Far from it. I was named after a swimming pool. There's a swimming pool named Pi?
You see my uncle Francis was born with too much water in his lungs
They say the doctors swung Francis around by the ankles to clear the water
out and that's what gave him the huge chest and skinny legs that made him such
a great swimmer. Is Francis actually your uncle, he said he was friends with your
father? Oh he's my honorary uncle. I call him Mamaji my father's best friend, my
swimming guru. I trained with him three times a week at the ashram. His lessons
would save my life in the end. A mouthful of water will not harm you but panic
will. Remember to breathe now, don't hold your breath
good boy I hope you don't mind vegetarian. No, no
not at all and your name. Huh? You were going to tell
me how you got your name. I think. Oh yes, I got it from something
Mamaji once told my father, you see, most travelers collect postcards or teacups
on their journeys but not mahadji mahadji collects swimming pools. He
swims in every pool he comes upon
One day my mother said to my father that of all the pools in the world the most
beautiful was a public pool in Paris that the water there was so clear you
could make a morning coffee with it that a single swim there changed his life
Before I was born he said, if you want your son to have a clean soul you must
take him one day to swim in the Piscine Molitor. I never understood why my father
took this so much to heart, but he did, and I was named the Piscine Molitor Patel
Imagine me trying to explain that name I barely made it to the age of eleven
before, HEY PISCINE! ARE YOU PISSING RIGHT NOW? With one word my name went from an elegant French swimming pool to a
stinking Indian latrine I was pissing everywhere even the teachers started
doing it not deliberately of course. "So then what might occur if I release gas
too quickly? Pissing? whispering "he said pissing"
When we returned the next year for our first day of school I was prepared
Piscine Patel. Good morning, I am piscine Molitor Patel known to all as Pi the
sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet which is also used in mathematics to
represent the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter an
irrational number of infinite and usually rounded to three digits as 3.14
"Pi" Very impressive "Pi", now sit down....
And from then on you were Pi? Well no, not quite. NICE TRY, PISSING!!
But I still had the whole day
ahead of me French class was next Je m'appelle Piscine Molitor Patel, dit "Pi"
Then geography These are the first 20 decimal places of Pi
My last class of the day was mathematics
Slowly, slowly, slowly
He's right! He's really doing this
By the end of that day I was PI Patel School legend