How It All Goes Down
- We're back to Pi's voice. Pi begins to tell us, in this chapter about his biology teacher Mr. Kumar.
- Pi tells us a few important facts about Mr. Kumar: he's a Communist, an atheist, loves visiting the zoo, and sort of looks like a large triangle balancing on a smaller one.
- Mr. Kumar visits the zoo and, although Pi is too shy to talk to him, Mr. Kumar starts a conversation.
- Mr. Kumar laments the state of Indian politics. Pi mysteriously answers, "Religion will save us." This starts Mr. Kumar off on a disquisition. The topic: religion and science. Basically, he says that religion never saved anyone and that we can only trust science if we want to make the world a better place. (For more check out Themes: Religion and Science.) Mr. Kumar also says we can trust communism. Pi disagrees (silently) with all of this, but loves this guy. Pi lets us know that atheists like Mr. Kumar are not the problem. Rather, agnostics annoy him more than anything else. Are these the people the book hopes to convince? Tell it like it is, Mr. Martel.