Popular Indian-American actor Maulik Pancholy’s second novel for young adults, Nikhil Out Loud, features a fictional character whose story organically aligns with his own life and its conflicts
Nikhil’s character in Pancholy’s book
Maulik Pancholy’s second novel, Nikhil Out Loud (HarperCollins India), which features a third-generation Indian-American voice actor for a famous American cartoon show, released in America and hit India’s shores last month. The storyline follows a 13-year-old voice actor, Nikhil, who in his journey explores his identity, culture, family and friendship. The author, who is known most for his voice-acting as Baljeet in the TV animation series Phineas and Ferb, introduces his readers to chunks from his life as an openly gay, third-generation Gujarati in USA through Nikhil’s story. Dedicated to his mother Gita Pancholy, this book follows yet another Indian-American protagonist following his debut novel, The Best At It, which released in 2019.
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And even though Pancholy is used to being in the limelight, like Nikhil, he does not always find it easy to engage with attention. He was put to test by middle-schoolers in his hometown, Ohio. “I was on a tour to promote my debut novel. I was really nervous to present it in front of at least 700 students,” he shared with us during a video interview from New York. But when Pancholy noticed that they were genuinely excited, he calmed down. They started exchanging stories, and he even showed them a picture of himself with his husband, Ryan Corvaia. However, what seemed like a smooth event later erupted into a chain of emails from angry parents. But it was the reassuring emails of love by the same kids that helped him recover from the experience. He knew that this had to be part of his second book. “What Nikhil feels when his classmates’ parents find out about him being gay, and playing the lead in the school’s musical is much like what I felt then,” he elaborates about the storyline.
Maulik Pancholy with his mother, Gita. Pic Courtesy/Instagram
But his book is not all gloom; quite the contrary, in fact. Another anecdote directly inspired from his life in the book is when a fan approached him and asked him to sign the back of his phone because he didn’t have a paper or note. “I wasn’t sure if I could do that but he told me that he wanted to keep my autograph with himself forever.”
“Even though Nikhil’s character is inspired from my personal life, the book is 100 per cent fictional. He is out at 13. At his age, I didn’t even know what it was that I was feeling,” he admits. Pancholy lets us in on his early life, “I had two separate lives growing up. One was a life in a Gujarati household in Los Angeles and the other was the American life at school. But eventually, accepting your identity became a huge thing here.” Naturally, he became a part of this movement as one of the many Indian faces in America. “Nikhil getting introduced to his culture as a third-generation Indian-American was thematically important. When I went to India for the first time, and saw people bowing down to touch elders’ feet, I was equally confused as him. I didn’t know what it meant. I wasn’t even sure how to do it.”
When asked if going ahead his writing will have more strong Indian characters, he answers with a big yes. “I recently spoke to my editor about my next work. It is going to be a young-adult romance book for high-school students. I may live in America, but every time I visit India, I am moved. The protagonist will go through similar experiences when he meets his partner during his first visit to India.”
And before we could let him go, we had to ask him to do ‘the voice’. He laughs but raises his pitch and says, “Hi, everyone. I am Balj-eeet T-jinder from Phineas and Ferb.” One never gets too old for that, clearly.
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