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.”

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“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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