I finished Shantaram this weekend and I loved it, it had me hooked and it rekindled my love affair with those fresh crisp printed pages bound in a glossy cover with a story to tell. While a lot of people usually get put off by the volume of a book. I look for them. I like thick, voluminous books running into thousand pages resembling more a saga then a story. A Suitable Boy, War & Peace & Atlas Shrugged are the kind of books that attract me at the first glance rather than put me off.

There is something about these multi-character, multi-track storyline spanning years that get me and I think it is usually the alternate reality that they transport you to. The character in the books are like friends in your real life, they don’t endear themselves to you immediately, it’s not before 100-150 pages have passed before I usually start warming up to the characters and start getting into “what happens next” mode. The novellas or short stories don’t give me that kind of luxury. Just after Shantaram, I picked up this collection of short stories by Yiyun Li and I must say that the two of the stories I have read so far are good reads but by the time you getting to sketch that mental image of Mrs. Su or Mr. Fong, you have come to an end. In no ways, am I saying short stories are any lesser. I myself dabble in them sometimes and I know that for lot of ideas and thoughts, that’s the best style of prose but I think am just wondering aloud why I love those thick books.

Back to Shantaram, the beauty of the novel is it’s such an intimate portrayal of Mumbai. I have spent some time in Mumbai and though I have just walked by the Leopold at best or been to World Trade center building once or twice and my only experience of slum is to look at them as my auto used to speed past the S.V.Road but still there is a certain sense of belonging to the settings of this novel which got me hooked as soon as Linbaba got down from the minibus in Colaba.

Though I can’t but admit that the novel did take a few artistic/bollywood-istic liberties but it was still one hell of a tale to tell. It may still not compare to two of my favourite novels set in Indian milieu – A Suitable Boy and A Fine balance, but it indeed completes a quartet of Indian novels (together with Midnight’s Children), I would strongly recommend to anyone who wanna form a reliable picture of India through fiction.

And now I start my similar journey to learn about China through fiction, about years of Cultural Revolution and the reality of modern China beyond tall towers of Beijing & Shanghai. And I am sure Soon I will find something to rave about.


PS: Just noticed this is the 100th post on this blog, just like Tendulkar it got a bit slow near the century but well, it’s time to look up the sky and take a fresh guard :)

And so just for the sake of old time’s, here’s a song recommendation for the day – a piece of nice poetry I heard in the latest movie “New York”
Jo tune na kaha woh main sunta raha
Khaamkhwaah, bewajah khwaab bunta raha…