2001
first edition of Life of Pi, published by Alfred A. Knopf
A tale
of survival on a lifeboat for 227 days by a boy who learns to train a tiger who
is his mate on the lifeboat. The tale is prefaced by the godly yearnings of a
young boy who decides that the Threefold Way suits him best: being Hindu,
Muslim and Christian all at once.
The
Golden Rule unites religions
He is
given the name Piscine Molitor by his father, an excellent swimmer, because
that was the name of the most wonderful swimming pool in all of Paris. Why
Paris – because he lived in the French colony, Pondicherry, which sent its
award winning students to study in France.
Piscine
Molitor Paris after renovation in 2015
But the
humiliating sibilance of piss in his name caused him to drop it in favour of
the shorter Pi, and then a Gujarati surname Patel just to confuse his future
enemies. He takes care to point out a peculiarity, namely, that Pi, the ratio
of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, is an irrational number. But
had he been tutored a bit more, he would have learned that it was even more
unfathomable: a transcendental number, and that would have given a boost to his
search for the divine.
Calculation
of approximations to the transcendental number Pi by successive generations of
Indian Mathematicians
But the
divine was not keeping him company when he set out with his parents for Canada,
the only known case of refugees seeking asylum there from Mrs Indira Gandhi’s
declaration of Emergency in 1975. En route a shipwreck occurs in which the
animals they were transporting aboard the SS
Tsimtsum, are thrown on the seas and a few (a
zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger) are stowed away with Pi on a
well-provisioned lifeboat.
Zebra,
Orang-utan, Hyena, and Bengal tiger with Pi in the lifeboat
The
prey-predator relationship goes to work to reduce their numbers and ultimately
Pi is left with the Bengal tiger (who has the unlikely name of Richard Parker,
after a shikari who hunted tigers) with only a tarpaulin to separate them. This
is the ultimate matchup to decide who will be the Alpha male.
There
is also the mundane task of assuaging hunger and thirst. Perhaps the most
Robinson Crusoe-like part of the story is Pi’s slow education by trial and
error, with a great deal of improvisation, on how he went about getting food
and drink from the ocean and the sky using various crude implements he devised.
Flying fish, turtle-meat, dorados, and the all-important rain-water collection
apparatus (an inverted umbrella) provide sustenance.
A gaff – A large iron hook attached to a pole or handle and used to land large
fish
Ships
sail very close and yet Pi could not alert them with flares. They chance upon
the most fantastic island, a huge living flotsam of an unknown species of
tree/plant, that sucks up sea-water and desalinates it by osmotic action,
forming pools of fresh water on its surface and having a single species of
fauna: meerkats.
The island – Pi is
astonished ‘I know I will never know a
joy so vast as I experienced when I entered that tree’s dappled, shimmering
shade and heard the dry, crisp sound of the wind rustling its leaves’
The meerkats multiply and climb the vegetal heights at night. From time to time they get devoured by the mysterious all-pervading carnivorous plant. Not to fear: plant and meerkats thrive and multiply nevertheless.
Meerkats
We are
left with this as the only curiosity to be followed up. They are not rescued,
but wash up unceremoniously on the coast of Mexico and the end fizzles out like
a damp squib with Pi being interviewed by two Japanese on behalf of the
insurers of the vessel that was lost at sea, perhaps in an explosion.
The
film of the novel was made by the well-known director Ang Lee in a 2012
adventure-drama film, whose screenplay was written by David Magee. It stars
Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu and Adil Hussain in lead roles.
Tabu (Tabassum Fatima Hashmi) acts as Gita Patel, mother of Pi Patel in
the film
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