Yann Martel
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
If you understand life, read great books, look at great pictures, listen to great music, see great movies, that's how you understood what it means to be human.
A very intramural, powerful way.
And I loved that.
I became a writer as a result of it, loved it.
Then I got to India.
following a girl, didn't work out with the girl, but it worked out with the country.
I got to India and there was something about India, for the first time I saw manifestations of religion that didn't offend me.
A Pandit, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim had never bothered me.
And I saw their practices and I, because it was the exotic setting of India,
I first of all saw beauty and just purely on the superficial level of what they were doing, Hindu temples, mosques.
And then I saw the practice and I saw people who were in a gentle way doing something marvelous.
And I thought, what am I missing here?
They're surely not all quietly muttering detestation of women, gays, Jews, you know, there must be something else happening.
And so when I wrote Life of Pi, I was curious about that.
Like, what am I missing here?
What aspect am I missing here?
it was that magical thinking of religion.
So at that time I was curious about that.
Each book has answered a question for me to my satisfaction.
So at that time I would say I was sort of a bit lost and I happened to go in India and I came to life because of the story that eventually I turned into Life of Pi.