: A man who escaped from Australia’s most guarded prison finds himself in Bombay, where he becomes an approximate to the head of the mafia group.

Part one

The narrator, who escaped from prison and hiding under the name of Lindsay Ford, arrives in Bombay, where he meets Prabaker - a little man with a huge radiant smile, "the best guide of the city." He finds Ford cheap housing and sets out to show the wonders of Bombay.

Due to the crazy traffic on the streets, Ford almost falls under a double-decker bus. He is saved by the beautiful green-eyed brunette Carla.

Her large eyes were striking with their intense greenery. Such green trees are in vivid picturesque dreams. So green would be the sea, if it could achieve perfection.

Carla is often at the Leopold Bar. Soon, Ford becomes a regular in this semi-criminal bar and realizes that Carla is also engaged in some kind of shadow business.

Ford begins to be friends with Prabaker. He often meets with Carla, and each time he falls in love with her more and more. Over the next three weeks, Prabaker shows Ford the “real Bombay” and teaches him to speak Hindi and Marathi — the main Indian dialects. They visit the market, where they sell orphans, and the hospice, where terminally ill people live their lives.

Showing all this, Prabaker as if checks Ford for durability. The last check is a trip to the native village of Prabaker.

You can live in the city, holding your wounded heart and soul in a fist, but in the village they should openly shine in your eyes.

Ford has been with his family for six months, works in public fields, and helps a local teacher teach English classes. Prabaker’s mother calls him Shantaram, which means “peaceful person”. Ford is persuaded to remain as a teacher, but he refuses.

On the way to Bombay, he is beaten and robbed. With no means of livelihood, Ford becomes an intermediary between foreign tourists and local hashish traders and settles in the slum of Prabaker.

During an excursion to the "standing monks" - people who vowed never to sit down and go to bed - Ford and Karla are attacked by an armed man who smoked hash. The madman is quickly neutralized by a stranger who called himself Abdullah Taheri.

There is a fire in the slums. Being able to provide first aid, Ford begins to treat burns. During a fire, he finds his place - he becomes a doctor.

Part two

Ford escaped from Australia's most guarded prison in broad daylight through a hole in the roof of the building where the guards lived. The building was being repaired, and Ford was part of the repair team, so the guards did not pay attention to him. He fled to save himself from daily brutal beatings.

Nothing hardens the human heart like the law enforcement system.

Ford jails dreaming at night. In order not to see these dreams, he wanders every night on the silent Bombay. He is ashamed that he lives in a slum, and does not meet with former friends, although he misses Karla. Ford is completely absorbed in the craft of the healer.

During a night walk, Abdullah introduces Ford to one of the leaders of the Bombay mafia, Abdel Kader Khan. This handsome elderly man, a respected sage, divided the city into districts, each of which is led by a council of criminal barons. People call him Kaderbhay. Ford came close to Abdullah. Having lost his wife and daughter forever, Ford sees his brother in Abdullah, and his father in Kaderbhai.

Friendship is also a kind of medicine, and the market where you can get it is also black.

Since that night, Ford's amateur clinic has been regularly supplied with medicines and medical instruments. Prabaker dislikes Abdullah - slum dwellers consider him a bounty hunter.In addition to the clinic, Ford is engaged in mediation, which brings him a decent income.

Four months pass. Ford occasionally sees Carla, but does not approach her, ashamed of his poverty. Carla comes to him herself. They have lunch on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center under construction, where workers set up a village with farm animals - “Heavenly Village”. There Ford learns of Sapna, an unknown avenger who brutally murders the rich of Bombay.

Ford helps Carla rescue her friend Lisa from the Palace, Madame Zhu’s brothel, which is notorious. Through the fault of this mysterious woman, Carla's beloved was once killed. Pretending to be an employee of the American embassy, ​​who wants to buy the girl on behalf of her father, Ford pulls Lisa from the clutches of Madame. Ford confesses to Carla love, but she hates love.

Part three

In the slums, the cholera epidemic begins, which soon encompasses the village. For six days Ford fights the disease, and Carla helps him. During a brief break, she tells Ford her story.

