Dame Meera Syal: 12 Years Caring For My Parents & Surviving Divorce

Begin Again with Davina McCall

Dame Meera Syal joins Davina McCall to reflect on a life defined by both profound loss and incredible resilience. She discusses the grueling

Key takeaways

• Meera Syal describes the experience of dementia as a 'slow, long goodbye' during her years of caregiving.
• She reflects on the complex emotions of receiving an MBE while acknowledging the colonial history that displaced her father from Lahore.

Main topics

• Caregiving and dementia
• British Asian identity

Notable quotes

Your greatest revenge is to be happy.

Conclusion

A deeply moving testament to the ability to find light and purpose eve

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) I was homeless, sleeping on floors, and it would have been really easy to go, I can't do this. But Speaker 2 (0:05) I don't think I'm the piece of fucked Speaker 1 (0:07) up shit I thought I was, because your greatest revenge is to be happy. But we had no idea this is what was coming next. Speaker 2 (0:17) Today, I'm speaking to one of Britain's most celebrated actresses, Dame Meera Sayal. Speaker 1 (0:22) If you'd have told 10-year-old me I'd Speaker 2 (0:24) be Speaker 1 (0:24) making a living out of the thing, I'd have loved more than anything. I would not have believed you, and here I am. But it's not easy, and I'd only been in the business about a year, year and a half. Money had run out, luck had run out, but my parents didn't think being creative was a waste of time. And this director said, I've just seen your show, I'm about to do a nine-month tour, and would you like to be in it? It was like the universe was saying, go and try. Make your parents proud. But then what happened next? Both my parents got ill at the same time. My mum had cancer and my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It was probably the hardest phase of my life because all you can think about is this is the cruelest disease. Speaker 2 (1:04) But through it all, there's something incredibly inspiring about Mira's story because no matter how your life has unfolded, you are always allowed to begin again. Speaker 2 (1:17) Can I quickly just say Dame? Oh, Speaker 1 (1:20) yes, go on then. Speaker 2 (1:22) I mean, that is good, isn't it? A Dame-ford. It's an odd one. Yes, amazing. What was that like getting that last year? It Speaker 1 (1:31) was a gorgeous day. Was it? Yeah. It was right in the middle of the heat wave in June. But then we had one day which was sort of autumnal and a bit cloudy. And Speaker 2 (1:39) I Speaker 1 (1:39) was like, thank God, because, you know, you've got your finery on. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:44) Exactly. Speaker 1 (1:45) And it was at Windsor Castle, which is, of course, feels very special. Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:49) It Speaker 1 (1:49) felt, I suppose it felt like a marker of some kind. Because my parents were with me when I got my first one, which was my MBA. My mum was with me when I got my CBE and then this one, they're both gone now. So it felt like, oh, they're not here for this one. But they would have loved it. And it was weird because when I was offered the MBE, which was in 97, that was the first year, that was the year that I took my father back to the house that he'd fled in Lahore in 1947. Speaker 1 (2:27) 50 years on when he became a refugee with the partition of India and I took him back with BBC Radio 4 to the house he'd fled and it was a very emotional journey. And that was the year that the effects of empire on my family and on millions of other people really came home. And then that year I was offered a medal with empire on it. Speaker 1 (2:54) Yeah, I know. That was quite conflicting. Of course it was. Of course it was. And I think it's something to do with the fact that Empire is in the title. Because, for example, in France, they have the Légion d'honneur. It's something about that word that made it difficult. But what changed my mind, I think, was the way that my parents reacted to this. Because my dad said, one generation on. The empire threw me out of the how am I loved? And here's my daughter being given an acknowledgement. Speaker 1 (3:32) of all the damage that was done, maybe. And for them, it was some kind of healing. Yeah. So I think it was their reaction that persuaded me that maybe it was a good thing to have. And I really do understand people's divided reactions towards it. But I think it's... You know, when you're younger, you just want to burn everything down. And then as you get older, you think, can I change things by being part of something and speaking up and being a symbol of some kind of change? So Speaker 2 (4:05) I Speaker 1 (4:05) think Speaker 2 (4:06) in that spirit, Speaker 1 (4:07) I thought it was a good thing to accept. Speaker 2 (4:10) And I know that the South