Life of Pi tranquilizer darts while her cub escapes hiding in a bush. Parker names the cub Thirsty after his enthusiasm when drinking from a nearby river. The paperwork that accompanies the shipment of the two tigers to Pi's family's zoo in Pondicherry states that the cub's name is "Richard Parker" and the hunter's given name is "Thirsty" and his surname is "None Given", due to a mix-up with the names. Pi's father finds the story so amusing that they continue to call the tiger "Richard Parker". Brian Bethune of "Maclean's" describes "Life of Pi" as a "head-scratching combination of dense religious allegory,
Life of Pi (film) Lee. In Canada, novelist Yann Martel meets Pi Patel; Martel has been told that Pi's life story would be a good subject for a book. Pi tells his story to Yann: Pi's father names him Piscine Molitor Patel after the swimming pool in France. In secondary school in Pondicherry, he adopts the name "Pi" (the Greek letter, ) to avoid the sound-alike nickname "Pissing Patel". He is raised in a Hindu family, but at 12 years old, is introduced to Christianity and then Islam, and decides to follow all three religions as he "just wants to love God". His mother