Celebrating Britain's 101 Most Influential Asians 2021

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Meera Syal & Sanjeev Bhasker


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GRANNY Kumar is back! A lockdown treat if ever there was one – the country’s most famous Asian grandmother has taken her microphone and set up shop on Radio 4 in Gossip and Goddesses with Granny Kumar.

Meera Syal’s alter comedy ego first seen in The Kumars at No.42 has returned – minus Sanjeev (played by Sanjeev Bhasker her husband) and the rest of the cast.

They, it said, have been “stuck in quarantine on a world cruise”, as granny wants to do her own thing and fancies talking to guests who are not “male, pale and stale”.

Syal is now flanked on the six-episode first series – which started in February this year – by frenemy Geeta (Harvey Virdi) and great-granddaughter Maya (Ambreen Razia). It is a female only space now. Guests have included broadcaster Samira Ahmed, actress Thandie Newton, scientist Maggie Ebunoluwa Aderin-Pocock, broadcaster and comedian Ayesha Hazarika, BBC presenter Anita Rani, writer and journalist Anita Anand, musician Anoushka Shankar.

More recently, Syal was the subject of this publisher and Southampton University’s inaugural fireside chat Pioneers Project, which will see the Asian Media Group – inspired by its founder and former editor-in-chief Ramniklal Solanki CBE, who died in March 2020 – team up with the university to identify 100 Pioneers from the Asian community.

The idea is to better document and detail those who have made significant contributions to their new country as immigrants down the years – in memory of the rich legacy and those like it bequeathed by Solanki senior who died aged 88.

Speaking to Eastern Eye’s editor-at-large Barnie Choudhury, Syal said too many executives were blindly led by quotas and tick-box diversity and it wasn’t helping anyone.

“People think diversity is a headcount and you switch on your television and go ‘well, there’s one

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