Shantaram Drugs & Alcohol Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

"Ah, it is not only brown sugar [heroin] and hashish that comes from Afghanistan into India," he confided, lowering his voice and speaking from the corner of his mouth once more. "There are guns, heavy weapons, explosives. [...] If you control one trade, the drugs, you can influence the other, the guns." (1.2.170)

Heroin might be Lin's drug of choice, but on a macroeconomic level it represents much more than a dangerous way to get high. The same routes that drug runners use to carry the heroin are used to import all kinds of weapons illegally, so drugs become a gateway to arms trade.

Quote #2

He poured the last of the one-litre bottle into his glass and topped it up with the last of the soda. He'd been drinking steadily for more than an hour. His eyes were as veined and bloodshot as the back of a boxer's fist, but the gaze that stared from them was unwavering, and his hands were precise in their movements. (1.2.182)

What can you expect from a guy who basically runs his business from Leopold's bar? Didier is the novel's resident alcoholic, but this is one of the few moments where Lin really takes a moment to notice the effect the drug has on his friend. The physical appearance of his eyes show that his body is being worn down, but the "unwavering" gaze show that he's used to being drunk.

Quote #3

While I'd committed the armed robberies, I was on drugs, addicted to heroin. An opiate fog had settled over everything that I thought and did and even remembered about that time. (1.5.286)

Lin is a criminal, and he's committed awful crimes in his past. However, he seems to qualify that fact with the other fact of his addiction. It's like heroin made him into someone else, so that he didn't really know what he was doing or wasn't himself when he was doing it. What's especially creepy is that, even though he's off heroin now, it still affects his memories.