I had heard a lot about this book called Shantaram written by an Australian convict who escaped prison and took shelter in the Bombay slums in the eighties and wrote his experience of the city.

I finally read it.

The first reaction was: this man must be the reincarnation of the Papillion writer Henry Chariere… because both are very similar kind of people; men who had great powers but just happened to use them in the wrong way that got them into trouble.

The book is brilliant. Simply brilliant and his creativity is out of this world.

Shantaram made me think that we are all a bundle of contradictions. We all have love and hate within us. We can be helpful and harmful at the same time. There is good and evil living inside us. We have the power to choose whether to heal or harm depending on the situation. We are good and bad at the same time.

A marvelous book, superbly written.