Shantaram

Does everyone have a private theory of how the world works? Not so much how human society networks, but how the universe as a whole functions.

Shantaram’s theory is one of a constant movement towards complexity, to a higher level from where it currently stands. Right from the cosmic soup that slowly transforms into a universe, to amoebae evolving eventually into Einstein. So, his theory goes, everything that contributes toward this trend is the fundamental definition of good, and anything that constitutes a step back is then ‘bad’. A complex code of morality that the Bombay mafia Don teaches this firang drug peddler and all-round fixer, Shantaram.

So they run ethical circles around each other, not to mention guns and forged passports, rationalising gangland killing without justifying it. Killing is always the wrong thing to do, the Don says, but it can be for the right reasons. That still doesn’t make it the right thing to do, so it’s important to acknowledge the wrongness while pulling the trigger, or twisting the garrotte as the case may be. Hmmm…

The books I like, what I call good books, are those whose narrators’ characteristics I can relate to. Whose attitudes and opinions either reflect mine or are so diametrically opposed they give a fresh perspective to the world as we know it. Shantaram was one such. The book made me feel like a foreigner in my own country. The level of familiarity he achieves with so many of the people he meets shocked my reticent soul.

But as I delved deeper, I realised there was also a lot we shared. I too immerse myself in other people’s lives adopting their causes as my own without revealing my own past and affiliations. I too devote myself not so much to the cause itself, as much to the people. It is these people who fire up my enthusiasm and my imagination, but once their participation is withdrawn, I doubt that I’d continue along that path on my own steam without them.

In fact I know I don’t. Case in point - AIESEC. Super fun time. Also felt like an important thing to do. Socially responsible projects and programmes, awakening the youth and what have you. Budgets, time plans, AGMs, politics, esprit de corps. End of EB term, the core group moved on. And so did I. Followed them to MBA prep classes, in fact. Did the CAT, got through to group discussions and interviews, as did they. And still completely disinterested in a corporate life. Actively disliking it, actually. What was I thinking? Hard to say, from here. All I know is that it was the most miserable two years of my ‘professional’ life.

So stands to reason, in the cosmic balance of things, my personal life was going swimmingly.

I found M. In the whole world there was just him and me. A decision, an affiliation, a cause that was entirely my own. Not going with the flow. Not a ‘sure, why not’ kind of camaraderie. My one and only conscious decision. And true to form I told no one. Didn’t keep it secret, just chose not to mention it. And no one asked.

In pretty much the first chapter, Shantaram falls deeply in love. With a woman he knows only as Carla. And I recoiled again in shock. How can you possibly claim to love someone without knowing anything about them? Carla and he talk about life and people and the world. He’s so busy not revealing his past; he doesn’t notice she hasn’t let slip anything of her life either. Past relationships, childhood, family, old friends… the signposts of our life thus far reveal so much they seem to obscure who we are now and who we’re trying to become.

The disbelief prompted honesty. How much had I really known at that stage? Sure the details were mine for the asking, and the blanks were eventually filled. But truth is that the allegiance was pledged way before any of that. Way before any future seemed likely. (and it seemed pretty unlikely at the time).

In fact, for a time, this future seemed unlikely enough to call the whole thing off. Doesn’t change the fact that I knew this was the love of my life. Seemed beside the point at the time. Seemed important to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. And I acknowledged that. And I was told to stop being stupid. So I did.

And that was my step towards complexity.