Pondicherry, India is significant to this adaptation because it is where the novel originally takes place (1970s). A 16 year old boy named Piscine Molitor (Pi) grows up at his fathers zoo and creates a deep minded devotion to Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, the three major religions in India at the time. Due to political conflict, his family decides to close the zoo and move to Canada, loading many of their animals in a cargo ship. A storm deep in the ocean causes an emergency evacuation where Pi is thrown into a life boat where their happens to be their 450 lb tiger. After washing up shore in Mexico after 227 days, Pi is questioned by Japanese Maritime officials. After them not believing his story, Pi tells a version of the story where the animals are actually people and how we are no different than wild animals in the wild. The story shows that caging animals in a zoo is much like the political environment in many countries, where humans are affected.
I found this information from Sparknotes and Cliffnotes, as well as Wikipedia.
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi/summary/
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/life-of-pi/book-summary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi
These sources are mostly platform as gatekeeper and collective vs. singular authorship
