Life of Pi Lecture Notes

Vocabulary terms and definitions from the narrative of Life of Pi, covering Pi's childhood, his religious and scientific interests, and his survival journey at sea.

Bamboozle

The single word of preparation given to the author by a friend before his first trip to India, used to describe the 'funny English' spoken there.

Francis Adirubasamy

An elderly man and family friend in Pondicherry, known as Mamaji, who tells the author he has a story that will make him 'believe in God.'

Pondicherry

A tiny self-governing Union Territory south of Madras that was once the capital of French India and served as the home for Pi's family and their zoo.

Three-toed sloth

A creature Pi chose for his zoology thesis due to its introspective demeanour, noted for sleeping $20$ hours a day and moving roughly $400\,metres$ an hour in trees.

Cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria

The subject of Pi’s fourth-year religious studies thesis concerning a great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed.

Piscine Molitor

A prestigious swimming pool in Paris described by Mamaji as the 'crowning aquatic glory of the entire civilized world,' after which Pi was named.

Santosh Patel

Pi's father, who formerly ran a hotel in Madras before founding and directing the Pondicherry Zoo.

Flight distance

A zookeeping term referring to the minimum distance at which an animal wants to keep a perceived enemy.

Animalus anthropomorphicus

The species of animal as seen through human eyes, which Pi’s father considers the most dangerous animal in the zoo because it wrongly projects human traits onto wild creatures.

Mahisha

A $550\,pound$ Bengal tiger patriarch at the Pondicherry Zoo used by Pi’s father to teach Pi and Ravi a terrifying lesson about the danger of wild animals.

Pi Patel

The nickname the protagonist adopts at Petit Seminaire, derived from the Greek letter that represents the irrational number $\pi = 3.14$, to escape the derogatory nickname 'Pissing Patel'.

Satish Kumar (Biology Teacher)

Pi's biology teacher at Petit Seminaire, a geometric-looking Communist and 'avowed atheist' who views nature as a triumph of logic and mechanics.

Satish Kumar (Baker)

A plain-featured Muslim baker and Sufi mystic who introduces Pi to Islam and describes the religion as being 'about the Beloved.'

Brahman

In Hinduism, the world soul or sustaining frame of the universe, divided into 'nirguna' (without qualities) and 'saguna' (with qualities).

Atman

The individual soul or spiritual force within a person that seeks to be united with Brahman.

Samskara

A Hindu rite of passage, such as the symbolic first temple outing Pi experienced as a baby in Madurai.

Father Martin

The Catholic priest in Munnar who introduces Pi to Christianity and the 'Story' of Christ's love and sacrifice.

Dhikr

A Muslim practice consisting of the recitation of the ninety-nine revealed names of God.

The Tsimtsum

The Panamanian-registered Japanese cargo ship that was carrying the Patel family and their zoo animals when it sank in the Pacific Ocean on July 2nd, 1977.

Richard Parker

A $450\,pound$ Royal Bengal tiger that survives the shipwreck and shares a lifeboat with Pi, originally named 'Thirsty' due to a clerical error.

Solar still

A device provided in the lifeboat’s supplies that uses the principle of distillation to produce fresh water from salt water.

Prusten

A quiet, friendly puffing sound made through the nose by tigers to express harmless intentions, which Richard Parker uses to signal his submission to Pi.

Hawksbill

A type of sea turtle that Pi captures for food and whose shell he uses as a shield during his tiger-training sessions.

Dream rag

A piece of cloth Pi wets with sea water and places over his face to induce a state of 'gentle asphyxiation' and extraordinary hallucinations to escape his reality.

Carnivorous Island

A free-floating organism made of green algae inhabited by meerkats, which Pi discovers is predatory at night, turning its ponds into vats of acid.

Meerkats

Small South African mammals found in the hundreds of thousands on the algae island, having lost their natural flight distance and feeding on dead fish from freshwater ponds.

Tomathan and Tomatlan

The two Mexican towns that caused a geographical mix-up for the Japanese investigators driving from California to interview Pi.

Tomohiro Okamoto

An official from the Maritime Department of the Japanese Ministry of Transport who investigates the sinking of the Tsimtsum and eventually admits Pi's story with animals is 'the better story.'

Oika Shipping Company

The owner of the cargo ship Tsimtsum, involved in the insurance claim following the vessel's disappearance.

Dry, yeastless factuality

The phrase Pi uses to describe the 'flat' version of events requested by the investigators—a story without animals or invention.