the life of phi

The novel begins with an author’s note describing a journey to India, where he meets a man named Francis Adirubasamy in a coffee house in Pondicherry. The author claims that he needs inspiration, and Adirubasamy responds, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” He then refers the author to Piscine Molitor Patel in Toronto, who immediately begins to tell his own story, starting in Chapter 1 .
As a teenager in Pondicherry, India, Pi Patel describes his family – himself, his parents, and his brother Ravi. He is constantly exploring new opportunities and learning many odd and exciting things. His father is the proprietor of the Pondicherry Zoo, where Pi learns much of the workings and raising of animals. Pi’s mother is an avid reader and introduces to him numerous literary works from which he learns the joys of numerous schools of thought. His school is filled with amazing teachers, one of whom, Mr. Kumar, the biology teacher, is an inspiration to Pi.
Pi derives his name (Piscine Molitor) from a world famous swimming pool^[2] in France; his parents are good friends with Francis Adirubasamy (from the author’s note), a world class swimmer who often goes on about the Piscine Molitor in Paris. Piscine goes by Pi because his schoolmates mocked his name and call him “Pissing” as it sounds similar to Piscine. When he changes schools, he introduces himself there as Pi.
Pi grew up as a Hindu, but discovered the Catholic faith at age 14 from a priest by the name of Father Martin. He then meets Mr. Kumar (another man, not his biology teacher), a Muslim of some standing and begins practicing Islam. Thenceforth, he openly practices all three religions avidly. When the three religious teachers, by chance, simultaneous meet up with Pi and his parents, they demand that he choose a single religion, to which he announces he cannot. Throughout this section, Pi discusses numerous religious matters as well as his thoughts on culture and zoology.
When Pi is 16, Pi’s father decides that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's ("Mrs. Gandhi") political actions are unsavoury and decides to close up the zoo and move to Toronto. He sells off a majority of the zoo animals to various zoos in America and the animals are loaded onto the same ship (Tsimtsum) that the family will take to reach Winnipeg, Canada. On the journey the ship sinks.
As the only survivor of the shipwreck, he is stuck in a lifeboat with a dying zebra and a spotted hyena. Pi sees another survivor floating in the water and throws a life preserver, thus saving “Richard Parker”, the 450 pound Bengal tiger from his father’s zoo. He immediately realizes what he has done and jumps overboard and stays there until he realizes that there are sharks nearby.
Upon re-entering the boat, he wedges the tarpaulin up with an oar and decides he might survive if he can stay on top and keep Richard Parker beneath it. A femlae orangutan is found floating on a large mass of bananas and climbs aboard the lifeboat. Over the next week, the zebra and orangutan are eaten by the hyena, which is in turn eaten by the tiger.
Over the course of the next 7 months aboard the lifeboat, Pi begins by hiding on a makeshift raft behind the boat and tames Richard Parker with a whistle and treats from the sea, as well as by marking his portion of the boat. He begins to get close to the tiger, developing the kind of bond a zookeeper does with his menagerie. After a while, Pi learns to kill and eat from the sea, sharing with the tiger. However, the two do not eat nearly enough and as time passes, they become quite ill.
At a certain point, the two become very hungry and ill and Pi loses his sight. They then come across another blind man who is stranded in his lifeboat on the Pacific. The two talk for a bit about food and eventually the blind man tries to board Pi’s boat, intent on killing and eating him. However, when he boards the boat, Richard Parker attacks and eats the man. Pi's tears over the man's death help clear his vision and, after washing his eyes, he eventually regains his sight completely. Small portions of food on the other boat give Pi the strength to continue.
Still floating along alone and desperate, the two come across an island made of algae and populated with Meerkats. They disembark and Pi begins eating the algae, regaining his strength during the day and sleeping on the boat at night. Richard Parker regains his strength from eating the meerkats who live on the island and returns to the boat to sleep every night. Pi is very happy on the island and remains there a number of weeks. Eventually, Pi finds a set of corroded human teeth wrapped in tree leaves and is horrified. He realizes that during the night the algae become acidic and the island becomes 'carnivorous', which is the reason why the Meerkats sleep in trees and why Richard Parker returns to sleep on the boat. More importantly, Pi's discovery awakens him to the hopelessness of remaining on the island, where he will eventually but inevitably give up hope of being found, and immediately leaves the next evening with Richard Parker.
Finally, after more time spent floating along in the ocean, Pi sights land in Mexico and disembarks. Richard Parker immediately runs off into the woods and is never seen again, while Pi is recovered by villagers who take him to a hospital. The shipping company that owned the sunken ship interview Pi about what happened. Pi relates to them the story of his 227 days on the boat, but they do not believe his tale of surviving with a Bengal Tiger and its fantastic events.
Upon being asked to tell them a story without animals, Pi relays to them a second story where his mother, a sailor with a broken leg and a cook were aboard the lifeboat instead of the animals. The cook kills both the sailor and Pi's mother, and eventually Pi kills the cook. The two men realize that Pi's second story closely parallels the first, but without any fantastical elements. Pi then asks the two men which story they like most since both stories lead to the same outcome and neither explain why the ship sank. They both agree they like the first story - with the animals - better and that is the one they will use in their report.