This is one of the best books I have ever read. I can't believe that this is loosely based on the authors experiences. Only an individual who has gone through as much as he has could produce a work like this. A rich and detailed glimpse into the ghettos of Bombay, that has you falling in love with the characters. I wish this book could have gone on for twice the length that it did. Good right to the last page! ( )

I loved it. A whopper at 950 pages, I was rivetted by life in Bombay, but lost interest about 3/4 of the way thru when they were gunrunning in Afghanistan. The end was OK though. ( )

Excellent ( )

I Just Finished Reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and found it to be one of the best pseudo-fiction( a cross between fiction and non-fiction ,a word penned by me) novel, i have read in a long long time ... The way the author has introduced some of the characters has completely bowled me over ...esp Karla and Modena and the way the author has described some of the scenes especially when lisa betrays Modena and when khader khan is killed in the mountains of the war ravaged Afghanistan made me feel guilty in a way as if i was the person who had actually carried out the act.The story is quite fast paced and you dont feel bored considering the size of the book which is quite huge considering the 900 odd pages in it.But at few places it does seem to drag especially when lindsay or Lin goes to jail in India .Hope that Mira nair does justice to that scene ,Infact the author himself is the scriptwriter for the movie,In an interview he said that the book is an excellent script for a movie because he visualized it as if he was writing it for a movie ,no wonder when you are reading it you do feel you are a kind of third person watching the whole thing from above the way you have spectator camera in doom or Counter strike.The author has done an amazing introspection on life and has written a number of pearls of wisdom to say that one can easily relate to."Every human heartbeat, he’d said many times, is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he’d meant. He’d been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I’d always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of stars. But I suddenly realized that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter now good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love "."when we fall in love with someone our greatest fear is that they wont love us back,what we should fear instead is that we wont stop loving them.. ““Some feelings sink so deep into the heartthat only loneliness can help u find them again.”“sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.Sometimes we cry with everything except tears”"Happiness is a myth, which was invented to make us buy things".Some of the characters i felt were quite unnecessary esp Johhny cigar (others may disagree with it but i felt it was unnecessary).Without going much deeper into the story line i would say whoever has read Maximum city by Suketu Mehta wil love this book.....I hope Mira Nair does Justice to the book ,and hope Big B can live upto his character in the movie. ( )

A very good read but a little too long, Daily Telegraph called it a literary masterpiece, I would not go that far, but it is worth reading and learning about the raw side of reality in Bombay,the author has a gift for causing the feeling and mood to get to the reader. ( )