Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"This matter is being handled in the most careful way,"

Khaderbhai explained. "The government and the police have asked for co-operation from the newspapers. They have been reported as unrelated things, as deaths that happened during simple, unconnected robberies. But we know that Sapna's followers have committed them, because the blood of the victims was used to write the word Sapna on the walls and the floors. And despite the terrible violence of the attacks, not much of any real value was stolen from the victims. For now, this Sapna does not officially exist. But it is only a matter of time before everyone knows of him, and of what has been done in his name."

"And you... you don't know who he is?"

"We are very interested in him, Lin," Khaderbhai answered. "What do you think about this poster? It has been seen in many markets and hutments, and it is written in English, as you see. Your language."

I sensed a vague hint of accusation in those last two words.

Although I had nothing whatsoever to do with Sapna and knew almost nothing about him, my face reddened with that special guilty blush of the completely innocent man.

"I don't know. I don't think I can help you with this."

"Come now, Lin," Abdul Ghani chided. "There must be some impressions, some thoughts, that occur to you. There is no commitment here. Don't be shy. Just say the first things that come to your mind."

"Well," I began reluctantly, "the first thing is, I think that this Sapna-or whoever wrote this poster-may be a Christian."

"A Christian!" Khaled laughed. He was a young man, perhaps thirty-five, with short dark hair and soft green eyes. A thick scar swept in a " smooth curve from his left ear to the corner of his mouth, stiffening that side of his face. His dark hair was streaked with premature white and grey. It was an intelligent, sensitive face, more scarred by its anger and hatreds than it was by the knife-wound on his cheek. "They're supposed to _love their enemies, not disembowel them!"

"Let him finish," Khaderbhai smiled. "Go on, Lin. What makes you think Sapna is a Christian fellow?"

"I didn't say Sapna is a Christian-just that whoever wrote this stuff is using Christian words and phrases. See, here, in the first part, where he says I am come... and...Do this in memory of me-those words can be found in the Bible. And here, in the third paragraph... I am the truth in their world of lies, I am the light in their darkness of greed, my way of blood is your freedom-he's paraphrasing something... I am the Way and the Truth and the _Light... and it's also in the Bible. Then in the last lines, he says...

Blessed are the killers, for they shall steal lives in my name- that's from the Sermon on the Mount. It's all been taken from the Bible, and there's probably more in here that I don't recognise.

But it's all been changed around, it's as though this guy, whoever wrote this stuff, has taken bits of the Bible, and written it upside down."

"Upside down? Explain please?" Madjid asked.

"I mean, it's against the ideas of the words in the Bible, but uses the same kind of language. He's written it to have exactly the opposite meaning and intention of the original. He's kind of turned the Bible on its head."

I might've said more, but Abdul Ghani ended the discussion abruptly.

"Thank you, Lin. You've been a big help. But let's change the subject. I, for one, do sincerely dislike talking about such unpleasantness as this Sapna lunatic. I only brought it up because Khader asked me to-and Khader Khan's wish is my command.

But we really should move on now. If we don't get started on our theme for tonight, we'll miss out altogether. So, let's have a smoke, and talk of other things. It's our custom for the guest to start, so will you be so kind?"

Farid rose and placed a huge, ornate hookah, with six snaking lines, on the floor between us next to the table. He passed the smoking tubes out, and squatted next to the hookah with several matches held ready to strike. The others closed off their smoking tubes with their thumbs and, as Farid played a flame over the tulip-shaped bowl, I puffed it alight. It was the mix of hashish and marijuana known as ganga-jamuna, named after the two holy rivers, Ganges and Jamner. It was so potent, and came with such force from the water-pipe, that almost at once my bloodshot eyes failed in focus and I experienced a mild, hallucinatory effect: the blurring at the edges of other people's faces, and a minuscule time-delay in their movements. The Lewis Carrolls, Karla called it. I'm so stoned, she used to say, I'm getting the Lewis Carrolls. So much smoke passed from the tube that I swallowed it and belched it out again. I closed off the pipe, and watched in slow motion as the others smoked, one after another.

I'd just begun to master the sloppy grin that dumped itself on the plasticine muscles of my face when it was my turn to smoke again. It was a serious business. There was no laughing or smiling.

There was no conversation, and no man met another's eye. The men smoked with the same mirthless, earnest impassiveness I might've found on a long ride in an elevator full of strangers.

"Now, Mr. Lin," Khaderbhai said, smiling graciously as Farid removed the hookah and set about cleaning the ash-filled bowl.

"It is also our custom for the guest to give us the theme for discussion. This is usually a religious theme, but it need not be so. What would you like to talk about?"

"I... I... I'm not sure what you mean?" I stammered, my brain soundlessly exploding in fractal repetitions of the pattern in the carpet beneath my feet.

"Give us a subject, Lin. Life and death, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal," Abdul Ghani explained, waving a plump hand in effete little circles with each couplet. "We are like a debating society here, you see. We meet every month, at least one time, and when our business and private matters are finished, we talk about philosophical subjects and the such-like. It's our amusement. And now we have you, an Englishman, to give us a subject to discuss, in your language."

"I'm not English, actually."

"Not English? Then what are you?" Madjid demanded to know. Deep suspicions were planted in the furrows of his frown.

It was a good question. The false passport in my backpack in the slum said that I was a New Zealand citizen. The business card in my pocket said that I was an American named Gilbert Parker.

People in the village at Sunder had re-named me Shantaram. In the slum they knew me as Linbaba. A lot of people in my own country knew me as a face on a wanted poster. But is it my own country, I asked myself. Do I have a country?

It wasn't until I'd asked myself the question that I realised I already had the answer. If I did have a country, a nation of the heart, it was India. I knew that I was as much a refugee, a displaced and stateless person, as the thousands of Afghans, Iranians, and others who'd come to Bombay across the burning bridge; those exiles who'd taken shovels of hope, and set about burying the past in the earth of their own lives.

"I'm an Australian," I said, admitting it for the first time since I'd arrived in India, and obeying an instinct that warned me to tell Khaderbhai the truth. Strangely, I felt it to be more of a lie than any alias I'd ever used. "How very interesting," Abdul Ghani remarked, lifting one eyebrow in a sage nod to Khaderbhai. "And what will you have as a subject, Lin?"

"Any subject?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Yes, your choice. Last week we discussed patriotism-the obligations of a man to God, and what he owes to the state. A most engaging theme. What will you have us discuss this week?"

"Well, there's a line in that poster of Sapna's... our suffering is our religion-something like that. It made me think of something else. The cops came again, a few days ago, and smashed down a lot of houses in the zhopadpatti, and while we were watching it one of the women near me said... our duty is to work, and to suffer-or as near to that as I can make out. She said it very calmly and simply, as if she accepted it, and was resigned to it, and understood it completely. But I don't understand it, and I don't think I ever will. So, maybe the question could be about that. Why do people suffer? Why do bad people suffer so little? And why do good people suffer so much? I mean, I'm not talking about me-all the suffering I've gone through, I brought most of it on myself. And God knows, I've caused a lot of it to other people. But I still don't understand it-especially not the suffering that the people in the slum go through. So... suffering. We could talk about that... do you think?"