Meera Syal

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

My castaway this week is an actor and a writer. She was born in a Midlands mining village to a family which had emigrated from the Punjab. A dutiful daughter and clever, she went to the local girls' high school and then to Manchester University. She'd pretended she'd like to become a doctor, but secretly she'd always yearned to write and perform. She didn't have to wait long. She was snapped up by the Royal Court Theatre in London, and before she was thirty, she'd written a three-part series for the BBC. And then came the big one, Goodness Gracious Me, transferred from Radio 4 to BBC Two, and it became an instant hit. The same brand of humour is now getting good ratings in the Kumars at number 42. She's the grandma. All this success represents a coming of age for Asian culture in Britain today, and she is at the heart of it. Brown is the new black, she's claimed. Not entirely seriously, I suspect. And more in earnest, she said, Cultural schizophrenia made my whole generation sparky and creative. She is Mira Syal.

Meera Syal1:01

Uh

Presenter1:23

Or perhaps you were serious about Brown is the new black. I'm not sure. But tell me, you know, how did it manifest itself? When do you feel it became trendy to be Asian?

Presenter1:33

Ooh, I can't put an exact date on it, but I would say around about the time of goodness gracious me. So it's the last five, seven years, huh? Yes, there was a sudden flowering of my generation that had been born and brought up here, but obviously had Indian or Pakistani parents. Unlike our parents, we regard this as home. And we weren't just going to be passive onlookers in society. We were part of it and we found a voice and wanted to express that creatively. And Goodness Gracious Me kind of encapsulated that kind of statement. We're bran, we're pran, we're here. I think that's what people picked up on. So you get, I mean, and it did become the classic, didn't it, about the Indian yobs going into the English restaurant? As opposed to vice versa. Absolutely, that has become a classic, going for an English, which was a complete role reversal. Very, very simple idea. It's a bunch of young Indians going to an English restaurant in Bombay, asking for the blandest thing on the menu and calling the waiter Clive of India. And I think suddenly it held up this mirror to British society.

Presenter2:38

And there was a feeling that, oh my god, is that how we behave in your restaurants? Yes, we do. Oh my god, and you noticed?

Presenter2:45

And I think a lot of goodness gracious me worked on that level, that it was it was affectionate, but it was quite pointed. It was an admittance that you have your prejudices, we have ours, we can laugh at you, we can also laugh at ourselves. So it's a very fair show in that way.

Presenter3:01

And now of course we have Bombay Dreams on in the West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber producing. I mean, is that a a symbol of having arrived, this culture having arrived?

Presenter3:11

Well, I think if you'd said even five years ago that there was going to be a successful West End musical based on Bollywood with an all Asian cast, I certainly wouldn't have believed it. Things have happened quite rapidly. But is it a one off? You know? I mean, are we going to have another one in two years' time, or perhaps we don't get another one for ten years, you know? I doubt it's just a fashion.

Presenter3:31

It could be in some ways. I think certainly, you know, that whole statement about brand being the new black wo there's this though I was slightly cynical when I said it. Um nobody wants to be Flavour of the Month. I don't. And when the fashion's over, we're all still going to be here. But I think if you're smart, you use it to some extent. You use the fact that people are suddenly interested

Presenter3:50

in other influences, cultural influences. But after that, if you survive, that is really up to what you produce and your talent. Words will survive. You've got a word now in the Oxford English Dictionary that you've invented, have you, Chuddies?

Presenter4:04

Well, I didn't invent it. It was the two bunga muffins, and goodness gracious me, yes. The phrase kiss my juddies. It's like the Bart Simpson Indian thing, eat my shorts.

Presenter4:13

Yes, Chuddy's got into the Oxford English Dictionary, which means you can legitimately use it next time you play Scrabble, sir. Chuddy, C H U D D I E S.

Speaker 44:22

Yeah.

Presenter4:23

Okay, first record.

Presenter4:25

Tell me about that one. This is a song by a fantastic musician called Nitin Sawney. Nitin mixes classical Indian influences with jazz and the result is fresh, beautiful and sometimes confrontational.

Meera Syal4:55

If I get set in the sun

Meera Syal5:01

Tis falling

Meera Syal5:03

Rain falling.

