GO! Smell Mumbai part 3: The Bestseller!
February 21st, 2008 by JimWelcome, pull up a seat and order from the menu here at cult hangout Leopold’s, Mumbai, whilst you’re writing that bestseller to follow the success of Shantaram!
Leopolds, serving the locals and passers by of Mumbai since 1857, a favourite, owing its recent star status to Shantaram, a story based loosely on the life of author Gregory David Roberts, a former Australian convict known as Lin. This fictionalised account of the real life adventures of author Gregory David Roberts who bescaped from an Australian jail and arriving in Bombay, India with a fake New Zealand passport.
He immediately meets a taxi driver named Prabhaker who gives him tours of the city and a hut in the local slum. Lin starts a free clinic for the people in the slum, and to provide for his own income, he sells drugs to tourists. This gets him the attention of the local gangsters, and he’s increasingly pulled into their world of crime, from counterfeiting to gun running to passport schemes. Lin falls in love, nearly dies in an Indian prison, and survives a continuing series of adventures. More than just an account of drugs and crime, Shantaram is the story of a man who, even in a life of violence, genuinely loves those in his life and the city that became his home, Bombay.
Only last month, Madonna & Guy Ritchie took an extended New Year’s break in the region, dropping into Leopold’s and walking around Cuffe Parade, a seafront neighbourhood where million-dollar high rises sit next to fishermen’s huts, typical of the gulf between the city’s richest and poorest.
Well we’re reading Shantaram at the moment, highly recommend it and are flexing our Amazon affiliate muscles and offering it here - you can buy it as well and if you don’t like it we’ll refund your money.
Comments please! Can us flowers smell the next Guy Ritchiefilm? Is this right or wrong - actually living in the slums and really getting amonst it? We’ll be featuring what we found at Leopold’s in our next post that features food n drink.
So, an escaped convict turns to become a Doctor in the slums treating the poor in another country. Should this be allowed or should he be locked up? Do tell….
Er… I’m assuming this guy was a doctor before he became a convict?!
Lin the Robin Hood of Mumbai? Uses tourists drug $$ to invest in the free clinic for the poor ha!
So what’s the link betwen Leopold’s and the book? (or is it obvious and it’s just me at my daft best?)
When Bridget publishes her diary, she’ll launch a chain of hotels ha!
(I’m not random, I have many thoughts all being thought together!)
BJ the amazing thing is this guy knew nothing about being a Doctor - at all bar a first aid course in his youth…
All he did in the eraly days of the slums was to help clean up cuts, dress a wound - school boy first aid then next day he had 50 people outside his shack..word spread….he was known as the Doctor….
On it goes…
WEll I havent heard of this one….
Would you like me to investigate him a bit the convict records are online and more added all the time.. it has become quite fashionable to be decended from one over the past few year….
Most convicts which came here had skills, doctors, architects, builders, lawyers etc others just labourer and alike…. many less glamourous professional….
Let me know and I will see what I can find if you want..
Yeah cool AC - anything would be of interest on the credentials…google him too - an interesting guy….
Here you go
Interesting fellow… the link is an interview overview with links to the full interview….
Gregory David Roberts (born June 1952) is an Australian author, most noted for his novel Shantaram. He was a heroin addict and convicted bank robber who escaped from Pentridge Prison and fled to India where he lived for ten years.
In 1978 Roberts was sentenced to 19 years imprisonment for a series of armed robberies of building-society branches, credit unions and shops, committed with a toy pistol while addicted to heroin. In July 1980 he escaped from Victoria?s maximum security prison in broad daylight to become one of Australia?s most wanted men. After briefly going to New Zealand, he lived in Bombay, where he became involved with the local mafia, until 1990 when he was captured and imprisoned in Frankfurt. He was returned to Australia and served a further six years in prison, including two years in solitary confinement. He was released in 1997 and, now drug free, began work on his novel.
Since completing Shantaram, Roberts has reportedly returned to Mumbai to live, and set up charitable foundations to assist the city’s poor health care coverage. Roberts is writing the screenplay for Shantaram the movie, in addition to other screenplays intended for the cinema.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoP5vvTU4oU
Cheers for this AC…
‘RIPPER’
I hope guy ritchie does make a film of it
really
I also hope he casts his wife in the film
the combination is guaranteed to ensure its a roaring flop
Any ideas fo the title Urban?
Desperatley seeking chapatti?
Lock, stock and caste?
LOL Jem!
Johnny Depp is actually working on a version of Shantaram, but I think they’re having some production difficulties… As for Guy Ritchie, I think his new film Rocknrolla should be out in the fall.
Cheers stella, you’re right, its Depp working on it but its delayed….he was top drawer in Sweeny todd.
Is it worth it then Jem, Sweeny Todd? Every time I went to see it, I got distracted by another movie ha!
4 sure Bj, well worth a look albeit on the cut throat gory side!
money back eh? I’ve got 3 lying at home…??
What’s your cut from advertising/flogging this book on your site?
It amount to about 50 cents per copy clicked and bought from here oh Angry one…
But the money won’t change us, honest.