Asian kind of culture had quite a strict ideal around marriage and... mixing religions and things. And your parents were quite naughty, really. Yeah, they were. So just please, can you explain in which ways they were kind of bucking the norm? Well, Davina, Speaker 1 (4:32) I come from rebel stock. Yeah, rebel stock. That's probably Speaker 2 (4:34) not surprising. Rebel stock is a perfect description, isn't it? It doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 (4:40) Yeah, yeah. No, they did. They fell in love at college. My dad was Hindu. My mum was Sikh, which... It's not the most unusual combination, but my mum's family were faith traditional Sikhs and they married in secret. And then my mum actually went back to college to finish her degree without telling them she got married. I mean, Speaker 2 (5:00) bearing Speaker 1 (5:00) in mind this is in the 50s. Yeah, 58. You know, this is crazy. Crazy, crazy. But that's how strong the love was. I just think it was a coup de foudre. It was one of those, yeah. Speaker 2 (5:10) Can I just wait? Hold my hand there. You said coup de foudre. Speaker 1 (5:13) Coup de foudre, oui. Speaker 2 (5:14) I'm half French. Oh. And that's such a, it's one of my favourite expressions. It is. I love it too. Like a thunderbolt, like. Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:24) I know. I know. How lucky. So many people have that. So few people have that, right? So that's what happened. But Speaker 2 (5:30) also how brave it was really at the time. Because I know that the religion thing, it was a similar faith, but still for a traditional Sikh, quite different. Speaker 1 (5:41) And Speaker 2 (5:41) then running away and getting married and not having an arranged marriage. I mean, what kind of percentage of people at the time were having arranged marriages? Speaker 1 (5:49) Majority. Really? I would say 90. 90 to 95%. Wow. It was the norm. It was the norm. And it still is the norm in traditional places, in the villages, certainly not in the cities. India's changed so much. But yeah, highly unusual. But I guess in a way. Speaker 1 (6:09) I think they both had quite hard times coming out of a newly independent India. And I guess when there's so much chaos around you, when you find something that's certain, like I don't know much about what's going to happen to me. Life is in chaos. We haven't got much money. We don't know what's coming next. This I know. I need to be with you. This I know. I know. Speaker 2 (6:31) Isn't Speaker 1 (6:32) that lovely? Speaker 2 (6:33) You know, and they came over here and that must have been tough. Because your dad came Speaker 1 (6:40) first. Yeah, and then mum came a couple of months later, not long after. Yet it was a time where the signs were up in the boarding houses, no Irish blacks or dogs. It was that kind of time. So they both ended up at the beginning doing jobs way below their qualifications because that's just what happens when you're a newly arrived immigrant. But, you Speaker 2 (6:59) know, gradually Speaker 1 (7:00) they found their feet. They found they gravitated towards where the other Punjabis were, the North Indians that they knew. their friends became like family because when you don't have your family, those early relationships for those newly arrived immigrants. And it's the same pattern in every country. Like if you go to New York and you see a little Italy in Chinatown, it's like, of course, every new community just gravitates towards other people because they're so lost and Speaker 2 (7:26) they Speaker 1 (7:27) just want to hear their language, eat their food, set up their language schools, just be like. You know, I'm far from home. Let me set up an alternative home here. And I suppose the danger is, is if you stay there, if that continues, because it means you're not going out and you're not actually embracing the new culture. Yes. But that's what my generation did. So we were the Speaker 2 (7:49) bridge. I was just going to say that was quite interesting for your parents because you were British, you're British born. Exactly. And for them, you are the bridge. Absolutely. What were they like with you? Because obviously they were rebels. But were they quite, did they try and be strict with you? And were you like, hang on a minute, you can't do this. Hang on a minute. Speaker 1 (8:11) It's great ammunition, isn't it? When you know, really, really, you're going to put your foot down. They were amazing, actually, because I was a misfit. I was just a weird, weird kid. Why? I just wasn't like... any of the other little Indian girls around me who were all very well behaved and had long straight hair. I mean, I had this long straight hair, wore pretty dresses, liked maths, you know, or wanted to Speaker 2 (8:35) be doctors. Oh my Speaker 1 (8:36) God. You know, wanted to be doctors or pharmacists or sensible things, you know, knew all the