Life’s a stage, she is rocking it

The Kumars at No. 42 ran for an epic 53 episodes. Its premise was simple. A family of Indians in the UK, two parents, elderly son who wants to be a talk-show host and the sweater-adorned, hunched, silvery grandma… who doesn’t believe in the words — ‘personal space’. Which is why the very elderly Ummi has been responsible for some of the best improvised lines from the show. Actor Patrick Stewart was on the show once and he was asked about the spandex suit worn by his character Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and how it was “boldly showing what no man has shown before”.

The audience were felled and the very impressed Picard then went on to explain how the body-hugging “cloth” nearly cost him his health. And if that wasn’t enough Ummi then went on to ask why there were no Indians aboard the Enterprise. “Don’t you need IT support?” Stewart revealed there indeed was an Indian character named “Singh” but the producers ejected the actor out because “he wasn’t very good.” Syal’s Ummi became so popular that Kumars at No. 42 soon found itself being beamed in Australia, sparked a version in Russia and Switzerland.

Meera Syal is one of the foremost Indian-origin humorists in Britain currently… working as an author, actor, writer for the stage and on May 6 of this year found recognition in a well-deserved CBE for her invaluable contributions to the Arts. Her latest book, The House of Hidden Mothers (revolving around the dangers of surrogate motherhood), is finding prominent place on shelves worldwide, Syal tells us that the inspiration was found early, and nearby. “Most artists are outsiders in one way or another and always seeking to see the bigger picture, to find their place in it, to communicate, to tell the stories that no one may have heard before.

My early childhood was remarkable in so many ways which is why I decided to capture it in my first novel, Anita And Me. There’s no one specific event, but the whole experience of growing up in a white working class mining village (Essington, near Wolverhampton) as the outsider, belong and yet not belonging, I think is what awakened all my creative desires.”

She once said that she was so fat, she had to be funny. “I just ate a lot. Probably some of it was frustration. I felt isolated as a child because I was different. I stuck out like a sore thumb.” An emotional chaos continued into adulthood with a painful divorce in 2002. She was married to journalist Shekhar Bhatia. Besides explaining the trauma, she had this to say, “Asian women don’t go in for divorce. We’re not allowed to. So it was done with a great deal of pain and regret. Of course, you then start talking to people and find out that it’s been happening all over the place and for many years. It’s just kept very, very quiet. There have always been bad marriages.”

Syal has often allowed the jokes to speak openly about issues that continue to haunt society — problems so personal and stigmatic they are rarely discussed under a public lens and women — the most affected — find themselves screaming in silence. Surrogacy is one of them. “It’s a complex, layered issue which is why I wanted to write about it, and there are many issues to consider: There is a reason India’s surrogacy industry is the largest in the world, it’s at the moment unregulated and significantly cheaper than most other countries and there are rightly real concerns about how some areas of it are being run, specifically when it comes to the treatment of the surrogate women themselves who are inevitably poor and often illiterate.

It is also true that there are many dedicated professionals working in this field who truly believe they offer a valuable win-win service where a couple suffering the pain of infertility gain a longed for child and a poor woman can make a life transforming amount of money. The bald fact is, however, Indian women are paid far less than their Western counterparts for the same service and have much less protection.”

Surrogacy is one of many social troubles Syal has focussed on. She has previously hosted a TV documentary on self-harm (A world of Pain) and regularly writes columns on ‘Asian concerns’ in the UK and the Europe beyond. And she simply loves the melting pot that Britain has become. “Ah yes, we are certainly making our mark! Apparently Indians are the ethnic group with the biggest proportion of millionaires in the UK, not to mention the diversity of talent in acting/writing/music, which I’m very proud to be a part of.

Britain hosts so many different cultures now and especially where I live in London, walking down the street is like travelling the world in one street. I love the energy and new voices and influences all these cultures have brought to Britain, though of course not everyone feels that way.”

So, overall, with the awards, the theatre, the books and the general writing, Syal now finds herself comfortable. That sore thumb from the distant mining town has grown on to become a very fine entertainer and a speaker. The question now is... what’s next? “Life tends to go in cycles, there are madly busy times and also those periods when you wonder if your phone will ever ring again. I am now learning to enjoy the less busy times more as it’s also about the quality of life, not just the work.”