his body to the camp where Lin is staying. During a Russian attack on the camp, Lin is knocked out during their charge on a mortar nest. When he wakes, he is in Pakistan. Nazeer saved him. They return to Mumbai to find and assassinate whoever betrayed Khan. Ghani, the man who ran the passport business, is the traitor. After Abdullah, Nazeer, and other men kill Ghani, Lin goes to the ruins of the Palace to kill Madame Zhou. The Palace was burned a week earlier, but the foundation and some of the structure still stands.

After a fight with two of her servants, Lin decides to let Madame Zhou and her men live. She has lost everything, and he finds her so pitiful that his desire for vengeance fades.

Khan’s death destabilizes the region and the criminal infrastructure. Other gangs, and some of Khan’s men, fight to take what is left in the power vacuum. They are savage and driven only by profit. Lin cannot justify working with them the way he did with Khan, who lived by principles, however inscrutable they may have been. When Nazeer invites Lin to come with him to a new conflict in Sri Lanka, Lin has an excuse to leave Mumbai. He sees Karla one last time, and she still refuses to say that she loves him. This frees him from his last remaining attachment. He visits Prabu’s parents once more before leaving and meets Prabu’s son. The baby boy looks just like Prabu.