When Rajiv Surendra, the rapping mathlete who stole the hearts of millions with his performance as Kevin G in the film Mean Girls, was approached by a cameraman on set insisting that he read Yann Martel’s book, Life of Pi, he had no idea it would completely change his life. The similarities between himself and Martel’s protagonist drew his unbound wonderment. As he writes in his autobiography, The Elephants in My Backyard, both he and Pi were of Tamil descent, “five foot five, thin-framed, with a coffee-coloured complexion.” Both were raised by Hindu parents, but were fascinated by other religions and enthusiastically took up practicing different faiths growing up. Surendra grew up with a zoo near enough that he could hear elephants trumpeting through his bedroom window while Pi, the son of zookeepers, lived in a zoo itself.

After being marooned at sea, the fictional Pi ends up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough (Surendra’s neighbourhood), and starts studying at the University of Toronto, in St. Michael’s College, where Surendra was enrolled as a student. In Surendra’s own words, “this was bat-shit crazy […] the book, in some creepy, strange way was a story about a guy just like me, who embarks on an unintentional journey that magnifies every element of who he was, and puts those qualities to the test through the struggle of survival. What was I supposed to make of this?”

Some months after he finished the novel Surendra found out it was being adapted into a film and there was no question in his mind about auditioning — for Surendra, the role of Pi was meant for him. “This was the part that I had longed for, the role that defied all of Hollywood’s conventional stereotypes — the title character actually being a skinny, little brown kid [...] finally, finally, this was the role of a lifetime — the stuff that legendary movies were made of — filming on location in India, but not modern India, vintage India.” For Surendra, this would compensate for all the countless auditions he had previously given for nerdy Indian kids or brown males characterised as terrorists or assistant terrorists. For once in his life, he would be trying out for a character that celebrated his heritage and the colour of his skin instead of using them as props to sensationalise the plotline. He needed to get this role, and for that to happen, he needed to become the living, breathing Pi. With that in mind, Surendra embarked on a 10-year journey to land the part of his dreams.

What matters is the journey, not the destination

What started as research for an acting role became a soul-searching process. Although he already physically resembled Pi, Surendra dove head first into studying and embodying all elements of Pi’s life to obtain authenticity. Booking a one-way ticket to India, he enrolled himself in the same school in Pondicherry mentioned in the book in order to understand Pi’s environment, his accent, his culture — and ended up learning more about his own roots as a result. Pi was an excellent swimmer, so Surendra faced his worst fears and started taking swimming lessons. His constant communications with Martel in an effort to understand the essence behind the plot of the book and the meaning of Pi’s journey and struggles produced a relationship between the author and the actor that transcended its initial purpose.

However, anyone who has seen the film Life of Pi knows that Surendra was not cast in it. Ten years of hard work for one acting job, which ultimately he did not get, broke him, and he ran away to Germany to work as a nanny. The time away helped him make important self-discoveries, figure out who he was, where his interests lay, what his identity was — questions he had constantly overlooked during the entire time he had obsessed over landing the role of Pi. He moved back to Toronto where he found his calling as a calligraphy artist and began to make sense of the significance behind his journey. Piece by piece, he brought his story together, which started with such focus towards an end goal, but instead resulted in him uncovering parts of himself and his existence that had been obscure before.

The Elephants in My Backyard follows a unique style of writing — not only does it feel like the author is relaying his feelings as informally and as openly as he possibly can, but he also includes bits and pieces of himself throughout. Peppered with hand-drawn images, emails and notes, letters and lists, the book almost reads like a personal diary filled with memorabilia, serving as a reminder to all that the journey towards an end goal often holds more meaning than the achievement of the goal itself.

The reviewer is a finance support specialist at Yale University

The Elephants in My Backyard
By Rajiv Surendra
Regan Arts, US
ISBN: 978-1682450505
288pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 7th, 2017