Life of Pi

Most of us, if not all, have heard about the story of Robinson Crusoe who was stranded on an island after a ship-wreck. 'Life of Pi (pix)' is also about ship-wreck, but unlike Robinson Crusoe, it narrates the life of a sixteen-year-old Indian boy on the sea for 227 days.
The full name of the Indian boy was Piscine Molitor Patel. To avoid mispronounciation by other people, he introduced himself as Pi. He grew up in a zoo as his father was a zookeeper. The first part of the book dealt with a lot of things about animals, which was quite interesting. Most people had the misconception that the animals in the zoo had no freedom at all and should be set free in the wild. When talking about freedom, they were just picturing lions lying idly in the wild or deers grazing peacefully on a grassland. The idea of fighting for territories among lions and deers or deers being preyed upon by lions or other predators seldom crossed their minds. Through this book, the author did a very good job in convincing the readers that animals which were kept in zoos were much better off than those roaming in the wild. According to the book, animals also behaved like human beings. Once they had found a place which had enough of food supplies as well as free from all threats, they would decide to settle down. Zoos provided the best place for animals to settle down.
The first part of the book also dealt with the faith of Pi. He was initially a Hindu. Later, he began to take interest in Christianity and Islam. Since these three religions believe in God, Pi saw no harm in becoming a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim at the same time. The pandit, the priest and the imam were very angry when they learned about this. It was funny when the three of them met with Pi and his parents to talk about the matter. They coerced Pi into choosing only one of the religions. They tried to convince Pi by boasting about how special each religion was. However, Pi did not make a decision but continued practicing the three faiths together. Readers should have been wondering why Buddhism was not mentioned in this book. It's because in Buddhism, there's no creator God as in Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. It's not that Buddhists do not believe in God. It's just that for Buddhists, God is just another form of life.
The cargo ship sank in the second part of the book. Pi and his family were aboard on that ship which was heading to Canada. They brought along a few of their animals too. After the sinking of the ship, Pi was the only human survivor on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orang utan, a zebra with a broken leg and a Bengal tiger! The hyena ate the zebra and killed the orang utan but itself was then killed by the tiger. Therefore, there were only two sentient beings left on the lifeboat: the tiger and Pi. Pi had to worry about the possibility of being eaten by the tiger as well as finding the source of food and water on which he needed to keep himself alive. I found this part of the book very informative indeed.
In the third part of the book, Pi was being interviewed by two Japanese who were very much interested in his fate. Pi revealed the other version of his experience at the sea when the Japanese refused to believe the version with those animals. This was actually what had happened: "After the ship sank, a sailor with a broken leg, a cook, Pi and his mother managed to get onto a lifeboat. The cook killed the sailor out of hunger and then killed Pi's mother after a bitter row. However, Pi managed to kill the cook in a fight." It was clear then that the hyena was the cook, the orang utan was Pi's mother, the zebra was the sailor while the Bengal tiger was Pi himself. The author, Yann Martel (pix) used this analogy to give readers a better understanding about God.
This book is indeed worth buying and reading. The author has done a great job!