A Canadian writer visits a man named Piscine Molitor Patel. While wandering from place to place in search of material for a novel, he had happened to hear about Pi from an Indian man named Mamaji. "Once you hear Pi's story, you will surely come to believe in miracles." Urged on by the writer, Pi agrees to tell him his past, doing so as a favor to Mamaji, who is also his godfather.
In the early 1960s, a boy was born in Pondicherry, India. The boy's name was Pi. He grew up freely, surrounded by his father who ran a zoo, his gentle and beautiful mother, and an energetic older brother who adored him. Pi's real name is Piscine Patel. It was a name given to him by his father's close friend, Mamaji. In French, it means a swimming pool. French swimming pools are blue, transparent, and infinitely beautiful. However, in India, "Piscine" sounds like the word for urine. At this rate, he would undoubtedly be bullied. Thinking this, Pi devises a plan for his self-introduction on his very first day of elementary school. "My name is Piscine Patel. Please call me Pi." With that, he begins covering two blackboards from edge to edge with the digits of pi. At first, his classmates giggle at the sound of "Piscine," but they soon fall silent as the endless digits of pi continue. Stunned, the classroom eventually erupts into a roaring chorus of "Pi." With his own cleverness, Pi carved out his path for the life ahead of him.
Pi learned Hinduism from his mother, Christianity from a bishop at a church that served as his playground, and Islam from the many believers living near his home. Young and pure, Pi found beauty in every religion and came to practice all three. His father scolded him, saying, "Believing in multiple religions is the same as believing in none at all," but Pi's convictions remained unchanged.
One day, the first tiger ever was brought to his father's zoo. The tiger was named "Richard Parker"—apparently due to a clerical error where the capture agent's name and the tiger's nickname were swapped on the paperwork. Amused by the mistake in the name, Pi immediately goes to see the tiger. Up until then, he had gotten along well with every animal. Sneaking into the tiger enclosure with a key he borrowed in secret, he takes some food left nearby and calls out to the tiger with a whistle. In the eyes of the tiger walking toward him, Pi saw something mysterious. He reaches his hand further past the bars. Suddenly, his father bursts into the enclosure with furious momentum. Pale with panic, he pulls Pi away from the front of the tiger's cage. "You were almost killed!" yells his father, but Pi talks back. "Richard Parker is smart. I can tell by looking in his eyes." To his son, who refuses to listen, the father takes drastic measures. He brings a live fawn and ties it up in front of the cage. Startled by the commotion, the tiger, which had retreated to the back, spots the fawn and slowly approaches again. When it reaches a certain distance, the tiger leaps upon the fawn. The torn-to-pieces fawn is dragged into the cage in the blink of an eye. For Pi, who strictly practiced vegetarianism due to his Hindu teachings, it was an overwhelmingly shocking sight. "You were just projecting your own heart into the eyes of the tiger." Nodding at his father's words, Pi grew to fear the tiger from that day on.
Years passed, and Pi turned sixteen. His father suddenly announces that the family is moving to Canada. Due to a change in government, municipal subsidies were cut off, making it impossible to keep running the zoo in Pondicherry. Through acquaintances, his father has a job lined up in Canada, and Canadian zoos are willing to buy their animals at high prices. Rather than waiting here for the ruin of his family and the animals, Pi agrees, and they board a large ship bound straight for Canada.
On the first night of the voyage, Pi wakes up to the sound of rain drumming against the deck and goes out to see the conditions. The ship was sailing through a ferocious thunderstorm. Full of curiosity, Pi revels in the rain while taking care not to fall. After a while, he feels the ship list heavily, accompanied by a tremendous crash. Hearing the shouts and screams of the crew, Pi senses that something terrible is happening and heads to the cabin where his family is. When he descends the stairs, it is already submerged in water. Returning to the deck to seek help from the crew, he finds that the cabins have already been abandoned, and Pi is shoved alone into a lifeboat.
