Meera Syal
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Writer and actress Meera Syal was born in 1963 near Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and was educated at Manchester University where she read English and Drama. She co-wrote the script for ‘My Sister Wife’, a three-part BBC Television series, and wrote the film Bhaji on the Beach for Channel 4. She co-writes and is a cast member of the popular BBC Television comedy series ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ and The Kumars at No. 42′. She also works as a journalist and is a regular contributor toThe Guardian. Meera Syal’s childhood experiences growing up in a small mining community provided the background to her first novel, Anita and Me (1996). The novel was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and won a Betty Trask Award. It tells the story of Meena Kumar, a young Asian girl struggling to accommodate the opposing influences of her white school friends and her traditional Punjabi background. Syal’s second novel, Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee(1999), narrates the adventures of three young Asian women growing up in Britain. Continuing with her past style of using elements her own life experiences , her third novel, The House of Hidden Mothers in 2015, is a story of motherhood in mid 40’s. Her work as a writer, in particular in her novel ‘Anita and Me’, successfully explores the contradictions inherent in growing up in modern Britain with immigrant Asian parents, and in living between two cultures. Despite the fact that cultural issues underpin Meera’s work, until recently she had never taken an in-depth look into her family history, or searched for what she describes as her rebel roots. Meera’s parents both originate from the farmlands of the Punjab, in north-west India. Her father, Surendra Syal, hails from a small village called Lasara he though grew up in 1930s Lahore. Meera’s parents met while studying at college in Delhi in the 1950s. They were from different religious backgrounds – Surendra was Hindu, Surinder was a Sikh – but nevertheless, they fell in love. Then for seven years they continued to meet, sometimes at the famous landmarks of Delhi, including India Gate and Lodhi Gardens. Meera Syal was awarded an MBE in 1997 and won the ‘Media Personality of the Year’ award at the Commission for Racial Equality’s annual ‘Race in the Media’ awards (2000), as well as the EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Media Personality of the Year in 2001.
MEERA SYAL on Surrogacy, Identity and a Woman’s Place in India |
The House of Hidden Mothers