 "YES, MY ACCENT IS REAL")
YES, MY ACCENT IS REAL
AND SOME OTHER THINGS I HAVEN'T TOLD YOU
Author: Kunal Nayyar
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 245
Price: Rs 375
Kunal Nayyar, the London-born, New Delhi-raised, Los Angeles-based star of American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, in which he plays astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrapali, is out with a memoir. After Tina Fey's Bossypants and Amy Poehler's Yes, Please, comes Nayyar's Yes, My Accent is Real. Nayyar is no match for these seasoned comedians, whose memoirs are hilarious, reflective, super quote-worthy and lessons in the art of life itself. But you can't fault the man for trying.
The book starts with school misadventures such as a nosebleed from a Coca-Cola and "holding hands in the popcorn" (the latter from a chapter titled "My A-Z Guide to getting nookie in New Delhi"). Apparently, before moving to US to study in 1999, Nayyar didn't know how to cook ramen and was unaware that invisible house elves don't come to clean and change your bed sheets while you are away from your room. He went 11 months without changing his sheets and peed on the Delhi roads right before his wedding, proving once again that even the most endearingly suave of Indian men still remain as… Indian as ever (oh don't worry, apparently if you are Indian and making fun of Indians, it's not racism, according to Nayyar.)
It's his sheer earnestness and unassuming nature that keeps him from coming off as a spoiled little brat. Plus America has a way of levelling things out, and Nayyar has to become a garbage man for pocket money one summer. Navigating cultural mix-ups and romantic encounters, a misadventure with a Mormon girl is hilarious and poignant at the same time ("'But you're a Hindu.' Now a few thoughts crossed my mind. Was she asking me? Was she telling me? Did she not know? Did my mouth taste like cumin?").
Some of his humour is still a tad forced, a problem he's acknowledged within the fluid narrative, but it hits the mark often when self-deprecating in tone - he's got that down pat. He has also milked the exotic Indian cliches for all they're worth, but as an Indian I found them mostly unimaginative. Every few chapters are punctuated by humorous and soppy "Thoughts Recorded on an Aeroplane Cocktail Napkin" ("Eating shitty is like a one-night stand. Instant gratification followed by a lot of questions").
The book dwells on his baby steps with acting and how it happened completely by chance: a testament to the fact that nerdy Indian boys will follow pretty girls anywhere, even into theatre auditions. During his first play, Ring Around the Moon, where he played a geriatric butler, he suffered cold rejection and blatant mispronunciations of his name ("Coooonel" and "Kaanal" cracked me up). Acting is a brutal business behind all the glamour, and his stories of rejection are actually quite engaging. He's hard on himself in hindsight, and that imbues his usual flippant self with a sense of accountability and empathy - from his unsuccessful auditions for Broadway plays to how he nailed the Big Bang screen test after a long wait.
It's difficult to disassociate the actor from the person. Raj has always been my favourite character on the show, and my friends and I would always feel that he gets the short end of the stick (when even Sheldon gets a girlfriend and poor Raj is just "forever alone"). Not Nayyar, he's full of rainbows and gratitude, and has penned a poem titled "Always Joy", and compares TV actors to a petting zoo ("Movie stars are much more untouchable. Those are people you watch from afar. They're regal lions. I'm a friendly goat.") His dad seems to have given him his zest for life and all his cute aphorisms that he keeps self-referencing throughout the book. Overall, My Accent is Real is a fun "Metro read" with enough laughs and trivia for TBBT fans.
