Sunday, August 08, 2010

You succumb, and then you fall for it.

Back in college, Life Of Pi had strong psychological associations for me: pretentious, arty farty, intellectualised to the extent of being disgusting, blah blah blah. Don't ask me why, i just did.

Recently, i happened to chance upon it at a friend's place in a moment of boredom. Here, i have to pause to tell you that when i'm in the kind of bored mood that requires reading to make it go away, i will read anything - even The Times of India. So, of course, i decided to quell my boredom, and my faint curiosity on what could possibly be so enthralling about the book.

The first few pages amused me. A few paragraphs fascinated me. And some sentences stirred in me a deep understanding of human behaviour.

I was hooked.

I bought myself a copy, and finished reading it just sometime back. I can't say that i love it, only that there's something it does to you - spiritually, physically, psychologically. And with the last line of the last page of that story coming to an end, i decided that i would begin a new one by researching Pi Patel, carnivorous islands, Oika Shipping Company. What i found left me devastated: every single bit of that book is a fig-ment of Yann Martel's imagination. It didn't. Really. Happen.

Now, i just feel cheated. More cheated and betrayed than any other book has made me feel.

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