Carla Saarnen was born in Basel, in the family of an artist and singer. My father died, a year later my mother was poisoned with sleeping pills, and a nine-year-old girl was taken by an uncle from San Francisco. He died three years later, and Carla was left with an aunt who did not like the girl and deprived her of the most necessary. High school student Carla moonlighted as a visiting nanny. The father of one of the children raped her, and stated that Karl provoked him. Aunt took the side of the rapist and drove the fifteen-year-old orphan out of the house. Since then, love has become inaccessible to Carla. She got to India, having met on an airplane with an Indian businessman.

Stopping the epidemic, Ford gets into the city to earn a little money.

I love money, but I can't stand their smell. The more I enjoy it, the more thoroughly I have to wash my hands after that.

One of Carla’s friends, Ulla, asks him to meet with some man at Leopold - she is afraid to go to a meeting alone. Ford feels danger, but agrees. A few hours before the meeting, Ford sees Carla, they become lovers.

On the way to the Leopold, Ford is being arrested. For three weeks he sits in a crowded cell at the police station, and then goes to jail. Regular beatings, blood-sucking insects and hunger for several months deplete his strength. Ford cannot send the news to the will - everyone who tries to help him is brutally beaten. Kaderbhai himself finds out where Ford is and pays a ransom for it.

After prison, Ford begins to work for Kaderbhaya. Carla is no longer in the city. Ford is worried: did she decide that he had escaped. He wants to know who is to blame for his misfortunes.

Ford is engaged in contraband gold and fake passports, earns a lot and rents a decent apartment. He rarely meets with friends in the slum, and even closer to Abdullah.

After the death of Indira Gandhi in Bombay, turbulent times ensue. Ford is on the international wanted list, and only Kaderbhai’s influence protects him from prison.

When you live outside the law, the echo of lies is always heard in your laughter, each manifestation of love becomes partly theft.

Ford learns that he was sent to prison by the denunciation of a woman.

Ford meets Lisa Carter, who once rescued from the brothel of Madame Zhu. Having got rid of drug addiction, the girl works in Bollywood. On the same day he meets Ulla, but she does not know anything about his arrest.

Ford finds Carla on Goa, where they spend a week. He tells his beloved that he was engaged in armed robbery in order to get money for drugs that he became addicted to when he lost his daughter. On the last night, she asks Ford to quit Kaderbhai's work and stay with her, but he does not put up with pressure and leaves.

In the city of Ford, he learns that Sapna brutally killed one of the Mafia council, and a foreigner living in Bombay imprisoned him.

Part four

Under the leadership of Abdul Ghani, Ford deals with fake passports, making flights both within India and abroad. He likes Lisa, but the memories of the disappeared Karl prevent her from getting closer to her.

Prabaker is getting married. Ford gives him a taxi driver license. A few days later Abdullah dies. The police decide that he is Sapna, and Abdullah is shot in front of the police station. Ford then finds out about the accident Prabaker got into. A handcart loaded with steel bars drove into his taxi. Prabaker was demolished the lower half of his face, he died in the hospital for three days.

Having lost his closest friends, Ford falls into a deep depression.

To say that a person has a soul, it is possible only after you start to rob him of one hope after another.

He spends three months in an opium stash under the influence of heroin. Carla and Nazir, the bodyguard of Kaderbhai, who always did not like Ford, take him to a house on the coast and help get rid of drug addiction.

Kaderbhai is sure that Abdullah was not Sapna - his enemies slandered him. He is going to deliver ammunition, spare parts and medicines to Kandahar, besieged by the Russians. He intends to carry out this mission himself, and calls Ford with him. Afghanistan is full of warring tribes. To get to Kandahar, Kaderbhai needs a foreigner who can pretend to be the American "sponsor" of the Afghan war. This role falls to Ford.

Before leaving, Ford spends his last night with Carla. Carla wants Ford to stay, but cannot confess his love to him.

In the border town, the core of the Kaderbhai squad is forming. Before leaving, Ford discovers that he was put in prison by Madame Zhu. He wants to come back and take revenge on Madame. Kaderbhai tells Ford how in his youth he was kicked out of his native village. At the age of fifteen, he killed a man, and launched a clan war. It ended only after the disappearance of Kaderbhai. Now he wants to return to the village near Kandahar and help his relatives.

Through the Afghan border, along mountain gorges, a detachment is led by Habib Abdur Rahman, obsessed with revenge on the Russians who killed his family. Kaderbhai pays tribute to the leaders of the tribes whose territory the detachment crosses. In response, the leaders supply them with fresh food and horse feed. Finally, the squad gets to the Mujahideen camp. During the journey, Habib loses his mind, escapes from the camp and begins his own war.

