Lindsay "Lin/baba" Ford, a.k.a. Shantaram Timeline and Summary

Lin arrives in Bombay after having escaped from an Australian prison.
He meets a smiley Indian named Prabaker, who becomes his best friend.
Karla, a beautiful, mysterious Swiss woman, becomes the love of Lin's life.
Lin goes with Prabaker to his village and Prabaker's mother gives Lin a new name there: "Shantaram."
On their way back to Bombay, Lin and Prabaker are robbed, so Lin has no choice but to go live in Prabaker's slum.
A Bombay crime lord named Abdel Khader Khan takes Lin under his wing, gradually pulling him into his gang.
One night, after he finally gets to make love to Karla, Lin is arrested and sent to prison where he's treated horribly.
Khader gets Lin out of jail after some time, and Lin starts working for him full time.
One of Khader's gangsters, Abdullah, a good friend of Lin, is killed. Lin is in despair and goes into a heroin haze for several weeks.
Khader's people clean up Lin and he goes to Afghanistan on a gun-running mission with Khader.
In Afghanistan, Lin discovers that Karla and Khader have always been working together, and that they planned all along to use Lin on the Afghan mission.
Khader is killed and Lin goes back to Bombay.
In Bombay, Lin finds out that Abdullah is still alive, and agrees to go to Sri Lanka with him on another warlike and dangerous mission.