Meera Syal5:05

There's a fire with the sun

Presenter5:09

Nitin Sorney's Sunset. So, Mira Sahal, we've had this explosion really of Asian humour, whether it's goodness gracious me or the Kumars at number 42, suddenly attracting a mainstream white audience. What do you think what have you done differently that's made that audience come to it? What is it that the white audience likes about that humour or finds attractive?

Presenter5:30

I think the main thing was that it was unapologetic. It came at the end of a long period of political correctness where people became very scared of writing Asian characters that were anything but noble and long-suffering. Very boring to play, I have to tell you. And here we came along going, well, you know, we don't know if it makes you laugh, it makes us laugh, there's a bit of Hindi in it, we don't really care if you don't get it or not. I mean, we had nothing to lose. Because your observations of your family or the nature of Indian culture or whatever. Yeah, absolutely.

Presenter5:59

A lot of the humour is family-based, and it really came from us sitting down as a group sharing weird stuff that had happened in our childhoods. Like what? Give me an example.

Presenter6:09

You know, I'd turn around and say, do your parents keep suitcases on top of the wardrobe and have plastic on the sofa? And everyone would go, Yes, what's that about? And also relatives. I mean, relatives are a huge source of humour. The aunties and the uncles. They exploited them shamelessly and they should be very annoyed with us. But that was another root of it. I mean, you've even had them, you know, endlessly getting out of tiny motor cars, great sort of hordes of aunties wrapped in saris. Yes, that was my childhood. I mean, we grew up communally and I loved it, actually. But quite shocking for a white audience in the sense that you will make jokes like how many Asian women does it take to change a light bulb.

Meera Syal6:22

Be on

Meera Syal6:23

Okay, so

Speaker 46:37

Uh

Presenter6:48

Yes, you know the answer is Don't worry about me, I'll sit in the dark.

Presenter6:52

Exactly. Which apparently works with Jewish women too. I've Jewish mothers, I'm told, by my Jewish friends. But there's the root of why, goodness gracious me, worked. At the end of the day, it was very universal humour. And the best humour is however culturally specific you are, the humour that really works. It works because it's funny and it touches something that we all recognise. It works because it's genuine. And there's a lot in common, is there, not with the kind of Indian culture and the Jewish culture. Again, there's the mother thing very much at the same time. Absolutely. Mothers, guilt, food, spoiling your sons. We are the same people, separated by a tan, really. Very similar to Indians. We can be found all over the world with the suitcases on top of the wardrobe and the plastic on the sofa. Listen, we all have suitcases. I don't know whether it's a particularly Indian or Jewish thing, but it's a Midland thing, but it is, you never know. But how much do you think? I mean, obviously, the ability to poke fun at yourself, and of course, you can do it if it's genuine. I mean, it's much more difficult for Bernard Manning to do it, it seems to me. Or if you're blacked up in any way. I mean, you can only do it if you are it, can't you? Absolutely.

Speaker 27:12

It will

Meera Syal7:20

Absolutely.

Meera Syal7:33

Listen, we all have seats.

Speaker 27:40

Yeah.

Presenter7:57

It's a difference between impersonation and being honest, talking from your experience. But if all of that feeds into helping fuel the popularity of Asian culture, which we are now saying has come of age, how much does it help combat racism?

Presenter8:16

I think it does an awful lot. I think that a well placed joke can probably do as much good as three hours of a political speech. Because once you understand a group of people emotionally, it's much harder for you to dismiss them as them.

Presenter8:32

Record number two. I had to choose this record from one of my favourite films, Monsoon Wedding. This whole song is taken from a scene where it's the girl's hen night and all the female relatives are sitting around singing rather rude songs about the groom. These were the same songs that I grew up with. I remember my auntie sitting around singing these songs at that point. Didn't know what they were singing. Now I do and I'm quite shocked. I wish I'd had a translator then.

Speaker 49:22

I got out.

Presenter9:30

Mendy Madarama Pincha from the film Monsoon Wedding performed by Madam Bala Sindhu. So I I mean I got Calvin Klein and more whiskey in there, but what were your aunties singing about then at when you were little that shocked you so much? Oh, well they were quite rude.

