Then she directed my gaze to the woman in widow's white standing beside her. It was Parvati, and a child, a son, was standing with her. He was clinging to her sari skirt for support. I greeted Parvati, and when I gave my attention to the boy and looked into his face I was so shocked that my jaw dropped open. I turned to the adults and they all smiled, waggling their heads in the same wonder, for the child was the image of Prabaker. More than merely resembling him, the boy was the exact duplicate of the man we'd all loved more than any other we knew. And when he smiled at me it was his smile, Prabaker's vast, world-encompassing smile, that I saw in that small, perfectly round face.
"Baby dijiye?" I asked. Can I hold him?
Parvati nodded. I held my arms out to him, and he came to me without protest.
"What's his name?" I asked, jigging the boy on my hip and watching him smile.
"Prabu," Parvati answered. "We called him Prabaker."
"Oh Prabu," Rukhmabai commanded, "give Shantaram-uncle a kiss."
The boy kissed me on the cheek, quickly, and then wrapped his tiny arms around my neck with impetuous strength, and squeezed me. I hugged him in return, and held him to my heart.
"You know, Shantu," Kishan suggested, patting at his round belly, and smiling to fill the world, "your house is empty. We are all here. You could stay with us tonight. You could sleep here."
"Think hard, Lin," Johnny Cigar warned, grinning at me. The full moon was in his eyes, and pearling his strong white teeth. "If you stay, word will get out. First, there'll be a party tonight, and then, when you wake up, there'll be a damn long line of patients, yaar, waiting to see you."
I gave the boy back into Parvati's arms, and wiped a hand across my face and into my hair. Looking at the people, listening to the breathing, heaving, laughing, struggling music of the slum, all around me, I remembered one of Khaderbhai's favourite phrases.
Every human heartbeat, he'd said many times, is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he'd meant. He'd been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I'd always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of the stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love.
"Well, I'm out of practice sleeping on the ground," I said, smiling at Rukhmabai.
"You can have my bed," Kishan offered.
"Oh no you don't!" I protested.
"Oh yes I do!" he insisted, dragging his cot from outside his hut to mine while Johnny, Jeetendra, and the others hugged and mock wrestled me into submission, and our cries and laughter rolled away toward the time-dissolving everness of the sea.
For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other.
Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more.
Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.
I wrote the first lines of Shantaram thirteen years before I wrote the last. Many people have been involved with the project during those years, and have helped me in ways great or small. In making this grateful acknowledgement I am sure that, unintentionally, some names will be omitted. I ask those friends and colleagues to forgive me.
I want to thank my publishers at Scribe and, in particular, Henry Rosenbloom, who saw the love in this book, and who held his nerve when the chips were down-you can't ask more than that in any context; my editor, Margot Rosenbloom, for providing me with a loving edit that was always a brave but regardful combination of head and heart; the agent for the project, Jenny Darling, whose insightful suggestions helped me to make Shantaram a better book than it ever could have been without her; the book's designer, Miriam Rosenbloom, for the imaginative elegance with which she graced the project; the inspiring team at Pan Macmillan, for their enthusiastic and enduring encouragement; Debbie McInnes, the book's full-hearted and tireless local publicist; Aysha Rowe and Jenny Nagle, who championed the book in Aotearoa New Zealand;
