Set Text: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Approach: You are Pi when the three religious leaders approach you and argue over which religion you belong to.
Rationale
In this emphatic response task, I take on the role of Piscine Molitor Patel when the three religious teachers approach him and argue over which religion Piscine truly belongs to. The reason I chose this approach was because the way Pi thinks is interesting especially in terms of religion in which he has an extremely unorthodox way of thinking, in which he has a three-different religion which he practices with equal conviction. I personally could never imagine myself doing something like this as in each religion we are taught that the religion is the one and only …show more content…
This sparked claims from both the pandit and the imam that I was Hindu and Muslim respectively. Now they would know I was not only Hindu, but also Christian and Muslim. Hopefully they will not turn their eyes to me once they figure it out. Immediately, they turned at looked at me. After their realisation of my practice of multiple religions, they started arguing about which religion was the ‘truth’ and ‘better’, with insults being thrown around, in a bid to convince me to choose their religion. Why don’t they understand that I love all three religions? It’s not as if each religion was too different from each other. I mean all religions are true and the values in it are all important. What’s important is my love for God. Right? As their argument was getting out of hand, my father steps in, reminding them that India is a place with freedom of practice. In unison they screamed with their index finger pointed up that is a single practice, not multiple. This moment of unintended coordination would have been amusing if they hadn’t been pressuring me to abandon the practices of two of my beloved religions. I mean al three religions give a story of universal and unconditional love and are all pure and beautiful. How could I possibly give up two of these beautiful religions showcasing the love of the World? I simply cannot, …show more content…
Funny he would be the one to say that, with three religious leaders here, my father, one who had nothing to do with religion would be the one to say this. Weird… He hasn’t even ever stepped into a temple with serious intent ever since I could remember and probably before that as well. Surprisingly the priest, the pandit and the imam pulled away with smiles, though grudging ones, on their faces. Guess they don’t have a reason to reprimand me for my love of God, however unorthodox it was. This first experience in interfaith conversation was messy and left me saddened as they couldn’t see the beauty of each religion with the essence of faith and belief. Me and my family continued with our walk-in silence, unusual silence, each of us thinking about what had just happened. (726