Meera Syal

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Meera Syal MBE (born Feroza Syal; 27 June 1961, although her Who's Who entry gives her date of birth as 27 June 1964) is an Asian-British comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42.

She was awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List of 1997 and in 2003 was listed in The Observer as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy.

Beginning of June 2009, Syal is currently starring as Consultant Tara Sodi in Holby City.

Life and career

Her Punjabi-born parents came to England from New Delhi. She was born in Wolverhampton, England and grew up in Essington, a mining village a few miles to the north. She attended Queen Mary's High School in nearby Walsall.

Syal won the National Student Drama Award for writing One of Us while studying English and Drama at Manchester University. She won the Betty Trask Award for her first book Anita and Me and the Media Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality's annual Race in the Media awards in 2000. Syal wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film Bhaji on the Beach. She was one of the team who wrote and performed in the BBC comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me (1996-2001), originally on radio and then on television.

She achieved a number one record with Gareth Gates and her co-stars from The Kumars at No. 42 with Spirit in the Sky, the Comic Relief single. She also sang Then He Kissed Me (composed by Biddu) with the famous pop star from Pakistan Nazia Hassan. Nazia, Syal and Bidddu also came up with the girl band named "Saffron" in 1988^{[citation needed]}. She was given the Nazia Hassan Foundation award in 2003. In October 2008 she starred in the BBC2 sitcom Beautiful People.

In June 2003 she appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme with a selection of music by Nitin Sawhney, Madan Bala Sindhu, Joni Mitchell, Pizzicato Five, Sukhwinder Singh, Louis Armstrong and others. The luxury she chose to ease her life as a castaway was a piano.^[1] As a journalist she writes occasionally for The Guardian.

Personal life

In 2004 she took part in one episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, which investigated her family history.^[2] Syal was apparently surprised to discover both her grandfathers had actively campaigned against British rule and presence in India: one was a communist journalist; the other was a Punjab protestor, who was imprisoned and tortured in the Golden Temple after protesting.

In January 2005, Syal married her frequent collaborator, Sanjeev Bhaskar, who plays her grandson in The Kumars At No. 42; the marriage took place in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Their baby, a boy named Shaan, was born at the Portland Hospital on 2 December 2005. Syal has a daughter called Chameli from her former marriage to journalist Shekhar Bhatia. Her brother is investigative journalist Rajeev Syal.

In February 2009, Syal was one of a number of British entertainers who signed an open letter printed in The Times protesting about the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran.

Writing credits

Screenplays

• Anita and Me (2002)
• Bhaji on the Beach (1993)

Stage

• One of Us (1983)
• The Oppressed Minorities Big Fun Show (1992)
• Goodness Gracious Me (1999)
• Bombay Dreams (2002)

Radio

• Goodness Gracious Me (1996-8)
• Masala FM (1996)

Television

• Tandoori Nights (1985)
• The Real McCoy (1991)
• My Sister Wife (1994)
• Goodness Gracious Me (1998)
• Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (2005)
• Beautiful People (2008)

Novels

• Anita and Me (1996)
• Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999)
• Sari, Jeans und Chilischoten (2003)

Selected acting credits

• The One of Us (1983)
• Majdhar (1983)
• The Diary of Adrian Mole (1985)
• A Little Princess (1986)
• Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987)
• Serious Money (1987)
• Peer Gynt (1990)
• The Real McCoy (1991)
• Gummed Labels (1992)
• Taggart (1992)
• The Oppressed Minorities Big Fun Show (1992)
• Absolutely Fabulous (1994)
• Flight (1995)
• Band of Gold (1995)
• It's Not Unusual (1995)
• Drop The Dead Donkey (1996)
• A Nice Arrangement (1996)
• Beautiful Thing (1996)
• Marsala FM (1996)
• Crossing The Floor (1996)
• Sixth Happiness (1997)
• No Crying He Makes (1998)
• Keeping Mum (1998)
• Legal Affairs (1998)
• The World As We Know It (1999)
• The Vagina Monologues (2001)
• Double Income, No Kids Yet (2001)
• Anita and Me (2002)
• Bad Girls (2004)
• Bombay Dreams (2004)
• Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (2005)
• Murder Investigation Team (2005)
• The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006)
• Rafta Rafta (2006)
• Jekyll (2007)
• Kingdom (2007)
• Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007)
• Beautiful People (2008)
• Holby City (2009-)

Other TV Appearances

• Minder (2009)
• The One Show (2008)
• 8 Out of 10 Cats (2006)
• All About Me
• The Book Quiz (1998)
• The Brain Drain (1993)
• Degrees of Error (1995)
• Have I Got News For You
• Late Lunch (1999)
• New Best Friend (1994)
• QI (2003)
• Room 101 (1999)
• Ruby (1997)
• Sean's Show (1993)
• Sunday East (1986-1987)
• When Were We Funniest? (2008)
• Who Do You Think You Are? (2006)

Academic reception

Her book Anita and Me has found its way onto school and university English syllabuses both in Britain and abroad. Scholarly literature on it includes:

• Rocío G. Davis, "India in Britain: Myths of Childhood in Meera Syal's Anita and Me", in Fernando Galván & Mercedes Bengoechea (ed.), On Writing (and) Race in Contemporary Britain, Universidad de Alcalá 1999, 139-46.

• Ana Maria Sanchez-Arce "Invisible Cities: Being and Creativity in Meera Syal’s Anita and Me and Ben Okri’s Astonishing the Gods", in Philip Laplace and Éric Tabuteau (eds), Cities on the Margin/ On the Margin of Cities: Representations of Urban Space in Contemporary British and Irish Fiction, Besançon: Presses Universitaires Franc-Comtoises, 2003: 113–130.

• Graeme Dunphy, "Meena's Mockingbird: From Harper Lee to Meera Syal", in Neophilologus 88, 2004, 637-59.

References

• Alison Donnell (editor), Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture, ISBN 0-415-16989-5

External links

• Meera Syal at the Internet Movie Database
• British Council: Meera Syal
• In Conversation with Meera Syal, BAFTA webcast, March 2008
• Meera Syal's CV at PFD
• 'I thank the universe for the good stuff' BBC News - 28 February 2009