Mr. Pirzada and Pi Patel (CC)

So, during our Labor Day break, I decided to get a jump start on my AP Lit homework. I started with one of the stories in Interpreter of Maladies titled "Mr. Pirzada Comes to Dine." The story was basically about this man, Mr. Pirzada, who comes to eat and stay at the protagonists house while he is in the U.S. The story itself is pretty interesting and sad, and it was during one of these sad parts that I made a connection to Pi from the novel Life of Pi.

If you don't know the story, it is about a boy named Pi who is forced to survive stranded at sea in a boat with a tiger. It is a very entertaining book and I recommend reading it. Anyway, back to the point, the novel explains some background on Pi and reveals that he follows three religions; Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. When he wanted to convert to Islam, his father was against this, stating that Islams and Hindu's don't get along well. The same thing happened to Mr. Pirzada when it was revealed to the family that he lives in East Pakistan. They then began to regard him in a different because he was a Muslim. It was during this section that I made the connection to Life of Pi.

After this, I wanted to learn more about the issue between the Hindus and Muslims. While many people argue about the motives, there is major evidence that these major riots began back in 1947 following the partition from Pakistan. This has led to many incidents, the most famous being the Nellie Massacre where around 5000 lives were taken and almost all of them were Muslim. It's really sad to see how these people who used to be from the same country can suddenly turn on each other and kill. Interpreter of Maladies has really helped me open my eyes to a lot of issues in the world surrounding India and is overall a really good, albeit sad, novel.