Rajiv Surendra (born 1985/1986 in Toronto) is a Canadian actor, artist, and writer. 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 longlisted candidate for the 2017 edition of Canada Reads, and Surendra was nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in 2017.As an actor, Surendra played Chuck Singh in the third season of the YTV sitcom System Crash, and had a small part in Mean Girls as rapper and mathlete Kevin Gnapoor. He tried to land the lead role in Life of Pi after reading the book and noting many parallels between his own life and that of the novel's lead character, including the fact that Surendra himself grew up in a home immediately adjacent to the Toronto Zoo.He is currently based in Manhattan, where he works as a potter, painter, calligrapher and chalk artist. He is gay.