prayers. And he was this weird tomboy feral kid growing up in a little mining village on my bike all day. loved books, loved reading, wanted to do English, wanted to see... What was your favourite book? When I was young, Alice in Wonderland. Was it? When I was a teenager, Pride and Prejudice. I mean, quite classic choices. But in both cases, the weird girl in the middle was me. I was Alice going, oh, what the hell is going on here? But anyway, I'll have another swig, whatever is in this bottle and I'll grow big and I'll go small and I'll go through that door. Don't know what's going on, but here's the adventure. And then, you know, obviously Elizabeth Bennet and Pride and Prejudice, too gobby. Nobody wants to marry her. Not pretty enough. One of five girls, four girls. Who's going to want her? So in both cases, these books, I was looking for myself. representation of the weirdness of myself everywhere and I didn't find it. And you wrote poetry Speaker 2 (9:40) quite young, didn't you? Oh, yeah. Little when you started writing. Four years old. Wow. Crap. Crap. But still, I mean, to want to write poetry at Speaker 1 (9:50) four is quite something, isn't it? Yeah. Well, my dad was a wonderful singer. We were surrounded by music and he loved poetry too, Urdu poetry. My mom was a primary school teacher surrounded by books. She taught me to read really early on. So I guess that was encouraged. My imagination was encouraged. What was amazing about my parents is they didn't think being creative and imaginative was a waste of time, which is what a lot of South Asian parents did think, that anything like that was a hobby. It wasn't how you made a living. It wasn't a job. It wasn't useful. But for some reason, both my wonderful parents thought, no, creativity is as important as maths. Speaker 2 (10:30) And I think, you know, obviously you had a gift really for English because you went on, didn't you? You went to university. Speaker 1 (10:40) To English and drama. Where did you go? Manchester. I mean, brilliant, right? Yeah, it was. Was it Speaker 2 (10:47) brilliant then? Speaker 1 (10:48) Yeah. Oh, my God. Because, I mean, my God, now it's like. Yeah. But it was just, I mean, that was just when the Hacienda was opening. Yes. You know, it was just because, yeah, right. And my department was full of incredible people because the drama department then had a really interesting policy. Although it didn't, grades wasn't its first thing. They just went for people they thought were interesting. So there were people in my department that had got two Es, maybe in predicted three As. For some reason, they flunked them, probably having too much fun. But the department still went, you're interesting. So I was surrounded by incredibly creative, interesting people. And that brought me out of my shell because I was a very young 18-year-old, right? I'd grown up in a little town, hadn't had a gap year. I'd just turned 18. And here I was in this... what seemed to me incredibly sophisticated bunch of people who have done things like, you know, I'd been studying puppetry in Poland from the... Speaker 2 (11:50) Oh, great. I've been wandering around the Mander Center Speaker 1 (11:54) and eating chips. Speaker 2 (11:56) Puppetry in Poland, I Speaker 1 (11:57) can just imagine. Speaker 2 (11:58) It was a Speaker 1 (11:58) bit like that. Yeah, so funny. I'm such a hick. I'm such a hick. So it took me a long time to feel like I found my feet, but the thing that saved me was being able to do the thing I loved and I never thought I'd get to do. And I still wasn't thinking about it as a career. It was just I was so grateful to be there. Speaker 2 (12:16) And I Speaker 1 (12:16) got to act in loads of things and start writing my own stuff. And it just unlocked me, you know. Can we talk about gratitude for a bit? Oh, it's so important. Speaker 2 (12:25) Yeah. And gratitude is, it saves a lot of people. Because if you can be in a dark moment and find just even something tiny to be, but lots of people find gratitude a problem. But you are literally, you've been blessed with it from the get go. Why? Where's that come from? Speaker 1 (12:41) I think if you come from a background where there's a great deal of intergenerational trauma, as there was on both sides of my family for all those reasons we've talked about and their experiences and my experiences, I suppose, growing up as a kid, it was tough sometimes being the only one and visible. There's one of two ways you can go. You can become scared and bitter and fearful, but you can rise to it and go, my parents survived that and they still are full of love. and they give that love to me and they have optimism, which way am I going to go here? Am I going to go forward frightened of what life is going to throw at me or am I going to go, I survived that, that's great. I've got those parents, that's great. And honestly, it's something I've got