Stories That Shape Us: Decoding Life of Pi

Have you ever done something that felt like meditation? I’m not talking about actually closing your eyes, keeping your spine straight, and breathing. For me, it happened when I was watching the movie Life of Pi. The metaphors and symbolism shook me. Tears dropped, and a wave of overwhelming emotion drowned me, which made me dig deeper, only to realize it was based on a book: Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

I went on to watch an interview with Martel from eight years ago. He was asked how the idea came to him. He spoke about a New York Times article that discussed the coexistence of humans and animals. Later, when he visited India, a place where people and religions coexist, he felt inspired to create something similar through his own work, blending zoology and theology.

Martel didn’t want to look at faith from just one direction. That’s why, in the book, Pi practices all three religions. It symbolizes how he loves God in all forms, despite religious differences. Martel says, “The novel will make you believe in God or ask, why not?” When the interviewer questioned the ambiguity of the ending, Martel responded:

“There is a theological dimension to storytelling. All religions tell stories. Countries have constitutions, not narratives. Why? Because stories involve imagination, and how we take reality involves imagination. Two people may look at the same thing, for example, a zebra. One might say ‘Equus quagga’ (the scientific name for a zebra), and the other might say ‘Allahu Akbar’ because he’s shaken by the beauty of the creature. Why do two people have different perceptions of the same reality? Why don’t we have the same story or conclusion? Because imagination shapes our experience. If you have a choice of stories, wouldn’t you choose the better one?”

Now I want to decode the story from my level of understanding. I haven’t read the book yet, but I know it’s the next book I’m getting. The author says most people who read the book all the way through often read it twice, because it has much more to offer than it first appears to.

It’s an adventurous story of a teenage Indian boy who survived 200 days at sea with a Bengal tiger.

It starts with a boy named after a French swimming pool, Piscine Molitor. But since his name sounded like “pissing,” he created a new narrative for himself: “Pi.” He wrote the infinite digits of the number Pi (3.14159...) on the board, and soon everyone started calling him that. Watching the movie, I loved how curious he was. With a Hindu mother and a father who leaned more toward science, Pi got two different perspectives, one of faith, the other of reason. But he didn’t stop there.

He went to a church and was fascinated by the story of the Son of God, Jesus, so he started practicing Christianity along with Hinduism. Then he went to a mosque, found Allah, and began praying Namaz. All. At. Once. He didn’t stick to just one religion. He practiced love and devotion from all perspectives because to him, the main point was love, regardless of the method.

Now let’s get to the core of the story, which has so many interpretations and theories. I went online to see what people were saying and found one of the most insightful analyses in a YouTube comment section. I’ll come to that later, but first, let’s dig deeper.

There’s a scene where Pi wakes up at night to a thunderstorm. He’s happy and excited, not knowing it will soon wreck the ship. Later, when he’s stranded alone on the lifeboat with the tiger and another storm hits, he feels the same excitement. To me, that felt like his way of understanding how God speaks to him.

After losing his family, his journey begins. He has to take care of himself, find food and water, manage the lifeboat, tame the tiger, and protect himself from it. In the book, Pi says that if it weren’t for the tiger, he wouldn’t have survived. “The tiger gave me the purpose to find food, so it wouldn’t eat me.” That line struck me as deeply symbolic.

Pi alone in the boat, taking care of himself and the tiger, is us, surviving in the world. With everything happening, jobs, money, health, relationships, we each carry our own struggles. But truly, if it weren’t for suffering, would we even strive to enjoy life? Suffering becomes the reason we thrive. It’s the “tiger” we feed every day.

But does that mean we’re supposed to live in fear? To do things because we fear failure or pain?

In the story, Pi realizes he can’t survive by constantly fearing the tiger. So he steps up. And I loved how the writer didn’t romanticize their relationship; they never became best friends. Pi understood the tiger's nature. Similarly, in life, our suffering isn’t something to romanticize. It can destroy us. But like Pi, we need courage and strategy. Faith, too, plays a big role. Pi always believed God was watching him.

Martel said, “If you have a choice between two stories, choose the better one.” I liked how he framed faith that way. If we believe there's something to hold onto, a place to direct our hope, then why not believe? In life, when we face hardships, isn’t it easier if we have the hope that everything is going to be okay?

For Pi, after a storm, he sees the sun’s rays shining down, symbolically showing that God is still watching.

I always tell people, when I say I believe in God, I don’t want him to give me a struggle-free life(as if). In fact, faith is tested all the time. But I believe God gives us the strength to stand strong in the storm.

Another powerful analogy comes when Pi finds the floating island made of algae, full of meerkats and fresh water. It feels like a paradise. There’s food and safety, even for the tiger. But at night, the island turns carnivorous. The water becomes acidic. He finds a human tooth inside a fruit. That’s when he realizes: if he stays, he’ll die.

He leaves the island, even though it had everything he needed.

In real life, sometimes we find comfort in a place that helps us endure suffering, but not overcome it. If Pi had stayed, he would have missed the chance to return to the world and truly survive. Why do we settle when we know there's more out there? Is it tiredness? Is it hopelessness?

Again, faith comes in. Pi never stops saying, “The main thing is, you never lose hope.”

I have another analogy about something I found in the YouTube comments. I’ll be writing about that in my next blog, as this one is already pretty long.

This image helps. So excited!!