Who is vikram in shantaram

Lin is a true romantic at odds with society, living on the fringes. Karla Saaranen. Beautiful, green-eyed, witty, vivacious woman with a mysterious past. Lin falls hopelessly in love with her.

Prabaker Kharre. Lin's first and best friend in India - his guide through the "real Bombay," and a constant source of humor and good will. Didier Levy. A constant fixture at Leopold's bar, Didier is a magnificently corrupt modern dandy. Infamous for his infatuations with attractive young men. Sebastian Modena. A brooding Spaniard utterly in love with Ulla.

He helped rescue her from Madame Zhou's brothel and works as her pimp. Abdel Khader Khan. The beloved, revered, mythologized head of Bombay's underworld activities. He acts as a second father to Lin and many others. Lettie to her friends. An English ex-patriot living in Bombay. The object of Vikram's adoration. Qasim Ali Hussein. The head man of the slum where Lin stays. An authoritative presence and a very wise leader. Maurizio Belcane. Modena's friend and partner in crime.

Handsome, connected to Karla, and quite dangerous. Lisa Carter. Karla's friend. An employee of Madame Zhou until Lin and Karla arrange for her release. Khaled Ansari. A Palestinian member of Khader's mafia council who comes to be one of Lin's closest friends during their time in Afghanistan. They come across Lisa Carter walking — she has improved tremendously.

Abdullah finds Lisa very attractive and invites her for a motorcycle ride, which Lisa accepts. Lin finds himself walking. After a brief philosophically tinged chat with these two, Lin runs into Ulla , who asks Lin for help once more. Lin is understandably suspicious but trusts Ulla once more.

As Chapter Twenty-Four begins, Ulla explains that she is in trouble following a deal-gone-bad with Modena and Maurizio. After parting from Ulla, Lin travels to Goa and purchases an Indian motorcycle. He cruises the beaches, looking for Karla, finally running into her in Anjuna. Karla tells Lin that she fled Bombay after a business operation she was in charge of went horribly wrong. Lin confesses his love to her and they make love. Lin insists that he must, and Karla refuses to return with him.

After a difficult parting, Lin packs his motorcycle for Bombay. Karla tells him as he leaves that she will not wait for him. Abdul then leads Lin on a tour of their passport-forging operation, introducing him to two Tamil Sri Lankan workers: Krishna , who forges watermarks, and Villu , who forges stamps. Thereafter, Lin visits the workers every day for a week, observing their skills.

Work in the passport workshop absorbs him. Lin stops by the slum to visit Prabaker and learns that he is to be married to Pavarti. Johnny Cigar is also to be married to Sita. Lin assumes that Anand wants money, a suggestion that deeply offends Anand, who walks away without disclosing the problem. Didier asks Lin to help with the elaborate plan simply because Letitia trusts him and almost no one else , and Lin reluctantly agrees.

He arrives shortly thereafter at Marine Lines Station, where he is instructed to position Letitia and blindfold her. Letitia arrives as well and Lin is able to get her situated and blindfolded. A train approaches and suddenly two men seize Letitia by the arms and carry her to the top of the train. Lin follows and finds a band of musicians waiting. Letitia remains blindfolded as the train begins moving — she is allowed to see just as a banner proposing marriage appears.

Lin passes from this happy scene to an alarming one — a boy appears and warns him that three Nigerians are looking to kill him. This warning is echoed first by Gemini George and then by Prabaker.

Lin seeks council with Didier, Vikram and Abdullah; they decide to go after the Africans first. With help from Hassaan Obikwa and Raheem , Lin locates the men who are after him.

They jump them in their hotel room and after a gruesome fight they interrogate the men. They have been sent after Lin as punishment for a major heroin deal gone wrong.

After more torture, they reveal that Lin was fingered by Maurizio Belcane. They find Lisa and Maurizio there: Lisa armed with a carving knife and Maurizio cowering in the closet. They learn that Maurizio had stolen the heroin money from the Nigerians and blamed the loss on Lin. Shortly thereafter, Modena found the stolen money and fled with it, hoping to run away with Ulla.

Lin beats Maurizio brutally — though not fatally — and leaves him by a hospital. In this group of chapters we see Lin changing once more. After having grown to know Bombay like a peasant, he is now getting to know it like a high-profile criminal. His old attachments — to Prabaker, to the slum, to the clinic, even to Karla — seem secondary to his new ones — to Abdullah, to the black market, and most of all to Khader.

This change in Lin will continue — indeed, the next two parts of the novel deal with his life of crime. The beneficent slum medic is no more, it seems. One trend that links both slum world and underworld, however — love. In these chapters, several characters fall in love, wallow in love, propose marriage, plan for marriage. Even Khaled, in recounting his history, recalls being in love with a Jewish girl in New York