Life of Pi (blog 2)

The next aspect of the Life of Pi that I want to mention/ touch up on is the different cultures that Pi experiences through out the length of the book. He grows up right outside the French quarters of Pondicherry in I guess would be called the Indian quarters. Pi describes the French quarters to be elegant and looking like a beautiful French costal town, but once you travel a little further down the road you would hit the Indian quarters. He describes these as being filled with street markets where you could smell the different spices lingering about and general chit chatter all around. To me, Pondicherry sounds like the perfect place to grow up in, and if you think about it, Pi is extremely lucky because he gets to grow up in a gosh darn Zoo! That sounds like a good childhood to me! Once he learns that he will be moving out of India to somewhere in Canada, he is crushed. Who wouldn’t be? I mean you spend your whole life growing up in one culture and one place, one place that you call home. Then you learn that you are going to have to assimilate into a completely different type of culture, where I am assuming there would not be a lot of people that looked quite like Pi. If you ask me I think Pi got screwed over on that deal, but families have to do what they have to do to keep on so I guess the parent’s actions are justifiable. The only sad thing about Pi leaving to me was that he had to leave that girl, the one that he was really good friends with and possibly loved…
     Along side those cultures would be the religion aspect that I have already mentioned. Pi was surrounded by different religious experiences and it is not surprising that he couldn’t pick just one. He was definitely pressured into picking one by each of the “representatives” of those religions and I’m proud of Pi not giving into their demands.
     Overall, I believe that the cultures that Pi grows up with help him along his way while surviving in the ocean. You can argue that Pi’s consistency in religion over the period of the voyage is what single handedly saved him, but I still think that his raising in those particular cultures influenced a lot of his decisions. For instance, Pi was a vegetarian and when he killed a fish for the first time, he almost could not live with himself and the “murderer” that he believed he had become. I just don’t think that religion alone saved Pi because you can pray and pray and then pray some more but if God is not hand delivering some food and fresh water, you are going to die sooner or later… just saying. Anyways that is why I believe the difference in cultures is an important aspect to not overlook while reading this novel.