When the storm passes and he regains consciousness, the lifeboat holds Pi, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and Richard Parker. The impact of the capsizing had broken the cages, setting the animals free. The tiger, disliking the daylight, has retreated beneath the sunshade to rest. The zebra appears injured, bleeding from its hind legs. Pi pulls a bunch of bananas that floated over from the sunken ship and feeds them to the orangutan. Calmed down from the excitement of the accident, the hyena sets its sights on the zebra. Pi tries desperately to stop it, but he is too terrified to approach the hyena, a carnivore. Excited by the cries of the zebra and the growls of the hyena, the orangutan goes wild. The hyena bites through the throat of the thrashing orangutan. Witnessing the death of animals right before his eyes, Pi goes deranged and screams. As if taking that as a cue, the tiger leaps out from under the sunshade and tears the hyena to death. Fleeing from the tiger, which has begun devouring the hyena, Pi clings to a lifebuoy attached to the lifeboat and escapes into the sea.
From that day on, the 227-day drift of the tiger and Pi began. The tiger lives under the sunshade in the lifeboat, while Pi lives on the lifebuoy, each respecting the other's territory. During the drift, their meat runs out and the tiger is on the verge of death. Finding solace in the fact that the tiger is still alive, Pi breaks his vow of non-violence, catches fish, and feeds them to him. One day, just as signs of a trusting relationship with the tiger are beginning to show and life is settling down, they are struck by a massive storm. Losing their meager emergency rations and water, Pi despairs and finally prepares for death. Then, a mysterious island appears before Pi. Covered in plants he has never seen before, the island has crystal-clear fresh water and seaweed, and is a paradise inhabited by countless meerkats.
Finding a place of peace, Pi considers settling down there. As night falls after he builds a makeshift hammock, Pi notices something strange wedged in the grass nearby. It was a human tooth. When he looks around carefully, the water has turned strongly acidic, the meerkats have evacuated, and the plants are writhing eerily. This island was a cannibal island. Calling the tiger, Pi frantically launches the boat. Stunned that their aimless drifting has begun anew, he simply spends a long time in a daze. Plunged into an extreme state of starvation and dehydration, Pi loses consciousness. When he wakes up next, he is on a sandy beach. In his hazy vision, he sees the tiger walking off into the forest without ever looking back. Tears fell for no apparent reason. Miraculously, Pi had washed ashore on the coast of Mexico. After being taken to the hospital and receiving treatment, Pi is questioned about the accident by Japanese insurance investigators, as the sunken ship belonged to a Japanese company. The investigators show strong displeasure toward Pi as he recounts his fantastical drift with a tiger. "We don't want to hear such fairy tales." So, Pi tells the investigators a different story—one without the tiger.
The people in the lifeboat were Pi, a Buddhist sailor, Pi's mother, and a brutal ship's cook. The ship's cook was the person who, on the passenger ship before it sank, had shouted at Pi and his mother—both vegetarians—saying, "If you're going to complain about the meat dishes I make, you can starve for all I care." The Buddhist sailor was the person who had kindly tried to comfort Pi and his mother, who were bewildered, with a lighthearted joke: "Is curry no good either? I'm a Buddhist, but I eat it... Haha." The sailor had severely injured his leg while boarding the boat. The cook repeatedly urged that the leg must be amputated or gangrene would set in and cost him his life. Pi and his mother held down the thrashing sailor to assist the cook with the amputation. Perhaps affected by the surgery, the sailor died soon after, and the cook, starving from the long drift, began using scraps of that leg to fish. Pi's mother reacted with revulsion and strongly denounced the cook. The cook told Pi that if they caught a passing sea turtle, they wouldn't starve. While helping the cook, Pi made a mistake and let a large one get away. Angered, the cook struck Pi. Sensing danger to her son, Pi's mother made Pi take refuge on a raft. Viewing that action as an insult, the cook killed Pi's mother as well. Then, he began fishing again using her fresh remains. Beside himself with anger and stumbling, Pi tries to kill the cook. Realizing, perhaps, that his own actions had gone too far, the cook offered no resistance and was quietly killed. Pi survived by fishing with the cook's remains, and finally reached Mexico...
After listening to this account, the Japanese investigators are left dumbfounded. Pi tells them: "Which story you believe is up to you." In the end, the insurance investigation report recorded: "A boy who accomplished a miraculous drift with a tiger."
Having heard the entire story, the Canadian writer. He recalls what Pi's godfather, Mamaji, once told him: "Once you hear Pi's story, you will surely come to believe in miracles." The Canadian writer, too, came to believe in miracles.
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