Shantaram

“The past reflects eternally between two mirrors—the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say.”

As Lin remembers Karla’s eyes, he wishes he had told her about a time when he saw the same green color in nature. There is a tension between many potential outcomes. Lin has done so much in his life that it is unusual for him to think of the many things he has left undone. Khan’s later remark that each heartbeat is a universe of possibility also evokes the imagery of the bright and dark mirrors, as well as Khan’s theory of the tendency toward complexity.

“The rich, all over the world, live longer and healthier lives than the poor. There is a difference between the dishonest bribe and the honest bribe […] The dishonest bribe is the same in every country, but the honest bribe is India’s alone.”

Bribes are a part of commerce in India. But there are underhand bribes, meant to exploit and intimidate, and there are what Lin refers to as honest bribes. Honest bribes arise from the fact that the struggle in India requires everyone to work an angle to get ahead. It is assumed that everyone is working an angle. Therefore, the various hustles (bribes) exist on a spectrum. Some are the benign acts of good people trying to better their situation.

“What we call cowardice is often just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than simply being well prepared. And I might’ve done more, I might’ve done something, anything, if it had happened in Australia. It’s not your country, I told myself, as I watched the beating. It’s not your culture.”

As Lin watches the mob beat the taxi driver, the rage shocks him. He knows exactly how he would have reacted if he had seen the same event in his own country. However, the instant formation of the mob reminds him that there is so much he doesn’t know about his surroundings. He is incapable of being what he would consider brave, or well prepared, because he has no context for the culture and would not know what to expect in his given situation. An act of bravery according to his background might be considered an act of insolence here.

“There’s a truth that’s deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from perception. We’re helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is all.”

Lin utters this when watching and listening at the people-market. He observes children that will be sold into slavery, and some serve as their master’s sexual objects. However, he knows that in India, this people-market exists because of circumstances and histories that he does not understand yet. Slavery is an objective evil, but Lin would rather acknowledge the truth than pretend that horrors do not exist. By looking at the people-market, he shows that he is willing to pay the price required to obtain deeper truths than mere subjective experience can provide.

“The soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can’t be stilled.”

After he gets in Kishan’s bed, Lin is moved when Kishan touches him. Initially, it stuns him that the family wants to stay awake and guard him while he rests. However, he understands that they are showing him the same kindness and duty that they would show to anyone else, regardless of their history or ethnicity. They obey the dictates of their souls, which insist on protective kindness.

“This is India. Nobody can take his clothes off, not even to wash his bodies. This is India. Nobody is ever naked in India. And especially, nobody is naked without clothes.”

Prabu is horrified when Lin strips to shower at the village. The comical exchange reveals another level of Lin’s growing awareness of India’s culture. He cannot imagine showering in clothes, and Prabu cannot imagine showering without clothes. For Lin, the contradiction between the inability to remove one’s clothes is even starker, given the men’s constant talk of lust and sex.

“When the wish and the fear are exactly the same […] we call the dream a nightmare.”

After accepting the offer to live in the slums, Lin remembers Didier’s quote. Didier is a cynic and hedonist, but he is loyal to his friends. While others might find platitudes about making one’s dreams come true inspiring or motivational, Didier is always aware that nightmares are also dreams. He has seen many embody the trope of being careful what you wish for. Desires are often worth fearing because the satisfaction of a desire can have unintended consequences.

“Waiting for nothing, that is what kills the heart of a man, isn’t it? Now the people are waiting for something. Waiting for you, they are. And you are a really something, Shantaram, if you don’t mind I’m saying it to your smoky face and sticking-up hairs.”

After the fire in the slum, Lin protests that his medical training is inadequate. From Prabu’s perspective, the fact that Lin is there to even try is cause for hope. For people who have so little, waiting and hoping for help when there is no reason for optimism kills the soul. Lin may not be a doctor, but he is real, he is willing, and he does not yet understand why the people appreciate his efforts on their behalf, clumsy though they may be.

“There is another reality beyond what we see with our eyes. You have to feel your way into that reality with your heart. There is no other way.”

Khan’s quote supports Lin’s earlier remark at the people-market: There are truths that are deeper than experience. Sensory data is inadequate to convey the profundity of reality. In Khan’s view, that reality is what his teacher referred to as the constant progression toward complexity. His perspective gives Lin permission to question what he sees and hears because his eyes and ears will never lead him toward ultimate truth. This view can be a comfort or an obstacle, depending on one’s opinions on whether objective truths exist.

“Justice is a judgment that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.”

Qasim has a balanced view of justice in the story. His judgment on Joseph’s situation is reminiscent of the judgments of King Solomon in Western culture. Qasim does not use punishment as torment, but as a tool of justice. Punishment that is cruel for the sake of cruelty is not justice, but pessimistic sadism.

“People always hurt us with their trust […] The surest way to hurt someone you like, is to put all your trust in them.”

In a novel filled with cynical characters, Karla may be the most authentic. She makes no secret of her disillusionment with other people, love, and naïve optimism. Karla views trust as a horrible responsibility and obligation that people inflict on one another as a means of control. Because people always disappoint each other, there is little reason to inflict trust on someone.

