OMG I finished! I'm free! :)

OMG OMG omg ... please let it end soon.

Back in Bombay again. Lin tries to kill Madame Zhou.

Pshew the shit hit the fan. Khader dead. Helicopter attack on their rebel camp in Afghanistan.

Oh -- this book is slowly winning me over. It's an epic. The author has some self-awareness. There are some beautiful phrases. There's great descriptions of historical episodes and circumstances / motives for crime. A great description of heroin addiction. Basically in this passage he got addicted to heroin in response to Abdullah & Prabaker's death. Then Karla and Khader found / rescued him and put him up in a house to recover with Nazeer as his nurse. Now they are off to the war in Afghanistan, Khader's home county.

wut -- Abdullah & Prabaker dead?! :( :( they were my favorites

Drinking & reading makes me like the book more. :)

Maybe Lin is having a sort of growth moment? He seems to be moving past his heroic self-conception a little?

Oh my it has taken a turn for the worse. He abandoned Karla. Some guys were supposed to kill him. Instead he beats them up with his gangster friends. They tell him another character framed him. So he goes and beats up that guy. Ugh. I'm trying to read as fast as possible. I want my 380000 words for Bookrace. But what an investment of time in this book. :(

Lin works for the mob. He has a conversation about good & evil with Khader, the mafia boss. Ulla tells him where Karla is.

Lin gets out of prison and starts working for the mafia.

Cholera epidemic. Lin is randomly thrown into prison.

Before Kate & Karl's party.

Read for 20m at Bean There but then, a friend dropped by to visit. Lin is entrusted with the mafia lord's nephew.

somewhat tiring bit about visit to Madame Zhou ... Then relatively dull philosophy discussion with mafia lord ... Then stiching up a teenage gangster's arm ... now helping blue bear handlers in jail ... Kind of a whirlwind succession of events. It must be on purpose by the author to build tension.

Linbaba is visited by Karla who needs his help.

Linbaba is taken to a doctor who, the mafia lord has arranged to see the patients who Linbaba cannot help. A lovely part about slum justice: a drunken man who beat his wife and was punished in turn. Linbaba receives a "bear hug" from a real bear. I like the stories of the slum, they are truly interesting and unique.

chemurgy: chemical and industrial use of organic & raw materials Standing Babas Lin gets a new name in Prabaker's villaage: Shantaram All his money is stolen and, has traveler's visa expiring -- so he has to move to Prabaker's slum. On the day he arrives, there is a fire. Many people are injured and, he actually has some amature doctor training, so he becomes known as "doc."

Taking notes on new vocabulary, there is a lot of that. Some of his pronouncements don't work for me like "optimism, like love, is pushy" -- love is pushy and humorless?

Starting to like the book more. It has some lovely phrases. I don't read enough about India.

getting started!