How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Someone had arranged with senior cops to have me arrested, without charge, and imprisoned at Arthur Road. The same person had arranged to have me beaten—severely and often—while I was in the prison. It was a punishment or an act of revenge. (3.22.59)
Lin's not really sure why he got put into jail, but for some reason he assumes that the person responsible was doing it to pay him back for something. It's kind of a strange assumption, because as far as we know he really hasn't done anything too terrible to anyone. Maybe this default revenge motive shows us something about Lin's own character.
Quote #8
I wasn't late, and he couldn't have been waiting more than fifteen or twenty minutes, but still there were ten cigarette butts on the ground beside the open door of the cab. Each one of them, I knew, was an enemy crushed under his heel, a violent wish, a brutal fantasy of the suffering he would one day inflict on those he hated. (3.22.172)
Most of the guys who work with Khaderbhai are angry men with violent pasts. Many of them have lost their families in gruesome acts of war. Every crime they commit is a stand-in for the revenge they wish they could take on those responsible.
Quote #9
"Someone told me once that if you make your heart into a weapon, you always end up using it on yourself." (3.22.177)
Deep. Many of Shantaram's characters are motivated by anger and revenge, but Lin knows that all that resentment they carry won't really change anything. Even if they were to kill all of their enemies, it wouldn't bring back the dead. So the drive for revenge really only ends up hurting the one who carries it around inside.