Life of pi chap 7&8
In this chapter Pi introduces one of his favorite teachers from his youth, Mr. Satish Kumar. Mr.Kumar was a communist and the first atheist (nonbeliver) Pi had ever met.He is described as looking quite peculiar with a balding head and a large, round belly. In fact, Pi says, atheists are simply people of a different faith, with strong beliefs. It is agnostics, full of doubt and uncertainty and devoid of faith, whom Pi cannot stomach.Mr. Kumar visited the zoo often and Pi recalls the first time his saw Mr. Kumar at the zoo.
Pi describes in vivid detail the day his father fed a live goat to a caged tiger to teach Pi and his brother, Ravi, about the danger posed by wild animals. Piscine explains flight distance—the minimum distance at which an animal will tolerate a potential predator or enemy. Getting animals used to the presence of humans, he continues, is the key to the smooth running of a zoo and may be accomplished by creating a good enclosure, providing food and water, and knowing each animal well. Taken care of in this way, zoo animals rarely if ever run back to the wild. On the exceptional occasions when they do, it is usually because someone or something has invaded their territory and frightened them away.
Pi’s father had a sign near the entrance of the zoo that read, “Do you know which is the most dangerous animal in the zoo?” Next to the sign was a curtain with a mirror behind it. Zookeepers consider man the most dangerous threat to the zoo. The danger is manifest in man’s cruelty toward the animals.