“It’s as if there’s a collective conscience within the groupmind of a mob, and the right appeal, at exactly the right moment, can turn murderous hate aside from its intended victim. It’s as if the mob, in just that critical moment, want to be stopped, want to be prevented from the worst of their own violence.”

These are Lin’s thoughts as he fights with the Nigerian passenger after the collision. He is, when needed, a violent man. Despite having experienced such violent horrors, Lin maintains faith that most people would like to be stopped before they can commit their lowest deeds. This is part of why he is inclined toward helping people, when possible, before their situations drive them to their darkest moments.

“It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would have annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness.”

The characters in the story all have something they would like to be forgiven for. Forgiveness, because it maintains the potential for future improvement, is part of what makes people want to keep living and creating. Every work of art is a cause for hope because it demonstrates forgiveness in action. Art is a reminder that there are still people who are trying to inspire and move others.

“Fear dries a man’s mouth, and hate strangles him. Hate has no great literature: real fear and real hate have no words.”

Lin contemplates the dead ends of hate and fear while imprisoned at Arthur Road. Hate and fear do not produce anything beautiful. They are the opposite of art. With respect to the previous quote, hate and fear are also antithetical to hope. Fear and hatred reduce people to reactive, thoughtless appetites and actions. Hate and fear, unlike art, leave destruction and death as proof of their existence.

“Everything you ever sense, in touch or taste or sight or even thought, has an effect on you that’s greater than zero.”

Lin contemplates how people evolve after visiting Anand in prison. For Lin, there is no such thing as a thought, or a sensory experience, that does not result in either an evolution or a regression. From this perspective, everything matters, and trivial details may not actually be trivial. There is no such thing as a static human, which fits neatly into Khaderbhai’s theory of the tendency to complexity.

“Personality and personal identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by our intersecting relationships. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them. I was that point in space and time where Abdullah’s wild violence intersected with Prabu’s happy gentleness.”

After their deaths, Lin thinks in the opium den. He does not believe that a person has a personality or personal identity without the existence of other people. One can extrapolate one’s identity, to some degree, by how others react. He overtly admits that Prabu and Abdullah shaped him because of their influence on him and his on them.

“I could’ve loved her. Maybe I already did love her a little. But sometimes the worst thing you can do to a woman is to love her. And I still loved Karla.”

After kissing Lisa, Lin resists deepening his relationship with her. His remark about loving a woman being the worst thing you can do is like Karla’s statement that the worst thing you can do to a person is trust them. Love and trust are ostensibly positive, desirable traits. For Karla and Lin, however, love and trust often lead to unnecessary suffering.

“If you wanted a definition of sick, really sick-minded, you could do worse than somebody who wants a war—any war—to go on longer.”

Lin talks with Khaled about the Afghan war. Even though he is loyal to Khan, Lin never convinces himself that there is such a thing as a just or good war. He is willing to fight and die for a cause or a friend, but that willingness requires people that he loves, not a conflict from which he can profit. Willfully prolonging a war suggests a greater evil and mental instability than Lin can comprehend.

“Men wage wars for profit and principle, but they fight them for land and women. Sooner or later, the other causes and compelling reasons drown in blood and lose their meaning.”

After Lin parts with Khan, he reflects on the nature of war. He believes that Khan lost sight of why the war was worth fighting, if in fact it ever was. War is so chaotic that it can be difficult to remember the origins of conflicts. Lofty ideals like honor and justice can be replaced by lust and greed.

“There wasn’t any glory in it. There never is. There’s only courage and fear and love. And war kills them all, one by one. Glory belongs to God, of course; that’s what the word really means. And you can’t serve God with a gun.”

After Lin learns about the mortar attack they charged into, he reflects on the pointlessness of their efforts. War robs people of the things that Lin values most in people: courage and love. He cannot reconcile the reality of war with the notion of holy soldiers who fight on behalf of God’s wishes. Men use God’s name to indulge their own worst instincts in war.

“Virtue is concerned with what we do, and honor is concerned with how we do it. You can fight a war in an honorable way—the Geneva Convention exists for this very reason—and you can enforce the peace without any honor at all.”

Lin thinks about Lettie’s confusion when he told her the mafia men were honorable. Although he believes that a war can be fought with honor, honor cannot be the origin or a war’s existence. Virtue is more likely to start a war than honor, and virtue does not lead to rulesets like the Geneva Convention.

“Fate always gives you two choices, Scorpio George had said: the one you should take, and the one you do.”

Lin thinks about the inevitability of the council getting into drugs and women. He knows that, despite the rumors and fears of conspiracies, greed and human nature are always at the root of humanity’s downfall. Greed is not a conspiracy but an inextricable part of nature. Lin believes that people usually know what they should do, but that knowledge rarely guarantees that they will. If anything, the inverse may be true.

“There is no man, and no place, without war […] The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get—who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life.”

Abdullah cannot conceive of a world where people exist but war does not. There is never an option to avoid fighting, only to avoid being a victim. For Abdullah, living and fighting are synonymous, and the only choice that is not naïve or illusory is the choice to align oneself with causes and people who share similar goals.