The Best Novel I Have Ever Read!

"So it begins,this story,like everything else-with a woman,and a city,and a little bit of luck"

I have never been so pleasantly surprised again and again by a novel.This is quite easily the longest novel I have read(932 pages with 42 chapters)."Shantaram" written by Gregory David Roberts is a Roman a clef novel describing the adventures of an armed robber from Australia who makes his way to India,gets himself into a love affair,becomes a part of the Mumbai underworld, fights with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and gets ready to become a part of the Srilankan conflict.Shantaram may not have been written by an Indian but it is all about Indian feelings and is the best piece of fiction based on Mumbai yet.

I have read all 4 Booker winning Indian novels-"Midnight's Children" is a masterpiece but just too complex with it's acrobatics in the usage of words.If "The God of small things" was a yawn,then came "The inheritance of loss" which was a much bigger yawn."The White Tiger" has to be hated by an Indian inspite of it's literary brilliance.I can understand why "Shantaram" missed a Booker prize.Booker is a funny literary honour given to mediocre works.

I would look so stupid to review a novel released in 2003 called as "A literary masterpiece" by "Daily Telegraph".So I just felt like sharing some interesting portions from the novel-So riveting,so philosophical,So touching.The lines which make this novel simply the best I have ever read.

"It is always hard to love a person you cannot forgive"

"Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things"

"If fate does not make you laugh,then you just don't get the joke"

"In India,you have to surrender before u win"

"The difference between news and gossip-News tells you what people did, gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it"

"Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting"

"Fate always gives you two choices-the one you should take and the one you do"

"Mistakes are like bad loves-the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened"

"I dont know what I fear more, the power that crushes us or our never ending capacity to endure it"

"I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them"

"Its a fool's mistake to be alone with someone you shouldn't have loved"

"People always hurt us with their trust.The surest way to hurt someone u like is to put all ur trust in him"

"Love cannot be tested.honesty can be and even loyalty...but not love...love goes on forever, once it starts.Even if we come to hate the person we love,love goes on forever because love is born in the part of us which does not die"

"Silence is the tortured man's revenge"

"Sometimes you love only with hope, sometimes you cry without tears. Sometimes, that’s all that is left, to cling together till the dawn".

"Justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also a way we try to save them"

"Pity is the one part of love that asks for nothing in return and, because of that, every act of pity is a kind of prayer"

"When the wish is the same as the fear, we call it a nightmare."

"It isn't a secret, unless keeping it hurts"

"Politician is a one who promises a bridge even if there is no river"

"If love was discovered anywhere else in the world,then it was perfected here in India"

"There are few things more discomforting than a spontaneous outburst of genuine decency from someone you are determined to dislike for no good reason"

"It is true that there are no good men, or bad men. It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them.There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men- it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil"

"I take everything personally - that's what being a person is all about"

"There is no act of faith more faithful than the generosity of the very poor"

"There is no man or no place without war-the only thing we can do is to choose a side and fight.The only choice we have got is who we fight for and who we fight against.That's life"

"Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow"

"Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities"

"Everyone in the whole world was Indian in atleast one past life"

Read the book for more such thought-provoking lines.Waiting for the film adaptation by Mira Nair and,more importantly,the sequel to the novel.Love you Linbaba!