Presenter9:45

I can say I'm radio for soon. What you'd expect from ladies on a hen night, I mean, you know, not pornographic, but there was a lot of double entendre, a lot of jokes about, well, tomorrow night you're going to find out what it's all about, being a married woman, that kind of thing. Which, given that my aunties were these very serene, well-behaved, proper ladies, it was amazing to see on occasions like that their sense of wicked fun. But they weren't necessarily your aunties. I mean, auntie is one of those words. Oh, it's a generic term. Any older woman was an auntie. Yes. And they all used to come round. So in a sense, you're this house that you lived in, which is a little terraced house with a lavatory in the yard, a little mining village.

Meera Syal10:10

But they weren't necessarily

Meera Syal10:13

Oh, it's a generic term.

Meera Syal10:16

Yeah.

Meera Syal10:24

Mm.

Presenter10:25

Wa was kind of little India itself, was it inside the house? But outside, this is the schizophrenia, isn't it? Outside, you've got this whole kind of Midlands industrial working class culture. Absolutely. I would literally have to swap accents and attitudes. You know, inside the house I was very well behaved and I would talk about my studies and I would have my mother in the kitchen. And then outside the house, I'd be talking like this, and then going down the park. Yeah, I'm a wench, just like you. Can I try your shoes on? And did you have a girl next door, as in your your novel, Anita and Me, who was sort of curvy and blonde and everything you weren't and wanted to be?

Meera Syal10:32

Yeah.

Meera Syal10:37

Go absolutely.

Presenter11:03

There were a bunch of older girls that I kind of amalgamated into Anita who I absolutely worshipped and I would pathetically follow them round in my mum's sling bags and tissues stuffed down my vest, hoping that they'd let me into the gang. Um but luckily I

Presenter11:18

I think I realized, you know, through that relationship, as Meena does in the book, that there are points where they will never be friends, because as Meena and as I realized really where I was coming from,

Presenter11:32

It became clear that that friendship couldn't survive it. But Mina was trying to, therefore, in order to become part of the gang and part of the wenches, deny who she was. Is that what you're trying to do? Yeah, I think you do go through a stage. Except that you were this other thing as well. That's the point, isn't it? When you've been born in this country then and you're going to school with these kids, even though you're in the minority, you are part of them. And that's the dilemma, isn't it?

Meera Syal11:40

Yeah, it's

Meera Syal11:44

Except

Presenter11:56

Who are you? It's the dilemma, and you do have to sort out quite early on who you are, or you are going to face a life of self-hatred. And you did a lot of that, and I think that's a good idea.

Presenter12:06

Not as much as a lot of other friends, because really mainly because of my parents, who were so laid back and so loving and really instilled a sense of pride in me quite early on. But the pride, I mean, would be there anyway, and I wanted to ask you about that, because your parents, although they lived in this very working class area, I mean, your parents were professionals. Your mother was a teacher, your father was an accountant.

Presenter12:28

So that although they were friendly with the neighbours, there was again a sense in Anita and me of keeping their precious daughter apart from this kind of influence in man. I wouldn't say apart. But all their friends were Hindu Punjabi. They knew who they felt comfortable with. And you have to remember that our parents took the brunt of the whole immigration and adaptation process. I can't imagine the kind of struggle and racism they went through. Well indeed and we're talking what, a few miles from Wolverhampton where Enoch Bowell made his rhythm speech. That's why the suitcases went off the wardrobe in case we had to run away very, very quickly. I think. I think that was symbolic of that.

Meera Syal12:53

Good

Meera Syal12:56

Yeah.

Meera Syal13:01

I think

Presenter13:03

I no, I've I've only got a glimpse actually into what they went through.

Presenter13:08

I want to ask you some more about that, but let's pause for um record number three.

Presenter13:12

Bob and Marcy are Young, Gifted and Black. This was the first song I remember hearing that.

Presenter13:18

actually was talking about

Presenter13:21

Pride, self-pride, racially. And my abiding memory of certainly this song is watching a bunch of white Midland girls all bopping along and singing Oh, Yam Young, Gifted and Black and I thought, you know, if music can do that, I'm all for it.

Speaker 413:39

Yeah.

Speaker 413:42

Oh, how I long to know the truth. There were times when I look back.

Speaker 413:50

And I am haunted by my you all but my choice of today

Speaker 413:59

Is that we can all be proud to say to be young

Speaker 414:04

It's been a moment.