People are divided into those who kill in order to survive, and those who live in order to kill.

All winter, the detachment repairs weapons for Afghan partisans. Finally, Kaderbhai orders to prepare for his return home. In the evening before leaving, Ford learns that Carla worked for Kaderbhai - she was looking for foreigners who could come in handy. So she found Ford. Acquaintance with Abdullah and meeting with Carla were rigged. The slum clinic was used as a testing ground for smuggled drugs. Kaderbhai also knew about Ford's imprisonment - Madame Zhu helped him negotiate with politicians in return for his arrest.

Enraged, Ford refuses to accompany Kaderbhai. His world is crumbling, but he cannot hate Kaderbhai and Carla, because he still loves them.

Three days later, Kaderbhai dies - his detachment falls into the snares set up to capture Khabib. On the same day, the camp is fired upon, destroying supplies of fuel, food and medicine. The new head of the detachment believes that the shelling of the camp is a continuation of the hunt for Habib.

After another mortar attack, nine people remain alive. The camp is surrounded, and they can’t get food, and the scouts sent by them disappear.

A good soldier is not one who the devil knows what to do, but one who can endure everything.

Habib, who suddenly appeared, reports that the southeast direction is free, and the detachment decides to break through.

On the eve of the breakthrough, a man from the detachment kills Khabib, discovering on his neck chains belonging to the missing scouts.During the breakthrough, Ford gets a shell shock from a mortar.

Part five

Ford saves Nazir. Ford's eardrum is damaged, his body is wounded, and his hands are frostbitten. In a Pakistani marching hospital, where people from a friendly tribe were transported by a detachment, they were not amputated only thanks to Nazir.

Six weeks Nazir and Ford get to Bombay. Nazir must comply with Kaderbhai’s last order - to kill some man. Ford wants to take revenge on Madame Zhu. He learns that the Palace is looted and burned by the crowd, and Madame lives somewhere in the bowels of these ruins. Madame Ford did not kill - she is already defeated and broken.

Nazir kills Abdul Ghani. He believed that Kaderbhai was spending too much money on the war, and used Sapna to remove his rivals.

Soon, all of Bombay learns of the death of Kaderbhai. Members of his group have to temporarily lay down. The civil strife associated with the redistribution of power ends. Ford again deals with fake documents, and contacts the new council through Nazira.

Ford yearns for Abdullah, Kaderbhai and Prabaker. His romance with Carla is completed - she returned to Bombay with a new friend.

In any life, no matter how full or, on the contrary, poorly it was lived, there is nothing wiser than failure and there is nothing clearer than sadness.

From loneliness Ford saves an affair with Lisa. She says that Carla fled the United States, killing the man who raped her. Boarding a plane to Singapore, she met Kaderbhai and began working for him.

After the story of Lisa Ford, deep grief seizes. He is thinking about drugs when Abdullah suddenly appears, alive and well. After meeting with the police, Abdullah was stolen from the station and taken to Delhi, where he was treated for almost a year of almost fatal wounds. He returned to Bombay to destroy the remaining members of the Sapna gang.

The group is still not involved in drugs and prostitution - this disgusted Kaderbhai. However, some members are inclined to drug trafficking under pressure from the leader of the neighboring Chuha group.

Ford finally admits that he himself destroyed his family, and puts up with this guilt. He is almost happy - he has money and Lisa.

Having agreed with the surviving accomplice of Sapna, Chukha opposes the group. Ford is involved in the destruction of Chukha and his minions. His group inherits the territory of Chukha with the drug business and the sale of pornography. Ford understands that now everything will change.

Sri Lanka is engulfed in the civil war in which Kaderbhai wanted to take part. Abdullah and Nazir decide to continue his business. Ford has no place in the new mafia, and he too is sent to fight.

Fate always offers you two alternative options - the one that you should choose, and the one that you choose.

Ford last meets with Carla. She calls him with her, but he refuses, realizing that they do not love him. Carla is going to marry her rich friend, but her heart is still cold. Carla admits that she burned Madame Zhu’s house and participated in the creation of Sapna on a par with Ghani, but does not repent of anything.

Sapna was indestructible - Ford discovers that the king of the poor is gathering his own army. He spends the night after meeting with Carla in the slums of Prabaker, meets his son, who inherited his father's radiant smile, and realizes that life goes on.