Shantaram

After a month in Quetta, they have been delayed by Asmatullah Achakzai Muslim. Lin studies as much of the local languages as he can, practices horsemanship, and reads books that Ayub brings to him.

When Khan visits, he says people think Lin is a scholar of holy books. He then tells Lin the story of his rise to power. Khan was tutored by erudite Englishmen, which is why he wanted Lin to teach Tariq. Khan’s father was a clan leader. A Sufi mystic told his father Khan would succeed him. He sent him to tutors at age 10, including a teacher named Mackenzie Esquire.

At 15, Khan killed a man who was beating a child. Khan killed him in self-defense after the man attacked him. The man’s family then sent two men to kill Khan. He killed them both. The resulting blood feud destroyed both families. Khan left and spread the rumor that he had been killed. The feud ended, but Khan swore an oath to his mother that he would never return. In Mumbai, he lived in a slum and scalped movie tickets. After being caught, he offered to work for a gangster instead of being killed. He became an enforcer and then a hitman. Khan gives Lin an automatic Russian pistol as they conclude their discussion.

They take a train to Chaman the next day, where they meet 30 men who join their cause. A man approaches Lin with hate in his eyes, and Nazeer gets between them. The man, Habib Rahman, thinks Lin is a Russian. He had been a schoolteacher. Russians attacked his village with nerve gas while he was away. Everyone he had known was dead within an hour. He buried everyone by himself before rejoining his mujaheddin unit. He then captured and tortured every possible enemy he could find. He impaled them with the shovel he used for the burials. Zadeh says Habib is unstable, but his hatred makes him reliable. Khaled says he will watch over him.

They ride horses through the mountain pass. One night, Ahmed says they must climb the mountains. Lin hears a whining noise as two jets pass overhead. Their horses scream and buck, leading Lin to fall over a cliff, barely catching himself and hanging over the abyss.

Khaled is worried about Habib. He has grenades on him and has rigged some of the horses with explosives. He wants to make sure no Russians can take him without dying. Lin wants Khaled to tell Khan, but Khaled thinks he can keep it under control.

Pirates stop them twice to extort a toll. Khan has plenty of gifts to placate them. After learning about Lin, the pirates invite them to a feast. During a third pirate attack, they get ambushed in a narrow gorge. Their leader comes down and speaks to Khan. He is Hajji Mohammed, the clan leader. He asks Lin when the American government will give them Stinger missiles to shoot at the Soviet helicopters. Lin says it will happen soon.

Hajji invites them to his son’s wedding celebration. During the party, Khan asks Lin to repeat the tendency toward complexity argument. They debate the origin of life and discuss Bertrand Russell, who said, “Anything that can be put in a nutshell should remain there” (706).

He asks Khan how he knows physics. Khan answers that he has had weekly study sessions with a teacher for seven years. Lin is jealous. Khan states that there are many examples that prove that it is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

They are attacked by men with guns at the Shahbad Pass. The horses panic, and Lin’s horse is struck twice. When it’s over, Habib finishes off the wounded horses. They lost Madjid. Lin sees to the wounded men before they reach a mountain camp. Lin is clumsy on his horse and enters the camp clinging to the horse’s underside, to the delight of the fighters they meet. Habib suddenly kills one of their wounded men with a knife. He grins as Lin points a gun at him and then escapes.

They stay in the mountains for two months, repairing their weapons before preparing to walk home. After a story about a war between a previous Afghan conflict, Khan asks Lin about his favorite task: Lin says it’s the horses.

Khan is angry when Lin says he is more of a father than his actual father. They discuss the nature of love and the importance of dreams. Then Khan recites a line from a poem. Lin takes out Karla’s poem and shows him. Khan says the poem is by Sadiq Khan, Karla’s favorite poet.

Khan admits that Karla works for him. Her job is to find people who can help them with their business. He is surprised Lin doesn’t know since she also recruited Lin. Khaled interrupts to tell them Habib has been torturing prisoners. Everyone will shoot him on sight.

Lin is furious. He thinks Karla lied about everything. He asks Khan why the clinic was part of the plan. Khan says the person with leprosy’s medicine was for the war. He let Lin set up a clinic to test the medicine on lepers so he would know it was safe to bring to the war in Afghanistan.

He also has responsibility for Sapna’s success. Khan’s public commitment to finding him distracted police so that he could bring additional weapons into Mumbai. Khan was not involved in Zhou’s plan, although he admits that he chose to let Lin stay there instead of freeing him immediately. Lin realizes the other men already know. Lin says he’s not going with him. He threatens to kill Khan if he doesn’t leave. He says Lin was always a friend and son, but Lin says that he hates him.

Three days after Khan leaves, Nazeer returns with Khan’s body in tow. He has Zadeh as well, but Zadeh is so badly injured that Lin cannot treat him. They had been delivering horses to Khan’s village out of pride. Zadeh says donkeys would have saved their lives because they could have navigated the terrain better during the attack. Khan died of a bullet wound.

Explosions rattle the ground. Mortars hit for days, killing men and destroying supplies. Lin helps the wounded whenever their injuries are treatable. He even donates his blood for transfusions.

Nazeer is ashamed to be alive as they bury Khan. His new mission is to kill whoever betrayed them and led to Khan’s death. Nazeer reports on the attack that killed Khan. Habib’s tortures escalated. His reputation grew so much that everyone united everyone against him. Khan was killed by attackers who were trying to kill Habib.

Suddenly, Habib enters the cave where Lin and the others are planning. He says he will give them the enemy’s position if they promise to give him the survivors. The men agree and decide that they will attack the enemy soon. However, a mortar attack ensues immediately, along with fire from a helicopter.

When the attack ends, there are only nine survivors in Lin’s party. When they have the strength, they begin what they expect will be a month-long march.

As their meat runs out, they send a scout to look for game, but he does not return. Habib appears again that night. He says they’re surrounded and must leave now. He says the southeast pass will be unguarded and reminds them that the survivors belong to him.

Lin tells Prabu’s story to the men. They are moved and exhilarated by the story, knowing the next day’s fight will bring some sort of closure. Afterward, Khaled tells Lin that he lived with Karla for six months. She dumped him after meeting Lin. He also says that Karla did something bad in America that damaged her. He is also unsure if Zhou killed Christine and Ahmed.

After Khaled returns to the men, Habib appears and tells Lin that strong men make their own luck. They hear a scream. Khaled has killed Habib with a knife to the throat. Habib also killed the scout that they had sent to search for meat.

The men eat the rotten meat and prepare for the attack. Finally, they run down the slope as mortars explode around them. As they fight, Lin is enraptured by the intensity and terror. Then something hits him in the legs, and he loses consciousness.