Speaker 414:07

Is where it's at

Presenter14:08

Bob and Marcia and young, gifted and black. So, uh Mira Sal, there was a a lot of angst about identity. How painful did it get? I mean, what about at school? And were you

Presenter14:18

the butt of any kind of taunts. Oh yeah, that was kind of

Presenter14:23

You took that as road. It was the experience of all immigrant kids growing up in Britain. But there was a moment, wasn't there, when you cut your finger that was quite telling.

Presenter14:33

Oh, that was at infant school, yeah. I did. I cut my finger on one of those silver milk bottle tops. You know, in those days you used to go to school milk. All the kids gathered around because they were amazed that my blood was red. And that's when I I mean, I was only about four and I thought, my god, they really think we're an alien race. They don't even think that my blood would be the same colour. And that was kind of typical of a lot of the racism, certainly in the late 60s when I was at infant school, because it was curiosity and it was fascination and it was ignorance. It wasn't vicious. It's really later on in the mid-70s, late 70s, when I was a teenager, with the rise of the National Front, that the racism changed from that kind of curiosity to just nastiness, a deliberate nastiness. So there was a change in the tone. But your parents would have known it. Your parents would have felt the resonance of the politics of the time, wouldn't they? Absolutely. They were in the front line. All our parents were. I don't remember the Rivers of Blood speech in 68, but certainly I remember my mum and dad talking about it. I also remember them talking about around about the same time there was a Tory MP in Birmingham who was campaigning under the slogan, If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour, which was kind of extraordinary. And then you understand. When you put it in context like that, you really understand why a parents' generation

Meera Syal15:15

So that was a ch

Meera Syal15:16

But you

Presenter15:52

Did decide to stick together and were clannish, but were protective.

Meera Syal15:55

But we're protecting.

Presenter15:57

Why do you say and I quoted you at the beginning as saying this that all of that experience made you creative and sparky?

Presenter16:05

Lots of different reasons. Firstly, that I was asked very early on who I thought I was. Where do you come from? Why don't you go back to where you come from? These are questions that most people never have to think about. I had to think about them at a very early age. So quite early on, you are questioning your sense of belonging and identity.

Presenter16:23

And how you're going to express that. That's my theory personally of why so many of my generation have turned to different art forms, because very early on we had to go, this is who I am, this is what I think, this is how I'm going to express it.

Presenter16:42

Joni Mitchell was a huge influence on my student days. There's something so vulnerable and painfully beautiful about her voice that takes me right back to those days, really.

Speaker 216:55

In my blood, like holy wine, it tastes so pure.

Speaker 217:02

And so sweet o

Speaker 217:06

Peace of you and I.

Speaker 217:12

Still I'll be almighty, I will still be your mind.

Presenter17:23

Joni Mitchell and A Case of You. So you'd been a good girl, Mary. You'd passed your eleven plus to Walsall Girls' High School. Queen Mary's High School for Girls. Still going. Covered in ivy and smelling of furniture polish. Classic girls' high.

Meera Syal17:30

Oh yes.

Presenter17:39

Absolutely. Even we had cloisters and everything, yeah. How smart. Yes, it was. It was a very big deal and uh the uniforms were pretty amazing too. And those we had to wear tam o' shanters. That was uh compulsory. You were fined if you didn't wear your woolly tartan hat on the way home. You can imagine how popular that made us with the other kids in the area.

Presenter18:01

And then you went off to Manchester University to read English and drama, not medicine, which presumably your parents were disappointed.

Presenter18:07

No, no, I think they they gave up when I was about thirteen when it became clear that I was squeamish at the sight of blood and couldn't do math. So I think they just gave up gracefully and um made a very wise decision, realized I had an aptitude for languages and arts and to decide to do that.

Meera Syal18:19

But that was quite a

Meera Syal18:22

Decide.

Presenter18:23

And on theirs to let me do it, because they realized if I loved something, then I'd probably do it well. Now, you've described yourself as an outsider, as it were, along the way. Am I not right? I think there was another reason you were a bit of an outsider in all this, because you were also quite large by this stage, aren't you? You're pretty, very delicately so. Okay, so you were a fatty.

Meera Syal18:24

Yeah.

Meera Syal18:28

Uh

Speaker 218:39

Print up.

Speaker 218:40

Okay, so you were

Presenter18:44

I was of a certain stature, as a teenager. Didn't my mother put you on a diet? Oh, she tried. But that's the thing. It becomes a battleground. It it is actually about self-esteem. And the minute you stop worrying about it, the way it actually comes off. So what was the miraculous moment when, you know, the weight fell from you and you knew who you were? What happened to bring that about?

