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Santosh Patel is Pi’s father and the owner of the Pondicherry Zoo. Very practical and intuitive, he sees himself “as part of the New India” and aims to raise his children in its secular modern culture. One of the ways in which he embraces this lifestyle is by becoming a businessman, trading in his job as a hotel manager for ownership of a zoo. Mr. Patel takes a strategic approach to his work, and his focus on topics such as finances, resources, and public opinion highlights his gravitation toward logic rather than heart. Although this attitude sets him apart from his son in many ways, it does seem to inform Pi’s approach to surviving aboard the lifeboat. Mr. Patel’s brutal yet honest lesson about the dangers of wild animals, for example, makes Pi acutely aware of the threat that Richard Parker and the other animals pose to him after the Tsimtsum sinks. Having grown up at his father’s zoo in general proves to be a gift in and of itself as it taught Pi to be observant about the world around him. Pi knows how to read and respond to Richard Parker’s signals because of the childhood that his father gave him.
As logic-driven as Mr. Patel is, he does have a softer side which emerges from time to time. The Pondicherry Zoo, after all, initially began as a passion project resulting from his love of and interest in animals. Mr. Patel also cares deeply about his family and does his best to protect them. To Pi’s disappointment, however, this affection often manifests itself as worry. Concern over his sons’ safety drives him to expose them to the viciousness of a tiger, and doubts about India’s political and economic future convince him that his family would be better off in Canada. This protective instinct, despite its occasionally frustrating effect, is ultimately the thing that Pi misses the most about his father after his death. Even though he and Pi did not always see eye to eye when it came to topics like religion, Mr. Patel never let his apprehensions impact the love he felt toward his son.
