The Elephants in My Backyard
A Memoir of Chasing a Dream and Facing Failure
Rajiv Surendra (the rapping mathlete from Mean Girls) read Life of Pi, discovered it was being adapted into a major motion picture, and embarked on a ten-year journey to land the role of a lifetime—but this is not a journey of goals and victories, this is a story of obsessively pursuing a dream, overcoming failure, and finding meaning in life.
In 2003, Rajiv Surendra was acting in Mean Girls, playing the beloved rapping mathlete Kevin Gnapoor, when a cameraman on set gave him a copy of Life of Pi, inadvertently changing the course of his life.
Rajiv dove into the novel, mesmerized by all the similarities between Pi and himself—both are five-foot-five and share a South Indian culture; and Pi lives in…
$21.00
December 26, 2017
Born and raised in Toronto, RAJIV SURENDRA is a film and television actor and son of Tamil immigrants. He attended a special-arts high school, Wexford School for the Arts, specializing in painting, sculpting and pottery, and continued his studies at University of Toronto. Although Rajiv is best known for playing Kevin Gnapoor in the film Mean Girls, he is more recently a professional calligrapher, potter, painter and writer.
I am Gandhi
Brad Meltzer; Illustrated By Christopher Eliopoulos
The Elephants in My Backyard
Rajiv Surendra