Life_of_Pi-a_Letter_from_Pi_to_God

February 17th, 1978 Benito Juarez Infirmary Tomatlan, MEXICO Dear God, Vishnu, Allah My name is Piscine Molitar Patel, I'm an Indian citizen but currently in Benito Juarez Infırmary in Tomatlan, Mexico. I reached land yesterday, after 227 days on the sea on a tarpaulin. Good people of Mexico took me to their homes, fed me because I was extremely weak and thin to even walk. Now, I'm being treated for extreme exhaustion, dehydration and lack of nutrition in the infirmary. I don't know if you ask Yourself why I'm writing this letter to you. Since you already know what I am about to say but I will say it anyway. Thank you. Although what I have gone through was a horrible nightmare, as a man close to you and very attached to his beliefs, I would have lost my way if I hadn't lived that long on the sea by myself, see the brutality and wildness of human nature. Now, although I'm alone and lost all members of my family, I will start a new life on my own. Before, I was dependent on my family for protection and guidance. Now, after having risen to this challenge, I find myself self-sufficient; I matured. After the ship sank, when I was with my mother, the cook and the sailor, I thought that we were going to be rescued. But that rescue boat never appeared. That was when I started to lose hope. It was traumatic when I witnessed the cook cutting the beautiful Chinese sailor's leg and using it as bait. He then butchered and ate his flesh. My mother and I tried to stop him, that was when he killed my mother. He cut her head and threw it in my direction. I saw my mother's bodiless head and headless body sink at the bottom of the ocean. I was enraged with the urge for revenge. When the officers from Ministry come, I first will tell them a story with the animals. In this story I spent 227 days on sea with a Bengal tiger. During my time at the boat, whenever I was eating raw flesh or drank blood, I felt like a wild and dangerous tiger. I reminded myself of a Bengal tiger at our zoo, Richard Parker. Without Richard Parker, I couldn't have survived. Richard Parker was a distraction to me, and accepting that part of my nature is still not easy. It is palatable to think that that inhuman, violent person that acts with instincts was in reality a tiger, a wild predator. It is the only way how I can bear the pain of my struggles within. 'Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.'[1] As time passed on the boat, one by one all the pieces left the picture. And as time passed, it became the game of life or death. 'Then solitude began. I turned to you, I survived.' [2] With all my love and devotion, Piscine Molitar Patel Word count: 521 ----------------------- [1] Yann Martel, Life of Pi. Harcourt, 2001 [2] Yann Martel, Life of Pi. Harcourt, 2001