Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language:  Excessive swearing, use of nearly all swear words.

Violence:  Father John shoots Father Timothy and then commits suicide.  Armaan, a Bollywood Movie Star in disguise, grabs Salim’s crotch during a movie.  Shantaram, a violent drunk, beats his wife and scalds his daughter’s face with hot tea.  Shantaram breaks his Gudiya’s cat’s neck.  Shantaram returns home drunk and tries to “touch his daughter”.  He continually tries to molest Gudiya, his daughter.  Shantaram breaks a bottle over his wife’s head.  Shantaram molests his daughter.  Ram slams his weight into a drunken Shantaram as he walks past the rickety railing.  Shantaram loses his balance and topples to the ground below, and is left for dead.  Mr. Gupta, carries a short bamboo cane and whacks the boys in the juvenile home whenever he feels like it.  Gupta calls young boys into his room at night to sodomize and molest them.  Muslim youths lock Salim’s father, mother, and brother in their hut and set fire to the hut.  Babu Pillai cripples, blinds, and maims young boys and then sends them out on the streets to beg.  If they do not earn enough, they do not eat.   Mr. Rao kills his brother, for money and power at his wife’s instigation.  A dacoit/train robber grabs a nursing mother’s breasts.  The dacoit demands a kiss and wants to see the young girl’s breasts.  Ram wrestles the man to the ground as they fight for control of the gun.  The dacoit is killed and Ram runs.  Gruesome battle scenes from the war with Pakistan recounted by a supposed war hero.  Balwant Singh commits suicide when he is found to be a war hero imposter.  Ahmed Kahn is a professional assassin.  Salim secretly gives Ahmed, Babu Pillai’s picture and he is killed.  Prem Kumar abuses women.  He beats his lovers. Neelima has a very deep cut on her face, her cheek is swollen, and her chest has been burned by cigarettes.  Neelima commits suicide.  Salim is beaten by both families at a wedding party.  Shankar, the son of a wealthy woman, Swapna Devi, beat him as a child when he walked in on her, while she was having an affair with her brother-in-law.  Swapna Devi cruelly threw Shankar out of the home and forced him to live in a tenement.  Shankar regresses until he is nearly unintelligible and thought to be retarded.  Swapna Devi cruelly refuses to pay for rabies treatment for her son and he dies.  Nita, a prostitute is also beaten by Prem Kumar.  Nita’s jaw is dislocated and her chest is also burned with a lit cigarette.  Prem Kumar commits suicide by gassing himself to death in his car , although probably foul play.

Sexual Content:  Description of the heroine’s breasts being voluptuous: heavy breasts and a slim waist.  Lovers interlude in a Bollywood movie is described, with bodies entwined, and soft moaning noises, and synchronized rhythmic thrusting.  Masturbation.  Armaan, the movie star, is rumored to be gay.  Census taker asks the Australian Diplomat “how often you have sex?”  Maggie’s underwear is stolen by Ramu, a servant.   A barmaid is considered a “cheap lay”.  Reference to “mind-blowing sex”.  Ram glances the underside of a nursing mother’s breast, which makes his mouth go dry.  Wealthy tourists from Delhi treat Ram to an evening in the “Red Light District” of Agra, where he loses his viriginity.

Adult Themes:  “The biggest tease in the world is not sex.  It’s money.”  Ram is tortured by the police, beaten, tied to a wooden beam, chili powder is put on a stick and inserted into his anus.   He is also shocked with electricity.  A young boy is addicted to glue.  As an infant, Ram was abandoned and dumped in a large bin for old clothes at the Church of St. Mary.  Ram finds gay and child pornography in magazines and videos in a visiting priest’s room.  Ram sees strange-looking young men entering the church at night and going to Father John’s room.  Ram peers through a keyhole and sees Father John and a young man do lines of cocaine.  Ram peers through Father John’s keyhole and witnesses Ian and Father John in a  homosexual act.  Ian is actually Father Timothy’s son.  Salim and Ram are sold to Babu Pillai while in the juvenile home.   Excess whiskey drinking by Indians.  Mrs. Rebecca Taylor has an affair with the High Commissioner at the embassy.  Ram steals jewels to purchase Nita the prostitute from her pimp, her brother.  A six year old boy dies from a rabies.  Shankar also dies of a bite from a rabid dog.

Synopsis

The unthinkable has taken place, Ram Mohammad Thomas, an orphan with no formal education has answered all thirteen questions correctly on the game show, “Who Will Win a Billion?”  (Rupees)  The conclusion is that he has cheated.  The police take Ram and torture him, to coerce him to sign a confession stating that he has cheated.  Ram is on the verge of death when he is rescued from the police by Smita, a lawyer.

Ram describes his amazing life experiences to Smita, as each chapter in the book unfolds the story behind each answer.  Ram began his life as an orphan left in a dustbin.  Ram draws on his vast array of experiences as a orphan child trying to manuever through the many challenges that thwart his daily survival in the slums of India.

I love the underlying theme of this book, “It doesn’t matter where you come from, only where you are headed.”

Yes, I did see the movie, and I do know it is R-rated.  This is a rare case where I preferred the movie over the book.  (The plot premise is the same, however, the story is different in many chapters.)  That said, the book was extremely powerful.  The violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, child neglect, homosexual behavior, and assassinations were described in the book.  Whereas, the movie left much to the imagination or left it out completely.  There are disturbing passages in this book.  “PROCEED WITH CAUTION”.  I would only recommend this book to adults who love to read stories of triumph in the face of crippling defeat.  “Luck has got nothing to do with it.  Because luck comes from within.”

©2009 The Literate Mother