My nephew (Kelvin) and his wife surprised me some time last month by giving me this book. It was a pleasant surprise because this book was made into a movie. Directed by Ang Lee, the movie won several awards at the Oscars. The book itself won the Man Booker award. I was curious to know what the story was about.
The protagonist is a Tamil boy from Pondicherry who is named after a swimming pool in France. Embarrassed by this name, he changed it to Pi, (or π) which in Mathematics equate to 3.14159265.
Pi's father owned a zoo in Pondicherry which was sold when unfavorable government policies under the administration of Mrs Gandhi prompted him to move his family to Canada.
Only Pi made it to Canada. His parents and brother perished when their ship sank. Pi survived for 227 days on a lifeboat with a spotted hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger. As it turned out, the hyena killed the zebra and the orang utan while the tiger killed the hyena, all in the name of survival.
The book started off with an interesting account of Animal Psychology. I found it intriguing until the author broached the subject of religion. It seemed inconceivable for the protagonist (Pi) who was a vegetarian Hindu, to be baptized as a Christian and then accept the Muslim faith, concurrently. It sounded blasphemous for although each may arguably have the same origins, how do we serve three masters at the same time?
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