日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 37 The ship sank. It made a sound like a monstrous metallic burp. Things bubbled at the surface and then vanished. Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart. From the lifeboat I saw something in the water. I cried, Richard Parker... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 36 The cities are large and memorably crowded in India, but when you leave them you travel through vast stretches of country where hardly a soul is to be seen. I remember wondering where 950 million Indians could be hiding. I could say the s... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 35 We left Madras on June 21st, 1977, on the Panamanian-registered Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum. Her officers were Japanese, her crew was Taiwanese, and she was large and impressive. On our last day in Pondicherry I said goodbye to Mamaji, t... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 34 Father said, Well sail like Columbus! He was hoping to find India, I pointed out sullenly. We sold the zoo, lock, stock and barrel. To a new country, a new life. Besides assuring our collection of a happy future, the transaction would pay... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 33 He shows me family memorabilia. Wedding photos first. A Hindu wedding with Canada prominently on the edges. A younger him, a younger her. They went to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. Had a lovely time. Smiles to prove it. We move back... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 32 There are many examples of animals coming to surprising living arrangements. All are instances of that animal equivalent of anthropomorphism: zoomorphism, where an animal takes a human being, or another animal, to be one of its kind. The... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-23 Chapter 31 They met once, Mr. and Mr. Kumar, the baker and the teacher. The first Mr. Kumar had expressed the wish to see the zoo. All these years and Ive never seen it. Its so close by, too. Will you show it to me? he asked. Yes, of course, I repli... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 30 Hes married. I am bent down, taking my shoes off, when I hear him say, I would like you to meet my wife. I look up and there beside him is... Mrs. Patel. Hello, she says, extending her hand and smiling. Piscine has been telling me lots ab... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 29 Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything theyve known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 28 I loved my prayer rug. Ordinary in quality though it was, it glowed with beauty in my eyes. Im sorry I lost it. Wherever I laid it I felt special affection for the patch of ground beneath it and the immediate surroundings, which to me is... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 27 Later that evening I overheard my parents speaking. You said yes? said Father. I believe he asked you too. You referred him to me, replied Mother. Did I? You did. I had a very busy day... Youre not busy now. Youre quite comfortably unempl... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 26 A few days after the meeting on the esplanade, I took my courage into my hands and went to see Father at his office. Father? Yes, Piscine. I would like to be baptized and I would like a prayer rug. My words intruded slowly. He looked up f... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 25 And that wasnt the end of it. There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by le... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 24 Ravi had a field day of it when he found out. So, Swami Jesus, will you go on the hajj this year? he said, bringing the palms of his hands together in front of his face in a reverent namaskar. Does Mecca beckon? He crossed himself. Or wil... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 23 Alas the sense of community that a common faith brings to a people spelled trouble for me. In time, my religious doings went from the notice of those to whom it didnt matter and only amused, to that of those to whom it did matter - and th... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 22 I can well imagine an atheists last words: White, white! L-L-Love! My God! - and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to ex... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 21 I am sitting in a downtown cafe, after, thinking. I have just spent most of an afternoon with him. Our encounters always leave me weary of the glum contentment that characterizes my life. What were those words he used that struck me? Ah,... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 20 He was a Sufi, a Muslim mystic. He sought fana, union with God, and his relationship with God was personal and loving. If you take two steps towards God, he used to tell me, God runs to you! He was a very plain-featured man, with nothing... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 19 I went to see him again. Whats your religion about? I asked. His eyes lit up. It is about the Beloved, he replied. I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devot... 阅读全文>>

日期：2023-05-16 Chapter 18 Islam followed right behind, hardly a year later. I was fifteen years old and I was exploring my hometown. The Muslim quarter wasnt far from the zoo. A small, quiet neighbourhood with Arabic writing and crescent moons inscribed on the fac... 阅读全文>>