ShmoopTube

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Life of Pi, a la Shmoop. My parents named me Piscine<<pee-scene>> Molitor

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Patel, after a famous swimming pool in France.

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Since my first name sounds like a naughty word, however, you can call me Pi.

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I grew up in India's Pondicherry district, where my parents owned a zoo.

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As it turns out, I wasn't the only oddly named creature in Pondicherry. The zoo's tiger was

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called Richard Parker. But more about him later.

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I was raised Hindu in India but, as a teenager, I decided to become a follower of Christianity

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and Islam, too. I didn't feel conflicted about this at all. Someone get me a Nobel Peace

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Prize. A few issues with the Indian government led

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my father to sell the zoo and pack his wife, sons, and animals up on a freighter bound

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for Canada.

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Things went awry a few days out from the Philippines. A massive storm hit, and the ship sank.

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I escaped in a lifeboat, along with a hyena, a zebra, and an orangutan. Sounds like the

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beginning of a joke, doesn't it? Well, my situation was far from funny. The

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hyena killed the zebra and the orangutan, and I feared it would come for me next...

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...when Richard Parker the tiger jumped out from under a tarp and killed the hyena.

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Thank you for your help, Richard Parker, but would you mind terribly if I stay over here

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on my homemade raft?

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Because I'd spent my life at the zoo, I was able to train Richard Parker not to attack

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me. Eventually, I moved over on to the lifeboat, and took up residence with my Bengal tiger

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roommate. This is the bit where stuff got weird, although

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you might get weird, too, if you were stuck on a lifeboat with nothing but a giant, carnivorous

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cat for company.

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I became so worn down by the elements that I lost my sight and couldn't fish.

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I started talking to someone, a meat-eating someone, who I thought was Richard Parker

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but then thought was another survivor on a different lifeboat.

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When I invited the other survivor aboard, he tried to attack to me, but Richard Parker

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ate him. Lots of eating people in this book, isn't there?

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My feline BFF and I ran into some meerkats and carnivorous plants...

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...and then, finally, at long last, we hit a Mexican beach.

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Richard Parker ran off into the jungle without so much as a farewell. Typical cat behavior.

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I ended up recovering from my ordeal in a Mexican hospital, where I got to watch tele-novellas

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and soccer all day.

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Two officials showed up with questions about what had happened. I told them everything,

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about the hyena and the zebra and the orangutan and Richard Parker and the mystery cannibal

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and the meerkats.

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They told me I was full of it. So, I told them a completely different story.

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After the ship sunk, I ended up on the lifeboat with the ship's cook, a sailor with a broken

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leg, and my mom.

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The cook amputated the sailor's leg to use for fish bait, but then killed the sailor

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and my mother. You'd think I would have been toast, but no.

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I killed the cook, and then I ate him. Who's the tiger now?

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I pointed out that I couldn't prove either story, and that neither tale explained why

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the freighter went down in the storm.

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When I asked the officials which story they preferred to believe, they chose the one with

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the animals, because of course. I wouldn't choose the tale with cannibalism, either.

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And then I moved to Canada, where I lived happily ever after and never had to worry

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about getting eaten by another human being again, eh?

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