"A young Australian man bearing a false New Zealand passport that gives his name as "Lindsay" flies to Bombay some time in the early '80s On his first day there, Lindsay meets the two people wабыщхho will largely influence his fate in the city One is a young tour guide, Prabaker, whose gifts include a large smile and an unstoppably joyful heart Through Prabaker, Lindsay learns Marathi (a language not often spoken by gora, or foreigners), gets to know village Iавредndia and settles, for a time, in a vast shantytown, operating an illicit free clinic The second person he meets is Karla, a beautiful Swiss-American woman with sea-green eyes and a circle of expatriate friends Lin's love for Karla—and her mysterious inability to love in return—gives the book its central tension "Linbaba's" life in the slum abruptly ends when he is arrested without charge and thrown into the hell of Arthur Road Prison Upon his release, he moves from the sавцячlum and begins laundering money and forging passports for one of the heads of the Bombay mafia, guru/sage Abdel Khader Khan Eventually, he follows Khader as an improbable guerrilla in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan There he learns about Karla's connection to Khader and discovers who set him up for arrest" Publishers Weekly В 1978 году, Грегори Дэвид Робертс совершил ряд вооруженных ограблений с целью поддержания своей дорогостоящей привычке к героину и был приговорен к девятнатцати лет тюрьмы На третий год своего пребывания в тюрьме строгого режима ему удается бежать (средь бела дня) и он становится самым разыскиваем преступником Австралии Скрываясь в Мумбаи, он основал нелегальную клинику для жителей трущоб, работал фальшивомонетчиком, контрабандистом и поставщиком оружия для мафии Мумбаи Шантарам основан на данном десятилетнем периоде жизни Грегори Дэвида Робертса.