Shantaram

The 1980s Bombay of an escaped Australian convict who remakes himself as 'Lin': a city of Colaba tourist cafes and Gateway crowds, of a sprawling seaside slum, the red-light lanes of Kamathipura and the underworld that runs beneath them. The map anchors in South Bombay around Colaba and reaches north to the prison on Arthur Road.

Lin

Leopold Café, Colaba Causeway

Part One

Soon after landing in Bombay the narrator falls in with the drifters, dealers and expatriates who hold court at a busy Colaba cafe. It becomes his social hub and listening post, the place where deals and friendships are struck. The real Leopold Café has stood on Colaba Causeway since the late nineteenth century.

Part One

explicit The novel names Leopold's by name; this marks the real cafe and bar on Colaba Causeway that Roberts drew on.

Google Maps ↗ Street View ↗

Lin

Lin's lodgings, Colaba

Part One

Before the slum, the narrator lodges in the run of cheap tourist hotels behind the Causeway, the standard first berth for a foreigner arriving with a false passport and little money. The neighbourhood of small guest houses near Arthur Bunder Road fits the world he describes.

Part One

inferred The book keeps to cheap traveller hotels off Colaba Causeway without pinning one address; this marks the guest-house strip along Arthur Bunder Road as a representative point.

Google Maps ↗ Street View ↗

Lin

The Gateway of India

Part One

The great basalt arch on the harbour edge recurs as the narrator's window on Bombay, a meeting spot and a threshold between the sea and the city. Built to mark a royal visit in 1911, it stands at Apollo Bunder a short walk from Colaba's hotels.

Part One

explicit The Gateway of India is named in the novel; coordinates mark the monument on the Colaba waterfront.

Google Maps ↗ Street View ↗