Rajiv Surendra is a Canadian actor, artist and writer whose parents are Tamil. He wrote a 2016 book The Elephants in My Backyard, a memoir of his failed attempts to win the lead role in the 2012 film Life of Pi. The book was a nominee. On the long list for the 2017 edition of Canada Reads, and Surendra was nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer Award in 2017. As an actor, Surendra played Chuck Singh in the third season of sitcom System Crash on YTV, and played a minor role in Mean Girls as rapper and lackluster player Kevin Gnapoor. He managed to win the lead role in Life of Pi after reading the book and noticed many similarities between his own life and that of the main character in the novel, including Surendra himself growing up in a townhouse in the Toronto Zoo. He currently lives in Manhattan, where he works as a potter, painter, calligraphy house and chalkist. He is gay.
Kevin Gnapoor, a minor character in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls, was a former actor. Later, he established Letters in Ink, a calligraphy firm, and began designing chalkboard menus for New York eateries.
