Life of Pi

Santosh Patel:
You think tiger is your friend, he is an animal, not a playmate.

Pi Patel:
Animals have souls... I have seen it in their eyes.

Adult Pi Patel:
With one word, my name went from an elegant French swimming pool to a stinking Indian latrine - I was pissing everywhere.

Adult Pi Patel:
What has mamaji already told you?

Writer:
He said you had a story that would make me believe in God.

Adult Pi Patel:
[laughs] He would say that about a nice meal.

Pi Patel (11:
[pointing to oil painting of Christ's crucifixion] Why would a god do that? Why would he send his own son to suffer the sins of ordinary people?

Priest:
Because He loves us. God made Himself approachable to us, human, so we could understand Him. We can't understand God in all His perfection, but we can understand God's son and His suffering, as we would a brother's.

Adult Pi Patel:
[in present, to Writer] That made no sense. Sacrificing the innocent to atone for the sins of the guilty, what kind of love is that?

Pi Patel (11:
Thank you Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ.

Adult Pi Patel:
Faith is a house with many rooms.

Writer:
But no room for doubt?

Adult Pi Patel:
Oh plenty, on every floor. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested.

Santosh Patel:
We will sail like Columbus.

Pi Patel:
But Columbus was looking for India!

Adult Pi Patel:
Now we have to send our little boy to the middle of the Pacific.

Writer:
And make me believe in God.

Adult Pi Patel:
Yes, we will get there.

Pi Patel:
I can eat the biscuits, but God made tigers carnivorous, so I must learn to catch fish. If I don't, I'm afraid his last meal would be a skinny vegetarian boy.

Pi Patel:
[on killing a fish] Thank you Lord Vishnu. Thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives.

Pi Patel:
[facing a storm on the lifeboat] Richard Parker, come out you have to see this! It's beautiful!

Adult Pi Patel:
I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

Younger Insurance Investigator:
[with a look of disbelief] Bananas don't float. You said the Orangutan floated to you in a bundle of bananas, but bananas don't float.

Adult Pi Patel:
So which story do you prefer?

Writer:
The one with the tiger. That's the better story.

Adult Pi Patel:
Thank you. And so it goes with God.

Writer:
[smiles] It's an amazing story.

Writer:
[reading off the report] Mr. Patel's is an astounding story, courage and endurance unparalleled in the history of ship-wrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.

Santosh Patel:
Spectacle. Don't let the stories and pretty lights fool you, boys. Religion is darkness.

Pi Patel:
Above all: don't lose hope.

Pi Patel:
[during a massive storm, Pi observes a terrified Richard Parker being thrown around by waves crashing into the boat] Why are you scaring him? I lost my family! I lost everything! I surrender! What more do you want?

Adult Pi Patel:
[Pi and Richard Parker in the boat when they're about to leave the island] [voice over] No one has seen that island since, and you'd never read about those trees in any book. And yet, if I hadn't found those shores I would have died, if I hadn't discovered that tooth I would have been lost alone forever. Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when He seemed indifferent to my suffering, He was watching and when I was beyond all hope of saving... He gave me rest and gave me a sign to continue my journey...

Adult Pi Patel:
[voiceover, scene shows Mexican beach] I was so spent, I could hardly move. And so, Richard Parker went ahead of me. He stretched his legs, and walked along the shore. At the edge of the jungle, he stopped. I was certain he was going to look back at me, flatten his ears to his head, growl. That he would bring our relationship to an end in some way. But he just stared ahead into the jungle.

Adult Pi Patel:
[in present, to Writer] And then Richard Parker, my fierce companion, the terrible one who kept me alive, disappeared forever from my life.

Adult Pi Patel:
[voiceover, beach scene again] After a few hours, a member of my own species found me. He left and returned with a group who carried me away. I wept like a child. Not because I was overwhelmed at having survived, although I was. I was weeping because Richard Parker left me *so* unceremoniously. It broke my heart.

Adult Pi Patel:
[in present again, to Writer] You know, my father was right. Richard Parker never saw me as his friend. After all we had been through, he didn't even look back. But I have to believe there was more in his eyes than my own reflection staring back at me. I know it, I felt it, even if I can't prove it. You know, I've left so much behind: my family, the zoo, India, Anandi. I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. I was never able to thank my father for all I learned from him. To tell him, without his lessons, I would never have survived. I know Richard Parker is a tiger but I wish I had said, "It's over. We survived. Thank you for saving my life. I love you, Richard Parker. You'll always be with me. May God be with you."

Pi Patel:
[writing on the lifeboat] Words are all I have left to hang on to. Everything's all mixed up, fragmented, can't tell daydreams, nightdreams from reality anymore.

[first lines]

Writer:
So, you were raised in a zoo?

Adult Pi Patel:
Born and raised. In Pondicherry, in what was the French part of India. My father owned the zoo, and I was delivered on short notice by a herpetologist, who was there to check on the Bengal monitor lizard. Mother and I were both healthy, but the poor lizard escaped and was trampled by a frightened cassowary. The way of karma, huh? The way of God.

Adult Pi Patel:
My uncle Francis was born with too much water in his lungs. They say the doctors swung Francis around by the ankles to clear the water out, and that's what gave him the huge chest and skinny legs that made him such a great swimmer.

