Shantaram

Lin believes that becoming a professional criminal will help with his revenge. Khaled, who runs Khan’s currency business, is his first teacher. The illicit economy in India is nearly as large as the legitimate economy. Khaled’s job involves keeping tabs on exchange rates and money changers. Lin will help Abdullah with collections.

Lin stays at the opulent India Guest House to mentally recover from prison. He can’t sleep at the slums, but he treats patients twice a week and sees his friends. He is less arrogant than before and less innocent. None of his people realized he’d been arrested. They assumed he’d grown weary of them and left, which hurts Lin’s feelings. To heal his body, he trains karate and lifts weights with Abdullah.

Didier learns that a woman was responsible for Lin’s imprisonment. He also tells them about the assassination of Indira Gandhi. On a happier note, Didier tells Vikram he has an idea about winning Lettie’s heart.

Prabu gives Lin a ride in his taxi. Lin bought Prabu’s taxi license. As Prabu drives, they see a demonstration against the Sikhs. The thought of Gandhi’s death makes Prabu cry.

Lin and Khaled talk about the night that Khaled’s family was murdered in Lebanon. Khaled says he was making love to a Jewish girl the night his father died in an Israeli prison. However, Lin says Khaled hating every Jew would be like him hating every Indian because of the prison guards at Arthur Road. He describes being beaten and understanding that he must forgive the guards. Otherwise, the hate would kill him. Khaled says his hate saves him and that “[his] hate is [his] hero” (469). Khaled thinks the riots over Gandhi’s death will improve business, but they’re going to have a couple of long days.

Khan talks about justice six months after hiring Lin. In his view, the system focuses on “how much crime is in the sin, rather than how much sin is in the crime” (472). He doesn’t traffic people, porn, or drugs because they are sinful. He traffics only in influence. Khan says Lin’s two prison escapes should prove that miracles exist.

They go for a walk with Nazeer behind them. Khan lectures on the Big Bang and an argument he calls the tendency toward complexity. They debate various views of morality. Khan then assigns Lin to a new job—working with Ghani on forged passports.

After working out together, Abdullah is driving them on his motorcycle. Suddenly, he stops the bike and fights some Iranian men. Lin helps with the fight but has no idea who the men are, and he doesn’t ask. Then they see Lisa, who now looks healthy and happier. She rides away with Abdullah. Ulla approaches in a taxi and asks for help. In exchange, she will tell him where Karla is.

Ulla had been in trouble with Modena and Maurizio. Men who had lost their money want to take it out on Ulla. Ulla says Modena and Maurizio stopped her from meeting Lin at Leopold’s. They had needed her to meet customers at the last minute. He asks her if she betrayed him, and she tries to jump out of the car. She is terrified but innocent.

Lin searches the island of Goa for Karla, riding across the beaches on a motorcycle. That night, he is sitting on a beach when Karla walks up to him. They discuss the nature of love. Karla says people still believe in love, but not in happy endings. She also says she likes Lin because she knew he would find her.

He asks what she knows about his time at Arthur Road. She assumed he had gone somewhere to do something important but had hated him for disappearing. A tall man with dreadlocks approaches and asks for charras. He gives them a blessing before they smoke. When they are alone again, Lin says he loves everything about her. They make love and enjoy a week of traveling together.

Karla asks why he committed the robberies, as opposed to another crime. He says TV made him think stealing was brave. His Australian hero was Ned Kelly. He was a robber. They hanged him and cut off his head. He told the judge they’d meet soon, and the judge died shortly after the execution. He was Australia’s Che Guevara, and Lin had been an anarchist.

On the last night, she asks him not to return to Mumbai. He can’t agree, and she won’t go with him. They are both angry when he leaves. Karla says they are finished.

Lin begins training with Ghani. As they listen to the Blind Singers, Ghani tells him that Madjid was killed the night before, torn apart in his home before someone used his blood to write “Sapna” on the walls. He gives Lin the tape of the Blind Singers.

At the passport workshop, he meets two men from Sri Lanka: Krishna and Villu, who will teach him the passport trade.

Lin finds a new apartment for Ulla, which she shares with Lisa. Lisa has been spending more time with Abdullah. During a visit to the slums, Lin finds Prabu dancing because he is getting married. Johnny is going to marry Sita, which is a bit of happy news since Johnny’s mother died one week prior. Before Lin can leave the slum, a man named Anand Kao tells him that a man named Rasheed is making problems. He flinches when Lin asks if he needs money, which Lin will understand later. At Leopold’s, Didier enlists Lin to help Vikram with Lettie. He has also learned that the woman who betrayed Lin was a foreigner.

They enact their plan for Lettie and Vikram at a train station. Lettie must be facing Lin in the plan. He blindfolds her and convinces her to keep it on as a train approaches. Vikram has her raise her arms. Men on top of the passing train grab her arms and bring her to the roof, where musicians play. She takes the blindfold off and sees words written on a banner: “LETITIA I LOVE YOU” (530). The next banner is a marriage proposal. Lettie cries and kisses Vikram as Lin thinks about Karla.

Afterward, a man on the street tells Lin there is trouble for him. He says African men want to kill him. Gemini George calls him and says the same thing, just before Prabu arrives with the same news. Didier gives Lin a pistol. Hassaan helps them find the men who are threatening Lin. They are tourists, and Hassaan doesn’t know them. Raheem offers to kill them.

Abdullah smuggles them into a hotel room next to the men, whom they overhear discussing their plan to kill Lin. Abdullah, Vikram, and Lin break in and fight them. During the following interrogation, the men admit that they are hired muscle, sent to punish Lin for a drug deal that went wrong. They say that Maurizio told them that Lin stole the money from their heroin.

Lin visits Ulla’s apartment, assuming she will know where to find Maurizio. Lisa answers the door, and Lin sees that Ulla has a black eye. He finds Maurizio hiding in a wardrobe, beats him badly, and leaves him in front of a hospital. Maurizio admits he gave the men Lin’s name out of jealousy. The next day, Lin goes to Leopold’s to return Didier’s gun. Johnny says Anand Rao killed Rasheed that morning. This is the first murder in their slum.