Shantaram, the name of the book I'm reading and falling in love with.
I decided to write about a part of it that had touched my heart, brought me goose bumps and made me tear up.
The author of Shantaram tells his own story in the book. He's a robber and a heroin addict who escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum.
Sounds crazy right ?
Gregory (the author) had written the book three times before he was able to publish it. Every time he wrote it, in prison, the guards would throw it away. But he would rewrite it, nevertheless. Now doesn't that make you feel how much it's worth the read.
It's really touching.
Gregory, being a man who lived his entire life on the run, drenched in fear, hostility, and menace, tells his story of transformation, when he is touched by the gentleness and kindness of the Indian people.
During his stay in India, he had spent a few months in a village. There, the simple villagers know nothing of criminals and fugitives, and so they treated him as a peaceful man.
And that, he says, had given him the chance to reinvent himself, to become the man he's always wanted to become.
The part of the story I'm telling you about is when the monsoon season comes on the village, and the rain is very heavy. Lin (Gregory's name that is given to him by the Indians), who is washing his clothes at the river while it rained, notices the river is overflowing and fears it will flood the whole village.
Distressed, he runs to the villagers trying to warn them. But to his surprise, the villagers just laugh at him and try to soothe him. Prabaker (Gregory's guide in India, who becomes his close friend) takes him back to the river, and explains to him how they know that the river will not flood.
Prabaker point to a few wooden sticks hammered to the ground at different places.
“You see those sticks, Lin. Those sticks are the flood-game sticks." said Prabaker.
He explaines that the wooden stakes are part of a flood-game that is played every year. The oldest (wisest) men in the village, and six lottery winners, are given the chance to predict the point to which the river would rise. Each wooden stick, with its flag of yellow silk, represents a best guess.
”But ... how do you know that the river won't rise past this point?” asks Lin.
”We are here a long time, Lin. Sunder village has been in this place for two thousands of years. Everybody knows where the river will stop, Lin.” Explains Prabaker.
Gregory writes of how back then, at that moment he was thinking of another kind of river:
"..one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It's the river of the heart, and the heart's desire. It's the pure, essential truth of what each one of us is, and can
achieve."
On the very day that Lin learned about the wooden stakes of the flood-game, Prabaker's mother (whom Lin had befriended) had told him that she'd decided to give him a new name. She, and the village's people, had judged his nature to be blessed with peaceful happiness. They had agreed with her choice for his first name. It was Shantaram, which means man of peace, or man of God's peace.
HERE COMES THE BEST PART *sobs*
Gregory writes:
"They nailed their stakes into the earth of my life, those farmers. They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name. Shantaram.
I don't know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, or if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow. (*beat beat*)
Whatever the case, whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments, as I stood near the flood sticks with my face lifted to the chrismal rain."
*cries*
It's too beautiful, I actually got real tears when I read this part.
I really loved how the author came up with this amazing metaphor from the real events at the village. And how it applies to all of us.
Everyone of us has this one person(s) who knows where the river in us stops, and they love us regardless of how far it can go.
When the river rises, they don't panic, they don't fear its flood. They know too well where it can reach.
They accept us as we are.
I hope this fills your heart with joy juice as much as it did mine.
Have a good week, readers.
I decided to write about a part of it that had touched my heart, brought me goose bumps and made me tear up.
The author of Shantaram tells his own story in the book. He's a robber and a heroin addict who escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum.
Sounds crazy right ?
Gregory (the author) had written the book three times before he was able to publish it. Every time he wrote it, in prison, the guards would throw it away. But he would rewrite it, nevertheless. Now doesn't that make you feel how much it's worth the read.
It's really touching.
Gregory, being a man who lived his entire life on the run, drenched in fear, hostility, and menace, tells his story of transformation, when he is touched by the gentleness and kindness of the Indian people.
During his stay in India, he had spent a few months in a village. There, the simple villagers know nothing of criminals and fugitives, and so they treated him as a peaceful man.
And that, he says, had given him the chance to reinvent himself, to become the man he's always wanted to become.
The part of the story I'm telling you about is when the monsoon season comes on the village, and the rain is very heavy. Lin (Gregory's name that is given to him by the Indians), who is washing his clothes at the river while it rained, notices the river is overflowing and fears it will flood the whole village.
Distressed, he runs to the villagers trying to warn them. But to his surprise, the villagers just laugh at him and try to soothe him. Prabaker (Gregory's guide in India, who becomes his close friend) takes him back to the river, and explains to him how they know that the river will not flood.
Prabaker point to a few wooden sticks hammered to the ground at different places.
“You see those sticks, Lin. Those sticks are the flood-game sticks." said Prabaker.
He explaines that the wooden stakes are part of a flood-game that is played every year. The oldest (wisest) men in the village, and six lottery winners, are given the chance to predict the point to which the river would rise. Each wooden stick, with its flag of yellow silk, represents a best guess.
”But ... how do you know that the river won't rise past this point?” asks Lin.
”We are here a long time, Lin. Sunder village has been in this place for two thousands of years. Everybody knows where the river will stop, Lin.” Explains Prabaker.
Gregory writes of how back then, at that moment he was thinking of another kind of river:
"..one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It's the river of the heart, and the heart's desire. It's the pure, essential truth of what each one of us is, and can
achieve."
On the very day that Lin learned about the wooden stakes of the flood-game, Prabaker's mother (whom Lin had befriended) had told him that she'd decided to give him a new name. She, and the village's people, had judged his nature to be blessed with peaceful happiness. They had agreed with her choice for his first name. It was Shantaram, which means man of peace, or man of God's peace.
HERE COMES THE BEST PART *sobs*
Gregory writes:
"They nailed their stakes into the earth of my life, those farmers. They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name. Shantaram.
I don't know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, or if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow. (*beat beat*)
Whatever the case, whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments, as I stood near the flood sticks with my face lifted to the chrismal rain."
*cries*
It's too beautiful, I actually got real tears when I read this part.
I really loved how the author came up with this amazing metaphor from the real events at the village. And how it applies to all of us.
Everyone of us has this one person(s) who knows where the river in us stops, and they love us regardless of how far it can go.
When the river rises, they don't panic, they don't fear its flood. They know too well where it can reach.
They accept us as we are.
I hope this fills your heart with joy juice as much as it did mine.
Have a good week, readers.