Santosh Patel:
You only need to convert to three more religions, Piscine, and you'll spend your life on holiday.

Writer:
Have I forgotten anything?

Adult Pi Patel:
I think you set the stage. So far we have an Indian boy named after a French swimming pool on a Japanese ship full of animals heading to Canada.

Pi Patel:
[holding out oar to floating orangutan] Welcome to Pi's Ark.

Pi Patel:
He was such an evil man. But worse still, he brought the evil out in me. I have to live with that.

Writer:
I don't know what to say.

Adult Pi Patel:
It's hard to believe, isn't it?

Writer:
It is a lot to take in. To figure out what it all means.

Adult Pi Patel:
If it happened, it happened. Why should it have to mean anything?

Writer:
So your story does have a happy ending.

Adult Pi Patel:
Well, that's up to you. The story's yours now.

Writer:
I didn't know Hindus said 'Amen.'

Adult Pi Patel:
Catholic Hindus do.

Writer:
Catholic Hindus?

Adult Pi Patel:
We get to feel guilty before hundreds of gods instead of just one.

Santosh Patel:
Piscine, you cannot follow three different religions at the same time.

Pi Patel (11:
Why not?

Santosh Patel:
Because, believing in everything at once is the same thing as believing in nothing.

Gita Patel:
He is young, Santosh. He is still trying to find his own way.

Santosh Patel:
And how can he find his own way if he does not learn to choose a path? Instead of leaping from one religion to the next, why not start with reason? In ten years science has taught us more about the universe than religion has in ten-thousand.

Gita Patel:
Yes, that is true. Science is very good at teaching us what is out there...

Gita Patel:
[puts her hand over her heart] But not what is in here.

Santosh Patel:
Some eat meat, some vegetarian. I do not expect us to agree about everything, but I would much rather have you believe in something I don't agree with, than to accept everything blindly.

Santosh Patel:
Animals don't think like we do! People who forget that get themselves killed. When you look into an animal's eyes, you are seeing your own emotions reflected back at you, and nothing else.

Pi Patel:
God? I give myself to you. I am your vessel. Whatever comes, I want to know. Show me.

Pi Patel:
For castaways who must share their lifeboats with large, dangerous carnivores, it is advisable to establish a territory as your own. The following course of action is recommended. Step one: Choose a day when waves are moderate, but regular. Step two: with the lifeboat facing into the waves, making the ride as comfortable as possible, blow your whistle soothingly. Step three: turn the boat sideways to the waves, accompanied by harsh, aggressive use of the whistle. With sufficient repetition, the animal will associate the sound of the whistle with the discomfort of seasickness. Similar methods have long been used by circus trainers, though they generally lack access to rough seas.

[Pi climbs onto the boat and urinates at the end of the tarp]

Pi Patel:
MINE! You understand? Yours, mine! You understand?

[Richard Parker sniffs, then turns and urinates in Pi's face]

Pi Patel:
[v.o] Step four: disregard steps one through three.

Pi Patel:
[voice over] I never thought a small piece of shade could bring me so much happiness. That a pile of tools, a bucket, a knife, a pencil, might become my greatest treasures. Or that knowing Richard Parker was here might ever bring me peace. In times like these, I remember that he has as little experience of the real world as I do. We were both raised in a zoo by the same master. Now we've been orphaned, left to face our ultimate master together. Without Richard Parker, I would have died by now. My fear of him keeps me alert. Tending to his needs gives my life purpose.

Pi Patel:
Hunger can change everything you thought you knew about yourself.

Mamaji:
[to Pi] A mouthful of water will not harm you, but panic will.

Pi Patel:
What does this mean? [makes bowl shape with hands] In the dance, you went from pataka which means the forest. And then you did, and you did... samputa, which means something that is hidden. And after that you did this... And then you did chatura. But at the very end, you did this. [makes bowl shape with hands again] None of the other dancers did that. What did you mean? The god of love is hiding in the forest?

Anandi:
No, that also means the lotus flower.

Pi Patel:
Lotus flower is hiding in the forest? Why would a lotus flower hide in the forest?

Santosh Patel:
[in French] She asked if you have something vegetarian.

Cook:
[in French] Ah. The cow that produced this liver was vegetarian. The pigs that went into these sausages were vegetarian.

Buddhist Sailor:
[to Patel family] Hello, I am happy Buddhist. So I eat rice next to gravy. On ship, gravy is not meat... is taste. You try?

Pi Patel:
It's a thunderstorm. Let's go watch.

Ravi Patel:
Are you crazy? We will get hit by lightning.

Pi Patel:
No, we won't. It will hit the bridge first.

Ravi Patel:
Don't tempt a storm, Pi.

Pi Patel:
[to starving, semi-conscious tiger in lifeboat] We're dying, Richard Parker. I'm sorry.

Pi Patel:
Then the ship sank. What else do you want from me?

Younger Insurance Investigator:
A story that won't make us look like fools.

Older Insurance Investigator:
We need a simpler story for our report. One our company can understand. A story we can all believe.

Pi Patel:
[pause] So, a story without things you've never seen before.

Older Insurance Investigator:
That's right.

Pi Patel:
Without surprises, without animals, or islands?

Older Insurance Investigator:
Yes, the truth.

Writer:
[back to present, to Adult Pi Patel] So, what did you do?

Adult Pi Patel:
I told them another story.