DesiPundit

Gregory David Roberts, a gun-runner and drug dealer escaped from a maximum security prison in Australia and reached Mumbai. He lived in the slums for two years, observing and learning quite a bit from the slum dwellers. His book, Shantaram, is going to be made as a movie starring Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachchan. Usha Alexander has a review.

And this, ultimately, is what Shantaram comes to be about: Love, in all its forms and degrees. The love of our fellows, our parents, our brothers and sisters and friends and mates. The love of ourselves. That most human engagement which drives us, completes us, injures us, heals us, ruins us, saves us. Never pure, simple, or clean, often untrue, it is nevertheless our unavoidable condition and our only hope. For such a tough guy, surprisingly, Roberts never flinches from his subject.