Meera Syal18:46

Yes?

Meera Syal18:50

Oh, is it true?

Presenter19:08

I think it was just when I started to do what I really had wanted to do all my life probably.

Presenter19:15

I think it was the end of years of hoping and frustration. I just felt so grateful to be studying a subject, two subjects that I'd adored and never thought I'd get a chance to do. And it wasn't that I was a swat really, it was actually that I just was so passionate about literature and about performing. I never thought I'd ever get the chance to do it, that I absolutely threw myself into all the productions I could get my hands on. And then there was this big one, wasn't there, that went to Edinburgh and was a great success, the one woman play. One of us. Yes. That was the the break I suppose. I mean I was meant to be going on to do an MA.

Meera Syal19:47

Each one of us.

Presenter19:54

And then this one woman show went to Edinburgh and got spotted by a director at the Royal Court and I was offered an equity card. And I thought this is ridiculous. I can't not take this job and just find out if I'm any good at this. So from my life being mapped out completely, everything went to pot and I just went, Okay, packed my bag and off I went to London.

Presenter20:12

Music Oh the Kinks Waterloo Sunset well

Presenter20:16

It somehow epitomised what I thought The Capital was all about, and I still think it is the ultimate love song to London.

Speaker 220:24

As I gaze on, waterless sunset, I am in paradise.

Speaker 420:35

Yeah.

Speaker 420:37

No one

Speaker 220:38

Mm-hmm. Sam and Oliver.

Speaker 220:43

Chilly chilly is evening time Waterloo sunsets fine Waterloo sunsets fine

Presenter20:52

Kinks and Waterloo Sunset. You spent seven years, I think, after university acting in the theatre, although you were writing bits and pieces at the same time. You were in Sue Townsend's Celestial Cow, weren't you in Carol Churchill's Serious Mind? I did some fantastic work, um new work in the theatre, yeah. How many roles did you get? That weren't specifically for an Asian actress? Loads in the theatre. Yeah, the theatre's always been way ahead of television and film. I think every single part I was ever called up for, certainly when I put a toe into television, was specifically for an Asian part. Mostly, you know, either Mrs. Patel with Three Lines in the Corner Shop, or Victim of Arranged Marriage, or maybe a woman in Raj quartet kind of fantasy.

Meera Syal21:15

You did.

Presenter21:38

Relentlessly unchallenging, really, and such a contrast to the work I was doing in the theatre, and also to.

Presenter21:44

The kind of women that I knew and I grew up with, and I thought, you know, I don't know, I don't recognize these creations.

Meera Syal21:50

Yeah.

Presenter21:53

It still is. It's got a little better, but I would still say that three quarters of the time it still does say Asian on the script. Not that one doesn't want to play a good Asian part, the difference is the Asian parts are good now. You mentioned arranged marriages earlier on. You tried that once, didn't you?

Presenter22:10

No, my grandfather tried to hitch me up. Yeah, I went to India for the first time on my own when I was 22. I arrived to find three sacks of mail sitting in my granddad's little front room. He'd advertised you, hadn't he? Yeah, without my permission, in the Hindustan Times. He said, well, I thought you were coming over, you know, and you know, we might as well. I said, you didn't put British passport in the ad, did you, Grandad? Yes, I mentioned it. Oh, no.

Meera Syal22:21

He'd advertised you, hadn't he?

Presenter22:35

That's why there's three sacks of mail. Actually, I've still got some of the letters. Fantastic. But did you meet any of the men? Yes, I did. I mean, I'm really not against it. I think arranged marriage can work if you're in that right zone. However, what I couldn't cope with is the fact that at the end of one meeting, these Indian men did think

Meera Syal22:39

It's a digital

Presenter22:53

Well, now we need to know. And I thought, you know, I need a bit more time than two hours at a hotel having a coffee, really. So they take you home on the phones, would they?

Meera Syal23:00

Can I take you home on the phone?

Presenter23:03

They proposed in the taxi on the way back from the first date.

Presenter23:06

Yeah. And it was very valuable for me because I really did know by the end of that experience this method was not for me. Not that it doesn't work for anybody else, but that was a part of me that that couldn't adapt. That being who you were, you couldn't kind of wrench a thousand years of Indian culture into you in nineteen nineties Britain, I suppose.

