What am I doing?
Wait! I'm thinking.
Thirty-two cartons of biscuits.
Ninety-three cans of water.
I'm sorry.
Thank you, Lord Vishnu.
Thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives.
Thank you.
Of course, I brought all the biscuits and water
on the raft with me to keep them safe.
Idiot.
Hunger can change everything you ever thought you knew about yourself.
Here, it's yours!
Mine! Mine!
I can 't risk my Iife every time I ha ve to climb onto the boat for supplies.
It's time to settle this.
If we're going to Iive together, we ha ve to Iearn to communicate.
Maybe Richard Parker can 't be tamed, but with God's will, he can be trained.
No!
Good.
Go, Richard Parker. Go.
Go on home, I'll leave you alone.
I'll respect that, I promise.
Go. Come on.
Yes!
I never thought a small piece ofshade could bring me so much happiness.
That a pile oftools, a bucket, a knife, a pencil...
might become my greatest treasures.
Or that knowing Richard Parker was here might ever bring me peace.
In times Iike these...
I remember that he has as Iittle experience with the real world as I do.
We were both raised in a zoo by the same master.
Now we've been orphaned, Ieft to face our ultimate master together.
Without Richard Parker, I would ha ve died by now.
My fear ofhim keeps me alert.
Tending to his needs gives my Iife purpose.
Dolphins.
Hey, Richard Parker!
Hey!
Above all, don 't Iose hope.
Eight, five, five, zero, three, six, six...
zero, eight, zero, one...
three, six, zero, four, six, six, eight...
What are you looking at?
Talk to me.
Tell me what you see.
Words are all I have Ieft to hang on to.
Everything mixed up. Fragmented.
Can 't tell daydreams, night dreams, from reality anymo--...
Storm, Richard Parker.
No!
Praise be to God!
Lord of all worlds!
The compassionate, the merciful!
Come out.
Richard Parker! Come out, you have to see this!
It's beautiful!
Don't hide yourself! He's come to us!
It's a miracle!
Come out and see God, Richard Parker!
Why are you scaring him?
Oh, God!
I've lost my family! I've lost everything!
I surrender! What more do you want?
I'm sorry, Richard Parker.
We're dying, Richard Parker.
I'm sorry.
Amma, Appa, Ravi...
I'm happy I'm going to see you soon.
Can you feel the rain?
God, thank you for giving me my life.
I'm ready now.
Richard Parker?
Excuse me.
Move.
Move. Excuse me.
Hey! Hey!
Hey, come on!
Hey, get away. This is my bed.
It was a human tooth?
Don't you see? The island was carnivorous.
Carnivorous? Like a Venus Flytrap?
Yes, the whole island.
The plants, the water in those pools, the very ground itself.
During the day, those pools held fresh water.
But at night, some chemical process turned the water in those pools into acid...
acid that dissolved those fish...
that sent the meerkats scurrying into the trees,
and Richard Parker running to the boat.
But where did the tooth come from?
Years ago, some poor fellow, just like me...
must have found himself stranded on that island...
and, like me, thought he might stay there forever.
But all that the island gave him by day, it took away again by night.
To think, how many hours spent with only meerkats for company.
How much loneliness taken on.
All I know is that eventually he died and the island digested him...
Ieaving behind only his teeth.
I saw how my life would end if I stayed on that island.
Alone and forgotten.
I had to get back to the world, or die trying.
I spent the next day preparing the boat.
I filled my stores with fresh water...
ate seaweed until my stomach could take no more...
and brought as many meerkats as I could fit
into the storage Iocker for Richard Parker.
I couldn 't Iea ve without him, of course.
It would mean killing him.
And so, I waited for his return.
I knew he wouldn 't be Iate.
Richard Parker!
No one has seen that floating island since.
And you won 't read about those trees in any nature book.
And yet, ifl hadn 't found those shores, I would have died.
Ifl hadn 't discovered that tooth, I would ha ve been Iost, alone forever.
Even when God seemed to ha ve abandoned me...
He was watching.
Even when He seemed indifferent to my suffering...
He was watching.
And when I was beyond all hope of sa ving, He ga ve me rest...
then ga ve me a sign to continue my journey.
By the time we reached the Mexican shore, I was afraid to Iet go ofthe boat.
My strength was gone. I was so weak.
I was afraid that in two feet of water, so close to deliverance...
I would drown.
I struggled to shore and fell upon the sand.
It was warm and soft...
Iike pressing my face against the cheek of God.
And somewhere, two eyes were smiling at ha ving me there.
I was so spent, I could hardly move.
And so, Richard Parker went ahead ofme.
He stretched his Iegs and walked along the shore.
At the edge ofthe jungle, he stopped.
I was certain he was going to Iook back at me...
flatten his ears to his head, growl.
That he would bring our relationship to an end in some way.
But he just stared ahead into the jungle.
And then, Richard Parker, my fierce companion...
the terrible one who kept me alive...
disappeared forever from my life.
After a few hours, a member ofmy own species found me.
He Ieft and returned with a group who carried me away.
I wept Iike a child.
Not because I was overwhelmed at ha ving survived, although I was.
I was weeping because Richard Parker Ieft me so unceremoniously.
It broke my heart.
You know, my father was right.
Richard Parker never saw me as his friend.
After all we had been through, he didn't even look back.
But I have to believe there was more in his eyes...
than my own reflection staring back at me.
I know it. I felt it.
Even if I can't prove it.
You know, I've left so much behind.
My family, the zoo, lndia, Anandi.
I suppose, in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go.
But what always hurts the most...
is not taking a moment to say goodbye.
I was never able to thank my father for all I learned from him.
