Words of wisdom (?) from "Shantaram"..

Shantaram is an amazing book. To say anything more about it and wax eloquent would be 'unfair'.

The book got me into its grip slowly, but steadily. Only in the last few pages does the whole picture hit you - right in the face, bang in the gut. Some of the words he uses are simply mind-numbing.

"And I loved her. I loved her still so much, so hard, but with no heat or heart at all........And suddenly I knew in those seconds of ... cold adoration, I suppose ... that the power she'd once held over me was also gone. Or, more than that, her power had moved into me, and had become mine."

"I felt empty: the kind of emptiness that's sad but not distressed, pitying but not broken-hearted, and damaged, somehow, but clearer and cleaner for it. And then I knew what it was, that emptiness: there's a name for it, a word we use often, without realising the universe of peace that's enfolded in it. The word is free."

And finally...

"For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promises of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on."

THIS is some of the best writing I have read in a long time. Easily one of the best end-games, the only other one which flashes readily in my mind was the end of John Grisham's "The Partner". There are some endings which give you the 'feel-good' air, and then there are endings like the one in Shantaram. There is not much by way of drama. But the sheer play of words takes your breath away. You feel well....'suffocated' (maybe because all the oxygen is going to the brain while you digest the force of the words).

Yes, 'cold adoration' couldn't have been put better. Very apt!