Presenter23:28

No, and I think the the hang-up that I've got rid of, and it and I got rid of it because I went to India, is that

Presenter23:35

You know, Yuan's definition of Indian and being a good Indian woman is so subjective.

Presenter23:41

I was brought up a certain way. You know, I was told that good Indian girls did this, that, and the other. I go to India, and the first thing my cousin said to me when I got off the plane is, God, what are you wearing? It's old fashioned yard.

Presenter23:53

And I thought, oh, you're wearing jeans, and I put my Indian suit on. Come on, let's go and have pizza. Oh, actually, I felt like eating some Indian food. Oh, God, no. And suddenly, your whole perceptions of what it means to be Indian completely goes up to the past. Well, yours were your parents' generation, I suppose. But you haven't allowed for India to move on. India has moved on incredibly. It's more sophisticated in places than we are over here. You go to Bangalore, it's like some high-tech silicone chip city. And that is why it's so important to keep going back because you can get stuck in this immigrant bubble where you have your definitions of what your culture is. Your culture is moving on without you.

Meera Syal24:06

But yours, for your

Presenter24:28

I met some incredible women out there who really got rid of that whole hang-up. You know, I'm an Indian woman, I'm also British, I find the two greatly integrated and I don't measure myself by anybody else's standards. Now I know it's a completely subjective definition. Pizzicato 5 is this rather crazy Japanese jazz combo and I love this song because it's got a real sense of fun and it's a song that my daughter and I play when we're driving along on the school run and she incredibly she knows a whole chorus in Japanese which I think means she's a very very smart child and the education has not been wasted.

Meera Syal25:12

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Meera Syal25:16

It came with that.

Speaker 425:17

Me and the

Meera Syal25:18

What do you know about this?

Presenter25:38

Itza Cato Five with Twiggy Twiggy. And then after everything came Bombay Dreams, which you wrote the book of, yeah? And now you're rewriting it because it's going to Broadway. How do you have to how do you perceive the difference in the nature of the audience? What are you rewriting for with what in mind?

Presenter25:55

The knowledge about Indian culture is a lot less for the American public. I mean, we really take for granted actually how much the British know about Asian culture now. You know, you can't even use word like chapati freely in New York. I mean, and that's a sophisticated city. We're a very invisible little group over there, powerful. There's a lot of very successful Indians, but culturally they don't know that much about us. And so we just have to

Speaker 226:17

Yeah.

Presenter26:23

We have to simplify it in ways actually, just so that, you know, they don't get too scared.

Presenter26:30

And in the meantime, the Kumars at number 42 goes from strength to strength. You play the grandma, as we know. Is it based on your grandma? It's based on a number of amazing grannies that I've met really through my childhood and over the years who, again, completely define every stereotype you have of an older Indian woman, because generally an old woman is invisible in society. You're the least important member of society. And they've seen it all, done it all, and got the t-shirt, and nobody's going to tell them what to do anymore. And indeed, they don't with Granny Kumar. No, and I just wanted to pay homage really to that whole bunch of women that have this incredible spirit and and fun. And who drool over Donny Osmond and because they can. Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen, right? Well, nobody takes the flirting seriously because it's a granny. Although, of course, you know, I am underneath all the makeup thinking, quote, but you know. Well, Mike, there we are. You have played quite a few

Meera Syal27:11

Lawrence Llewellyn Berg.

Presenter27:23

Older women, women older than yourself, certainly the grandma, but I mean I'm also thinking about the auntie in Anita and me and sort of middle-aged over-the-hill showbiz journalists, Smita Smith characters. When are you going to play, you know, what you are? When are you going to be offered, I suppose, a good, strong, forty-year-old

Meera Syal27:30

Yeah.

Speaker 427:30

Yeah.

Meera Syal27:35

Oh yes.

Presenter27:45

Irrelevant if she's Asian, romantic lead. That would be really nice. I mean, I do enjoy playing women without vanity. I think vanity for an actress is a killer, actually. The minute you start worrying about does your bum look big and that, or is your lip liner alright, you're not really doing your job. And I think that's why I've been attracted to so many women that are quirky or unusual or just plain, ugly. Because, in a way, it's those women that have had to work twice as hard to be charismatic and interesting. Record number seven.

