Coming into his own

Actor Maulik Pancholy’s debut novel, now released in India, is a touching story about a 12-year-old gay Indian American boy navigating sexuality, identity and adolescence

Our Zoom call is scheduled for 7 pm and Maulik Pancholy logs in from New York five minutes late. Yet, he can’t help but feel embarrassed about it and we chuckle about how it’s funny that even after a year of a WFH life, we’re still figuring stuff (read, tech) out. It is only after our 20-minute conversation that we realise how apt our rather mundane conversation starter is as an analogy for the plot of Pancholy’s debut book. The Best at It (HarperCollins India) released overseas in 2019 but has just made its way to India, and at the heart of it, is Rahul Kapoor, a 12-year-old gay Indian American kid trying to figure his life out.

Rahul lives in Indiana and is anxious about starting seventh grade. He’s got a good support system in his best friend Chelsea, and a grandfather he calls ‘Bhai’ as they share a brotherly relationship. It is Bhai who instils confidence in him by telling him to find one thing that he’s really good at and become the best at it. Now, Rahul makes it his life’s mission to find that one thing but there are hurdles he has to cross: Brent, his classmate, who is a bully; racism and ‘fitting in’ as an Indian American; and his sexuality.

Pancholy is best known for his work in 30 Rock, the iconic sitcom created by Tina Fey, where he essays the role of Jonathan. He’s also voiced Baljeet Tjinder in the much-loved animated series Phineas and Ferb. In 2013, he officially came out as gay and in 2014, was named to former US President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. It was during this time that he launched Act To Change, now an anti-bullying non-profit. Evidently, The Best at It, is rooted in Pancholy’s personal experiences.

Bhai, he tells us, is the name his own grandfather insisted he call him. “That character is drawn from a mix of both my grandparents. My mom was the first woman in her town [in Gujarat] to go to engineering school which became part of the grandmother’s character in the book. Then, of course, there was my own journey of figuring out my own identity, coming to embrace my culture, being gay and dealing with mental health issues,” he shares.

Although the narrative might seem linear, it carries enough depth to ponder broader subjects. Chelsea goes to the school dance dressed as Prince Harry, and her partner David, is Meghan Markle. Then, you’ve got Rahul who is grappling with compulsive thoughts. Pancholy had a psychologist do an early reading of the book. It was critical to ensure he was tackling the issue correctly and in a way that makes sense for young readers and adults — especially since, he asserts, popular media doesn’t address the anxieties young people go through.

“As a kid, I struggled with a lot of the checking behaviours that Rahul has — like checking the stove and the locks. And like Rahul, I was also very good at hiding it. As an adult, I still have some of those behavioural traits although they’re not as intense,” Pancholy says. While the characters stemmed from his personal life, fictional elements were weaved into the plot; unlike Rahul, he never tried out for the football team at school or auditioned for a bank commercial, which went awry. But as an actor perpetually entering and exiting audition rooms, he was able to bring Rahul’s excitement of going to one alive.

Part of the writing process, Pancholy, 47, states, was digging deep into his memory of what it was like to be 12. The other part entailed quizzing his nieces and nephews. “Hey, what’s it like in school nowadays?” he’d ask. “I also read a lot of middle grade young adult books to understand what kids are bonding on to, the kind of stories they find interesting and the appropriate language to use,” he mentions.

Carving a niche for himself in children’s literature isn’t a one-off stint for Pancholy. He reveals that a second book is in the works and The Best at It is in the process of being adapted for television. He believes the story carries universal resonance, recalling a moment he holds dear: “My husband’s sister-in-law, who is Caucasian American, read the book to her son. She told me that when she got to the part where Rahul’s mom goes to the bank and starts banging the door [angrily], she started crying. Her son asked her why she was crying and she told him, ‘Because as a mother, I know what it feels like to only want the best things for your kid.’ That was so moving to me – that here is a Caucasian woman born in America relating to an Indian immigrant woman’s experience in this country.”

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