Life of Pi

“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that
grabs at what it can”

In Canada, a writer visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel and asks him to tell his life story.
Pi tells the story of his childhood in Pondicherry, India, and the origin of his nickname.
One day, his father, a zoo owner, explains that the municipality is no longer supporting
the zoo and he hence decided to move to Canada, where the animals the family owns
would also be sold. They board on a Japanese cargo ship with the animals and out of
the blue, there is a storm, followed by a shipwrecking. Pi survives in a lifeboat with a
zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and male Bengal tiger nickname Richard Parker. They
are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, with aggressive hyena and Richard Parker getting
hungry. Pi needs to find a way to survive.
Life of Pi tells the fantastical story of Pi Patel, sixteen years old South Indian boy.
Thanks to government upheaval that has long been distressing Pi’s father, the Patel’s
decide to close the Pondicherry Zoo and move to Canada when Pi is sixteen. Pi, his
mother, brother Ravi all board the Tsimtsum along with the zoo’s animals inhabits (who
are on their way to be sold around the world). An unexplained event causes the
Tsimtsum to sink, and Pi is the only human to make it onto the lifeboat and survive.
Along with Pi, the lifeboat contains a hyena, a zebra, orangutan, and Richard Parker the
tiger. The hyena kills and devours both zebra and orangutan before Richard Parker kills
the hyena. Pi is left alone on a lifeboat with an adult male tiger.