Rajiv Surendra

As an actor, Surendra played Chuck Singh in the third season of the YTV sitcom System Crash (2000), Max in the comedy film Fast Food High (2003), Barney Oscarson in an episode of Canadian teen comedy-drama television series Radio Free Roscoe (2003), Kevin Gnapoor in Mean Girls (2004), and Jajeev in the short film 6 ft. in 7 min. (2005).

In 2016, Surendra published the book The Elephants in My Backyard, a memoir of his failed attempt to win the lead role in the 2012 film Life of Pi.[2] He read Life of Pi for the first time on the set of Mean Girls in 2004 and noticed many parallels between his own life and that of the novel's lead character, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, including the fact that Surendra himself grew up in a home adjacent to the Toronto Zoo.[2] To prepare for the role, Surendra temporarily dropped out of school at the University of Toronto and travelled to Pondicherry, India to learn the specific dialect of the character. Upon returning to Canada and going back to school, Surendra learned how to swim. While he did meet with the casting director of the film, Surendra was not selected to play the role of Pi.[3] He reflected on these experiences in The Elephants in My Backyard. The book was longlisted for the 2017 edition of Canada Reads[1] and Surendra was nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in 2017.[4]

Surendra is the founder of Letters in Ink, a bespoke calligraphy and graphic design service based in Manhattan. He uses pen and ink and chalk to create art and branding for restaurants and other businesses.[5]

While working at Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto as a teenager, Surendra developed an interest in traditional crafts and antiques. As a result, he practices a number of traditional arts and crafts, including letter writing, calligraphy, bookbinding, and painting. He is an apprentice to Connecticut-based potter Guy Wolff, whose work has appeared in Martha Stewart Living magazine.[6]

In 2020, Surendra created a two-video YouTube series on the art of letter writing for the Morgan Library & Museum.[7][8] In 2021, he appeared in a series of videos posted on the HGTV Handmade YouTube channel, highlighting his personal collection of handmade objects,[9] chalk art,[10] bookbinding,[11] and paper marbling.[12]

In 2022, Surendra started a self-titled YouTube channel, which has garnered over 170 thousand subscribers.[13] The channel began with a GoFundMe, created after the success of Surendra's videos with HGTV, as a means of continuing to share his passions and interests. The videos on the channel are presented largely as tutorials, many of them on cooking, antiques, and crafts.[14]