better at and I can't say I've always been good at it, but I think as you get older, you realise actually the way that life works better for you is if you do that. Otherwise, you're just in a spiral of... fear and pessimism and poor me. It's not the why me. The why not me is a much better outlook. It's like shit happens to people. Why shouldn't it happen to me? That's all right. This is not all of my life. This is this bit and it will get better and then it'll get bad again and then it'll be amazing. So why not celebrate the amazing bits and just know you can get through the bad bits? That's what's got me through them anyway. Speaker 2 (14:04) I'm going to write that down. after this, why me? Not why me? Why not me? Why not me? Speaker 1 (14:10) I love that. But it's true though, right? That's so good. And at any point in your life, you can look around you and see a thousand people who are having a much worse time than you. You can also decide to look at the 10,000 people who seem to have it all. Number one, they don't. Yeah. They don't know what's in their heads. Lots of time they're pretending, right? And number two, don't do that to Speaker 2 (14:30) yourself. I'm not anti-social media at all. I think there are lots of really good things about it. But that's one of the things that's a problem when people believe what they see. You can't trust anything you see. It's all Speaker 1 (14:43) curated. On social Speaker 2 (14:44) media, it's all curated. Yes, it is. I'd love to talk to you a bit more about what you produced at university. and some of the work you did there. Did you produce something towards the end where you played a lot of different parts? Can Speaker 1 (15:03) you talk me Speaker 2 (15:03) through that Speaker 1 (15:04) particularly? That is the project that literally changed the course of my entire life. So Speaker 2 (15:09) how did you come to do this project and who were you working with and Simon? Speaker 1 (15:13) So it was a one-woman show called One of Us. Speaker 1 (15:17) And I approached my friend Jackie Shapiro, dear friend, who was a fellow student, who was a writer. And I said, you know, I've never written anything. Well, not a play. I'd written prose. Speaker 2 (15:27) I Speaker 1 (15:28) want to do something about what I'm feeling. But there is no one else to work with. If there was another brown person in the entire arts department, I would find that I was Speaker 2 (15:37) the Speaker 1 (15:37) only one. Speaker 2 (15:37) Were you really? Speaker 2 (15:40) Well, well done you because you literally Speaker 1 (15:42) paved the way. One black guy and me. That was it. Speaker 2 (15:47) Wait. Speaker 1 (15:47) Yeah. Speaker 2 (15:49) First off, I just want to ask you, because I know that that was also the case at school, right? Yeah. One Speaker 1 (15:56) of three. Because I've never Speaker 2 (15:57) experienced that. Speaker 1 (15:59) Yes, I know. What Speaker 2 (16:00) is that like? What do you feel like? Speaker 1 (16:05) Defended. You wear armour. Yeah, okay. All the time. You're ready. You're ready. You're alert. You're alert for who's going to accept you, who isn't. Am I going to fit in? Do I shape shift into this group? Right. You become fantastic at code switching. Speaker 2 (16:20) Reading as well, rooms. Absolutely. Speaker 1 (16:22) You find humour because humour opens doors and humour stops people from hitting you in the face. You can make them laugh. Oh my God, it's so... Speaker 2 (16:31) Yeah. Speaker 1 (16:32) You become very like that bunch of... Boys walking down the street, seems like maybe I should cross the road here. Wow. And you can have a vibe, right? All the time. Your radar's always on. And the funny thing is, Davina, you don't realise it's on until you go to a place where it's not. So like the first time I went to India, my shoulder just went... And I thought, oh my God, I'm walking down the street and everybody looks like me. I don't know what that feels... This is what it feels like. I'm breathing different. It's so weird. It's an unconscious thing. So, yeah, you could become very adept. And probably one of the reasons I became a creative, because that's a great sort of code switching and mask changing and reading people. All the things you need to be an actor and a writer. Speaker 2 (17:21) And all of these times in your childhood where you were basically the only one. Speaker 1 (17:27) How Speaker 2 (17:28) much racism did you experience? I mean, and even casual racism, like where people don't even know. Speaker 1 (17:34) Yeah. Like all the shades and unexpected times. I guess in the 70s it was really out there. Speaker 2 (17:41) Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, NF painted on the house and stuff like that. Wow. Speaker 1 (17:46) Yeah. That kind of thing. Kids coming into the park that weren't from the area that didn't know me. You kind of got used to it. But