The writer and actor talks about her family
We lived in Essington, a mining village close to Walsall, in the West Midlands. It was a very rural, working-class upbringing and one of my earliest memories is walking through a cornfield with my dad. My early years were a riot of earthy smells, outside loos, fun in fields and windy bus stops. And lots and lots of fresh air and freedom.
Inside our Punjabi household the atmosphere was one of familiarity and solidity, but outside the house things sometimes felt threatening. I have vivid memories of my parents and all their friends talking about a certain speech that Enoch Powell made. I always thought that the reason there were packed suitcases on top of every wardrobe was that we might have to leave the country in the middle of the night because of Enoch Powell. It was only years later that I realised that everybody’s families had suitcases on top of the wardrobe.
Punjabis are the cockneys of India. They are party people – gregarious, outgoing, very entrepreneurial, sharp-witted, loud, meat-eaters. Back in the Punjab, they are basically earthy, rural workers. And that was very much the atmosphere when we had friends around. It was incredibly noisy, loads of music, lots of loud voices and drinking, and I thought that was normal until I went to other people’s houses and I was shocked to discover that sometimes people’s families say nothing to each other during dinner.
Our family had parallels with Victorian families, too, in that at social occasions everybody was expected to get up and do a turn, which would have been awful if you were a shy child. I used to enjoy it and would perform my rendition of Marie Osmond’s Paper Roses.
My parents were incredibly brave to back me when I announced that I wanted to do English and drama at university. They never pronounced that they wanted me to become a doctor in the way that a lot of other Indian parents do – “A liver is a liver in any country,” one of my uncles used to say – and, understandably because they were economic migrants, they wanted their children to be economically stable too. They could see I was passionate about it. Their theory was – and they’re absolutely right, and I’ll try to say it to my children – that if you are passionate about something, you will be successful at it because you really, really want to do it.
My brother Rajeev was like my little doll when he was born. He’s seven years younger and I used to feed him and change him. He says I used to boss him about but I don’t think I did. He was a typical, “annoying little brother”, when I was a teenager and we had all the usual spats. Now we’re very close and there’s only 10 weeks between our sons so they are too.
Being a parent for the second time is infinitely more knackering. My daughter Chameli from my first marriage [to Shakhar Bhatia] is 17 now and my son Shaan, from my second marriage [to Sanjeev Bhaskar], was born in 2005, when I was 44. I’ve got much less energy this time – that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it as much but keeping up with a four-and-half-year-old boy is quite exhausting. It’s like looking after a boisterous puppy. But this time round I do have a lot more wisdom and experience.
Meera Syal is encouraging everyone to have a Pink Fridays party to raise money for the Breast Cancer Care. Visit breastcancercare.org.uk/pinkfridays
