Shantaram - Man of Peace

"It is very beautiful, isn't it?" Johnny Cigar asked, sitting beside me and staring out at the dark, impatient restlessness of the waves. "Yeah" I answered, passing him a cigarette. "Our life, it probably began inside of the ocean," Johnny said quietly. "About four thousand million years before now. Probably near hot places, like volcanoes, under the sea."

I turned to look at him.

"And for almost all of that long time, all the living things were water things, living inside the sea. Then, a few hundred million years ago, maybe a little more -- just a little while, really, in the big history of the Earth -- the living things began to be living on the land, as well."
I was frowning and smiling at the same time, surprised and bewildered. I held my breath, afraid that any sound might interrupt his musing.
"But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears."


and I closed the book and cried out the ocean inside of me, literally. I was alone, it was a cold night and there was no reason, yet I let them fall on the pages.. sometimes when I open this particular page, and touch those tiny dry wavelet circles engraved by sunk salty water, I feel ocean. the ocean inside me.

A must read for the ones, the lucky ones, who can laugh, cry, smile, feel and understand.


Fuck, Im gonna go to Leopold's and drink my hell out!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. nice para! lovely book. i specially love the philosophical discussions between Lin and the terrorist (cant recall the name).
    heres a round up of quotable quotes from the book that i had collected n posted on my blog when id read the book 4 yrs backD:

    http://td23.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/01/shantaram-worth-a-read-.htm

    Oh yeah Leopolds shud be done:) we'll plan out somethin after im done with shrawan:P

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  2. hey great link, that is.. btw i didnt know the moderation thing thats y couldn publish the comment. neways, we shud really plan out leopold thing!!!!

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