Savanah Williams - Reading response 2.9 - Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts - extended text
Do you continuously think about the human condition? How society has moulded and whether freedom is more prioritized than law and order? Is everybody born a person of peace? Are our choices fate or are they not predetermined by the universe surrounding us? The novel Shantaram made me question the choices humans make and how it plays out on their lives and how the hierarchy of power rules over our society. But is it needed to have a natural working society? It also made me think about whether an act of love towards other can save yourself and bring you to redemption? This novel written by Gregory David Roberts follows the life of a man called Lindsay…show more content… Lindsay is an escaped convict and previous drug addict from a prison in Australia. The quote “It took me a long time...most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make... the heart of it came to me in an instant...I was chained to a wall being tortured. I realised...through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much...in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.” showed me that no matter what situation you are in you are free to hate, love and chose to forgive those who may pain you. For me it was significant in establishing the ideas of the novel and the universe of possibility. Lindsay moves to Bombay in India where he begins his journey of redemption and I saw how his choices have played out his life’s determined fate. When Lindsay lived in a village with his trusted tour guide Prabaker they unofficially renamed him as “Shantaram” which translates to “man of peace” I felt this was very symbolic to the novel as lindsay was not a man of peace, he was the opposite. But when a fire took place in the village he helped the injured and ironically I could see he was changing into the what he had been named, a “man of peace”. I thought this idea of conscience related to some of the criminals in death row. Some of the people had committed crimes then when placed upon death they had a change of conscience, they wanted redemption and I thought this was closely linked to our own reality from the ideas in the book. I thought it was significant to showing that the environment you surround yourself in may be your own saviour and that your conscience that was once