I remember little of what I read.
Yet, then what do we miss?
That has been a bit of a curse. I can hardly recall lines or verses.
But yes, having read anything helps, as it makes Google mining easier.
I, however, recall vividly the impression that any book leaves on me: Awe (The Name of the Rose); marvel (Crime and Punishment); disappointment (Da Vinci Code); thrill (A Time to Kill); inspired (John Simpson’s biographies); and on occasion a spiritual high, where I feel I have been on a journey with the author – we both taking the same road, occasionally boasting to the self, ‘hey, I too thought of this.’
So it is not unusual for me that I recall little of Life of Piby Yann Martel other than its overarching shipwreck-survivor theme. But I remember what reading the book did to me ten years back. I felt its spirit. I remember seeing Richard Parker before me, and the mix of fear and admiration.
I recall thinking to myself why of all the animals Martel chose the Bengal tiger.
The author has said that the inspiration for the novel was Max and the Cats, written by Moacyr Scliar. It is a real life account of Max Schmidt, a teenager, who is forced to flee from Nazi Germany, in a ship bound to Brazil. The ship wrecks and Max finds himself in a lifeboat with a panther for company.
Martel, who won the Booker Prize for Life of Pi, acknowledges the inspiration with the line: “I am indebted to Moacyr Scliar for the spark of life.’
But he was less complimentary about Scliar when the controversy erupted. Admitting that the concept of the book had an effect of “electric caffeine,” and a feeling of “envy and frustration” in him, Martel wrote that he didn’t want to read the book not wanting to “put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer.”
Only, to Brazilians, Scliar is hardly “a lesser writer.” Though miffed, Scliar said wasn’t litigious nor did he make it into a crusade.
What perhaps killed the debate, which The Telegraph, gleefully headlined as “£50,000 Booker winner ‘stole idea from Brazilian author,” apparently is a meeting between the two writers. We might never know what went on behind closed doors, but it could be Martel’s own conviction to write a story that will become his “direction and purpose” in life.
Whatever the controversy – of which I had known little while reading the novel – Life of Pi was a sort of magical revelation for me. It is not that I empathised with Pi. I was pretty sure I was not going to be marooned in sea, and if I do, the first wave would swallow me. I don’t swim, you see.
Was it the allure of the ‘power of God,’ which Pi believes in ardently being an equal devout of Krishna, Christ and Allah?
Born a Hindu, studying in a Christian school, attending at least 40 Sunday masses annually for eight years, and now (and while reading too) living in a Muslim country and Islam being a part of the cultural context of any average Malabari (said with pride – given my maternal linkages with Malabar proper), I do not think my own personal exposure to religions were of much significance.
I guess it was Life of Pi being a feel-good work, one that conformed to what we believe life is all about – a journey to realize your own self and worth.
Who after all wouldn’t be moved by this line: “… Hindus in their capacity for love are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their own devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.”
Years later, now reading M Sreekumar’s Parayoo Oru Amarakatha, I feel that same sense of inspired awe, reading the Guru ‘s words (that could be miserably translated as): “One’s ultimate aim in life is to unravel all the mysteries that concerns oneself, redeem oneself from all the apparitions in life and attain self-consciousness.”
I digress.
Back to Pi. Beyond his acknowledged inspiration from Max and the Cats, why did Martel prefer the tiger? Why not a lion? Why not a monkey?
What sublime message was the tiger conveying that a lion couldn’t?
There is of course a fierce grace to the tiger that resonated in William Blake’s lines “Tyger! Tyger, burning bright/In the forests of the night” – which was part of a high school English poetry lesson.
Later on, any tiger for me had to be Hobbes, witty, intelligent and yes, one who would pounce on Calvin at any unguarded moment, because after all, he is a tiger!
But it wasn’t Richard Parker, the tiger, or Patel that I took home after watching Ang Lee’s film.
As Nigel Andrews, my most favourite reviewer noted, “the arguments for God’s existence which bookend the screenplay would barely stand up in a kindergarten.”
To me too, the premise of discovering God wasn’t the core that Lee brought in his movie version. It was too much of a given.
Lee’s Life of Pi is cinema at its best, as a medium. It takes technology to that creative high. Who would have thought of making the novel into a film? Who could have achieved it, barring perhaps Spielberg?
Lee elevates the written word to the next level in two seminal moments that has little to do with the rather straight forward narrative of the shipwreck-survivor story.
One is where after connecting with Christ, Pi prays to Lord Vishnu, the screen now filling to the shot of an “Ananthashayanam” idol, in a rendition of what Martel wrote: “I raced up the hill… to offer thanks to Lord Krishna for having put Jesus of Nazareth, whose humanity I found so compelling, in my way.”
And the second – and here I salute the absolute genius in Lee – is that long shot of the meerkat merry island, just after Pi realizes it is carnivorous; the form is an undeniable Ananthashayanam.
To Pi, the island, which none could explain or locate, was the life-giver. To him, it was God’s own way to guide him back to life. Pi doesn’t see the view that Lee shows us; it is Lee’s own tribute to the powers unknown.
Some of us are on shipwrecked voyages marked by tempests and cloudbursts. We call out to our Gods – Krishna, Christ and Allah.
Probably, they hear us too.
Yet, then what do we miss?
Could it be that we prefer to cling to the island that gives us the green lichens and fresh water, probably not aware it is also devouring you?
Maybe like Pi we too must set sail from the shores of complacence and take with us our Richard Parkers – in a journey where we brave our worst fears.
And like Richard Parker, someday, the fears will leave us, without as much as a goodbye.
Let them go.
ENDS
Images soruced from:
http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/life-of-pi-fish.png
http://rufiojones.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/calvin-and-hobbes.jpg
http://www.yessy.com/art/?view=1113020
http://samuelsfamilyfrenzy.blogspot.com/
No copyright violation intended; if any images need to be removed, please mail me.
