Last year, Maulik Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best of It, is a middle-school book (for readers ages 8 to 12) about a gay Indian-American boy, so it’s about Florida and Texas. Banned in the school district. But the hustle and bustle didn’t deter him from focusing on the same age group in his new novel, Nikhil Out Loud, out this month.
“This second book is like a dialogue with the first,” he said. “It’s the story of a kid who struggles with feeling different.” Pancholy, 48, also an actor, is on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, a busy executive working as his assistant. Probably best known for playing Jonathan. Most recently, he starred in the Hulu comedy show Only Murders in the Building. He lives in his Heights and East Her Hamptons, Brooklyn, with her husband Ryan, who founded and owns a catering company, and her Havanese puppy Arlo.
acting juice Ryan tends to get up before me and always makes me a cup of coffee. I need it When I was working on 30 Rock, Tina Fey once said that coffee is the juice of acting. I agree with that theory 100%.
not a chef Ryan clearly loves to cook. He often makes us brunch. he just spice things up. I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life and he’s great at making things that go with it. He is a great cook and my mother makes great Indian food. I’ve been with them all my life, but I still can’t cook. But I’m pretty good at setting tables.
on the waterfront What I like is walking to the waterfront. There is a real sense of community there. There are volleyball nets, basketball nets and lots of areas for kids. I have a cousin who has a daughter on the Upper East Side. They love coming to Brooklyn just to hang out on the waterfront with us.
men’s design We are renovating our apartment. We are looking for a new sofa. 10 minute walk to Dumbo and visit all the stores you had to go to in Manhattan. Ryan is much more decisive than I am. I don’t know if he’s an artist or an actor, but he likes living in the unknown for a while, and he said, ‘Let’s pull the trigger. It makes us very complementary to each other. We have been together for 18 years.
middle school zone What I do every day, including Sundays, is make an hourly to-do list. From 10:00 to 11:00 I keep doing this. Sometimes I want to work on Sundays because it’s not an official week yet and I feel like I can work in a more relaxed way. I’m visiting a middle school on a book tour and I’m trying to make the presentations as fun as possible. I show them clips of cartoons I’ve been in, such as “Phineas and Ferb,” and pictures of Arlo and the Brooklyn Bridge as a way to draw children into my life. It was like
adult But I can say that I’m starting to learn the value of downtime, especially since Covid. Sometimes I feel like I have a to-do list so big that I could use Sunday as a day to move forward. But when I realized it was causing me burnout and said, “Hey, let’s take some time out to lunch with friends or do some idly furniture shopping,” the next day when I was sitting at my desk It makes me feel better.
dinner improvement Ryan has a garden in East Hampton. Often he would bring in what he had grown, or go to the Brooklyn Farmers’ Market on Saturdays to find ingredients for his dinner, or sometimes call it his pizza night on his Atlantic Avenue street. Or buy a pizza from table 87.
walking, socializing Arlo has a lot of energy, and that energy needs attention. He walks 4 times in his day. And honestly, he’s very friendly and he loves meeting people, so a 30 minute walk is really nice. And I love meeting people so he can meet other dogs and I can meet other dogs too.
framing Every day, I make a gratitude list. that’s really important to me. When I’m really busy, sometimes I feel like, “Oh my God, I have a deadline coming up.” A gratitude list is like, “How cool is it that someone will pay me to write a book?”
diversity tv Then it’s like TV time, time to relax and be together. Founded Act to Change, an anti-bullying nonprofit focused on Asian American and Pacific Islander youth. And as an anti-bullying activist who encourages young people to tell their stories, it’s important to me to see stories on TV. I really enjoy watching shows by creators like Mindy Kaling. I know everyone is already on this bandwagon, but I love Quinta Branson’s Abbott Elementary.
two men and a dog We go to bed at 11:00 or 11:30. Chat in bed before going to bed. It’s often about what needs to be done tomorrow or who’s going for their first morning walk. Sometimes, “Hey, the dog is getting too close to one of our legs. He needs to move.”
Sunday Routine readers can follow Maulik Pancholy on Twitter and Instagram at @MaulikPancholy.