To tell him, without his lessons...
I would never have survived.
I know Richard Parker is a tiger, but I wish I had said...
"It's over. We survived.
"Thank you for saving my life. I love you, Richard Parker.
"You will always be with me.
"May God be with you."
I don't know what to say.
It's hard to believe, isn't it?
It is a lot to take in.
To figure out what it all means.
If it happened, it happened. Why should it have to mean anything?
Some of it is pretty incredible.
See, I was the only one who survived the shipwreck.
So the Japanese shipping company sent two men to talk to me...
in the Mexican hospital where I was recovering.
I still have a copy of their report.
They had insurance claims to settle...
and they wanted to find out why the ship sank.
They didn't believe me, either.
Thousands of meerkats on a floating carnivorous island...
and no one has ever seen it?
Yes, just like I told you.
Bananas don't float.
why are you talking about bananas?
You said the orangutan floated to you on a bundle of bananas.
But bananas don't float.
Are you sure about that?
Of course they do. Try it for yourself.
In any case, we are not here to talk about bananas or meerkats.
Look, I've just told you a long story and I'm very tired.
We are here because a Japanese cargo ship sank in the Pacific.
Something I never forget.
I lost my whole family.
Get him some water.
We don't mean to push you.
And you have our deepest sympathies.
But we have come a long way...
and we are no closer to understanding why the ship sank.
Because I don't know.
I was asleep. Something woke me up.
It could have been an explosion, I can't be sure.
And then the ship sank.
What else do you want from me?
A story that won't make us look like fools.
We need a simpler story for our report.
One our company can understand.
A story we can all believe.
So, a story without things you've never seen before.
That's right.
Without surprises. Without animals or islands.
Yes. The truth.
So, what did you do?
I told them another story.
Four of us survived.
The cook and the sailor were already aboard.
The cook threw me a lifebuoy and pulled me aboard...
and Mother held on to some bananas and made it to the lifeboat.
The cook was a disgusting man.
He ate a rat.
We had food enough for weeks, but he found the rat in the first few days...
and he killed it, dried it in the sun and ate it.
He was such a brute, that man.
But he was resourceful.
It was his idea to build the raft to catch fish.
We would have died in those first few days without him.
The sailor was the same man who brought rice and gravy, the Buddhist.
We didn't understand much of what he said, only that he was suffering.
He had broken his leg horribly in the fall.
We tried to set it as best we could, but the leg became infected...
and the cook said that we had to do something or he'd die.
The cook said he'd do it,
but Mother and I had to hold the man down.
And I believed him, we needed to do it.
So...
I kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
And he just kept looking at me. His eyes were so...
I'll never understand the point of that man's suffering.
I can still hear him.
The happy Buddhist, he only ate rice and gravy.
We didn't save him, of course.
He died.
The morning after, the cook caught his first dorado...
and I didn't understand what he had done at first, but Mother did...
and I had never seen Mother so angry.
"Stop whining and be happy," he said.
"We need more food or we'll die. That was the whole point."
"What was the whole point?" Mother asked.
"You let that poor boy die in order to get bait, you monster! "
The cook got furious.
He started towards her with his fist raised...
and Mother slapped him hard, right across the face.
I was stunned.
I thought he was going to kill her right then.
But he didn't.
The cook didn't stop at bait either, no.
The sailor...
He went the same way the rat went.
The cook was a resourceful man.
It was a week later that he...
Because of me.
Because I couldn't hold on to a stupid turtle.
It slipped out of my hands and swam away.
And the cook came up and he punched me on the side of my head...
and my teeth clacked and I saw stars.
I thought he was going to hit me again...
but Mother started pounding on him with her fists...
screaming, "Monster, monster! "
She yelled at me to go to the raft.
I thought she was coming with me, or I'd never have...
I don't know why I didn't make her go first.
I think about that every day.
I jumped over and turned back just as the knife came out.
There wasn't anything I could do.
I couldn't look away.
He threw her body overboard.
And then the sharks came. And I saw what they...
I saw.
The next day, I killed him.
He didn't even fight back. He knew he had gone too far...
even by his own standards.
He'd left the knife out on the bench, and I did to him what he did to the sailor.
He was such an evil man, but worse still, he...
He brought the evil out in me.
And I have to live with that.
I was alone in a lifeboat...
drifting across the Pacific Ocean.
And I survived.
After that, they had no more questions.
The investigators didn't seem to like the story, exactly.
But they thanked me, they wished me well, and they left.
So the stories...
both the zebra and the sailor...
broke their leg.
And the hyena killed the zebra and the orangutan.
So... the hyena is the cook.
The sailor is the zebra.
Your mother is the orangutan.
And you are...
the tiger.
Can I ask you something?
Of course.
I've told you two stories about what happened out on the ocean.
Neither explains what caused the sinking of the ship...
and no one can prove which story is true and which is not.
In both stories, the ship sinks...
my family dies and I suffer.
True.
So, which story do you prefer?
The one with the tiger.
That's the better story.
Thank you.
And so it goes with God.
Mamaji was right.
It's an amazing story.
Will you really let me write it?
Of course.
Isn't that why Mamaji sent you here, after all?
My wife is here.
Do you want to stay for dinner? She's an incredible cook.
I didn't know you had a wife.
And a cat and two children.
So, your story does have a happy ending.
Well, that's up to you.
The story is yours now.
"Mr. Patel's is an astounding story of courage and endurance...
"unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks.
"Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea...
"and none in the company...
"of an adult Bengal tiger."
We have a guest. Let me introduce you.
-Hi. -Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Adita.
Ravi.
Uploaded BY : Al CAPONE