Presenter28:17

I had to choose a song from Bombay Dreams really because it's been a big part of my life for the last couple of years and this song is A Wedding Kavali. A Kavali is a very traditional Asian song which is structured around question and response and often gets very passionate, it's full of religious devotion and Sukhvinder Singh who sings this certainly captures that.

Meera Syal28:29

Is that

Meera Syal28:39

Lehmato Katang Kilgaya.

Meera Syal28:44

Tapana limilish madai, shocking all they give to the die, taped a limilish mada ye, chocolate, paradi para.

Speaker 428:55

Peraji Peraji Pera mela paraji paje bahaji bani de la la Sura tura mila tura.

Presenter29:05

AR Raymond's The Wedding Kavali from the stage show Bombay Dreams performed by Sukhvinda Singh. How, um, Mira Saal, how different is life for your daughter from the way it was for you? And again, one's thinking of um the you character Meena in Anita and me. How does your daughter about the same age, of course, ten years old, how does your daughter's life differ from hers?

Presenter29:29

Well, on a on a purely obvious and practical level, her classroom is like a meeting of the UN. That's incredibly different to how I grew up. My culture was a a little hidden thing that I only shared with people inside my house. It wasn't reflected anywhere outside. So she is third generation, a British Asian, is much more comfortable in her own skin. She knows who she is. She's more...

Meera Syal29:42

Right.

Presenter29:52

Assimilated in every way, yes? I think so, and also much more assimilated to the reality of life, certainly in London, is that London is many, many cultures and she sees the interest and beauty in each one, and so do her friends, and I I love that. But also being the the daughter of a successful Asian woman, then she's obviously mixing in rather more enlightened circles. As we know, there are still people out there. I mean the BNP suddenly, you know, makes huge inroads at the last local election. You know, it isn't all sweetness and light, is it? Not at all. But that's why it's even more important, I think, that children like her are growing up with a compassion and an empathy for different voices. But how do you think it will be for her children? Do you think multicultural Britain will truly then have arrived?

Presenter30:40

I suspect we could be into an abfab situation. My daughter may end up at 22 saying, Mum, can you get me an arranged marriage, please? Because, you know, you're hopeless.

Presenter30:49

You find that every generation wants to swing against the generation before, and I see pockets of that with young men particularly that decide to go into fundamentalism because that's what gives them a sense of identity. So it's very difficult to tell. I think all you can do with your children is offer them a cornucopia of choices and say, Look, you come from an ancient and beautiful culture. Some bits of it are terrible and oppressive, and I don't expect you to think that's tradition. But it's up to you to decide which are the blessings that you want to take forward with you. Last piece of music.

Presenter31:22

Louis Armstrong has a quite a profound effect on me and this particular song I think is just one of the most romantic songs ever written and truly if somebody sang this to me under my balcony I would have to marry them.

Speaker 431:34

And when you kiss me, heaven opens wide.

Speaker 431:43

And there you are, inviting me inside.

Speaker 431:50

Wonder Angel that I'm standing at

Speaker 431:55

Fantastic.

Speaker 431:57

Fantastic that you.

Presenter32:04

Louis Armstrong and Fantastic, that's you. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Mira, which one would you take?

Presenter32:11

I think it would have to be Young Gifted in Black because it's got a positive message, it would keep me upbeat until I was rescued, and I could jig about to it too and keep fit.

Presenter32:19

So the book. Um we give you complete works of Shakespeare. We give you the Bible, but you don't want the Bible, do you? Well, I I'd quite like to take the Bhagavad Gita actually, which is the ancient Hindu text, just because I've never really studied that properly and this would be a fantastic opportunity to actually read the whole thing. Okay, but what about your own book?

Presenter32:38

I'd like to take a Hindi English dictionary because my vocabulary is appalling. I can get through talking to relatives, but really I need to extend the yes, the no and yes, I'd like another one of those, please. I'd like to have a bigger vocabulary, so I think I'll take that. And your luxury.

Presenter32:54

A piano. I had two years of piano lessons which I absolutely loved and then they all stopped because my brother was born and life got very busy and I've always regretted that I didn't continue. So I could finally get to. It's going to be very self-improving on your island. I know, I think it's the only way to survive it really. Look forward to something and come off a better person, you know. Mira Sal, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is. Thank you.

Speaker 233:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.