Pi was named as Piscine Molitor after a swimming pool in France. While he was studying, everyone around him taunted with the nickname "Pissing Patel". So, he decided to remember the value of Pi expressed in several hundred decimal places to drive home the point and changed his name to Pi.
His family owns a local zoo, and Pi takes an interest in the animals, especially a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. To teach him the reality of the tiger's nature as a carnivore, Pi's father forces him to witness it killing a goat. He is raised Hindu and vegetarian, but at 12 years old, he is introduced to Christianity and then Islam, and starts to follow all three religions. Then his father taught him that If you believe in everything, you will end up not believing in anything at all.
When Pi is 16 , his father decides to close the zoo and move his family to Canada, and sell the zoo animals. The ship encounters a heavy storm and begins to sink while Pi is on deck marveling at the storm. He tries to find his family, but a crew member throws him into a lifeboat.
After the storm, Pi finds himself in the lifeboat with an injured zebra, and is joined by an orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges and kills the zebra. It also mortally wounds the orangutan in a fight. Suddenly the tiger Richard Parker emerges from under the tarp, and kills and eats the hyena.
Pi finds emergency food and water rations on the boat. He builds a small raft so that he can stay at a safe distance from the tiger. Realizing that he must feed the tiger to protect himself, Pi begins fishing. He also collects rain