Surendra: Tamil Immigrants and Toronto Actor

surendra: It a book about you, he said, according to Hamilton Spectator. As Surendra recounts in his charming new memoir The Elephants in My Backyard, he quickly comes to agree. The young Toronto actor was on a break from playing rapping mathlete Kevin Gnapoor, waiting for a toaster for his bagel, when a cameraman made a more-than-literary recommendation Youve gotta read it, bud. The similarities between the lives of the fictional Pi and the teenage Surendra first-generation Canadian, the son of Tamil immigrants seem overwhelming. From travelling to India to follow in Pi footsteps to braving the pools at the University of Toronto to learn how to swim to meeting with a shipwreck survivor, Surendra attempts to mould himself into such a convincing facsimile of Pi that no casting director will be able to resist him. When he learns that the book is going to be adapted to film, Surendra does everything in his power to earn the title role. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.