How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. [...] It's the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilisations in resurrection and decay. It's the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. (1.1.4)
"Visions" of India don't just have to use our sight. In fact, we can use our other senses, like the olfactory, to construct smellovision images of the place. Lin's scent painting spans both high to low, nasty and delicious.
Quote #2
The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air; you learn to live with it, and you learn to like it, or you leave. (1.1.5)
The vision of India that Lin provides makes it seem like a different world, as though you must become an entirely different species in order to live there. Humidity is, of course, a part of life in tropical, coastal areas, but the claim that people living in it must be "amphibians" puts a lot of distance between the speaker and what he's describing.
Quote #3
The open windows of our battered bus gave us the aromas of spices, perfumes, diesel smoke, and the manure of oxen, in a steamy but not unpleasant mix, and voices rose up everywhere above ripples of unfamiliar music. Every corner carried gigantic posters, advertising Indian films. (1.1.25)
Lin's ride into the city from the airport is a full-force introduction to India. The bus's windows are down, which gives the passengers direct contact with the city atmosphere (rather than being enclosed in an airplane, for example). This also lets in smell and sound, in contrast to the flat, 2-D vision of India you would get from the movies advertised on the posters.
Quote #4
"She's right, Lin," Karla added. "This is not India. There are people here from every part of India, but Bombay isn't India. Bombay is an own-world, a world in itself. The real India is out there." (1.2.81)
Basically every city that's bigger than average, or that has a university, in the world gets this kind of "own-world" treatment. We can't help but wonder why everyone is so worried about authenticity, and why the experience of Bombay, for example, can't be one of many versions of India.
Quote #5
And with the seed of that resolve, born in that convulsion and portent, Prabaker's dark circuit of the city began. When we resumed our tour, he took me to a slave market not too far from Dongri, an inner suburb famous for its mosques, bazaars, and restaurants specializing in Mughlai dishes. (1.3.73)
Given the stink and crowd of the descriptions of India that Lin has already shared, the idea of a "dark" tour of Bombay is pretty terrifying. The "convulsion and portent" is the horrific car crash and resulting violent mob that Prabu and Lin experience on their way to the tour. That pain and violence show up again in the slave market, which is listed as a tourist attraction alongside marketplaces and eateries. Dark, indeed
Quote #6
Just as the contracted lanes seemed, with every twist and turn, to belong to another age, so too did the appearance of the people change as we moved deeper into the maze. I saw less and less of the western-style cotton shirts and trousers, so common everywhere else in the city, until finally those fashions disappeared from all but the youngest children. (1.3.76)
Lin leaves the regular tourist route with Prabu to go to the slave market, and he compares the experience to going into a maze. This would indicate that there is only one way out, and that only someone with special knowledge could get out. This vision of the city as full of traps and requiring a guide is a pretty good summary of Lin's experience of it so far.
Quote #7
"Go with him, Lin," he said. "Go with Prabaker, to the village. Every city in the world has a village in its heart. You will never understand the city, unless you first understand the village. Go there. When you return, I will see what India has made of you. Bonne chance!" (1.4.131)
Didier's theory, that every city has a village inside, is related to Karla's wish for the authentic India, above. It's the idea that there's a true India, one that can't be found in Bombay, but rather must be discovered where tourists don't go. That idea of the traveler or exile being the one with access to the true country pervades Shantaram.
Quote #8
"No, Lin! This is India. Nobody can take his clothes off, not even to wash his bodies. This is India. Nobody is ever naked in India. And especially, nobody is naked without clothes." (1.5.257)
Now there's a head scratcher—being naked with your clothes on? Lin is providing a cultural vision of India, describing a practice, but this scene could also be taken as a metaphor for his experience of the country. He is always trying to get at the heart of the matter, to the truth, but there is always another layer to peel off.
Quote #9
I lay back on the bed, in the dark, listening to the sounds of the street that rose to my open window: the paanwalla, calling customers to the delights of his aromatic morsels; the watermelon man, piercing the warm, humid night with his plangent cry; a street acrobat, shouting through his sweaty exertions for a crowd of tourists; and music, always music. Did ever a people love music, I wondered, more than the Indians? (1.7.57)
We really dig the way that Shantaram doesn't only use sight to create images of India, but brings in all five senses to try to recreate the experience of being there. This sound painting, like the scent one above, brings in the chaos, so many different elements, that combine to make a particular, unique place.
Quote #10
"That's how we keep this crazy place together—with the heart. Two hundred [...] languages, and a billion people. India is the heart. It's the heart that keeps us together. There's no place with people like my people, Lin. There's no heart like the Indian heart." (3.22.79)
Okay, we have to admit it: even with all of the descriptions of slave markets and nasty smells, Lin is so romantic about India. He's always idealizing it, presenting it as the perfect place, maybe even because of its imperfections. The way he does this is by showing the people of India as the best people on the planet.