THEY are two of the best-known Asians in the British entertainment industry - Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar are famous for their collaborations in The Kumars at No. 42 and Goodness Gracious Me.
Syal was the subject of Eastern Eye’s publisher and Southampton University’s inaugural fireside chat Pioneers Project, which saw 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 was 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.
Syal spoke about growing up in Britain and her struggles in the industry.
Too many executives were blindly led by quotas and tick-box diversity and it wasn’t helping anyone, she said.
“People think diversity is a headcount and you switch on your television and go ‘well, there’s one and there’s one, I mean, they’re all over the place, they’re even in adverts now for God’s sake’. But that’s actually superficial headcounts,” she added.
Audiences are smart, Syal said, but added that most of the industry hasn’t caught up and not particularly bothered about diversity.
Mostly, they are just paying lip service to the idea, she said.
“I feel we have so many untold stories that haven’t been told before, then I do feel the quota system comes in.
“So many times have I heard – we have something similar, which doesn’t mean we have something that is exactly the same idea as yours, it just means we have something with brown people in it, and we can’t have both things at the same time. That makes me crazy mad.”
Syal said a way out is being offered by the US where some women of colour have just taken it upon themselves to make creative work themselves. Shonda Rhimes or Oprah Winfrey have the resources to do it and do not need to ask anyone.
“The broadcasters then say, ‘oh yes, that does work, so now come in with us.’”
Syal’s versatility as an actress and writer are well charted and widely celebrated, whether that’s on the stage, in film, or writing novels or screen tales.
She was honoured with a CBE in 2015.
Her significant breakthrough was in the iconic Goodness Gracious Me (GGM) BBC sketch show. It started on radio, then graduated to television and remains one of the most loved and cherished comedy sketch shows of the last century, finishing in 2001.
Few people of South Asian heritage anywhere in the world are unaware of it – no comedy programme has so successfully mined the south Asian mindset in the West in all its beauty and absurdities.
Syal’s destiny was, perhaps, writ large when she won an award for a student show at the Edinburgh International Festival and secured a contract with the Royal Court off the back of it. This too after obtaining a double first in English and drama from Manchester University.
She penned the screenplay for Bhaji on the Beach (1993) – with Gurinder Chadha who directed, and has written three novels of which two have been adapted for the screen in addition – the semi-autobiographical Anita and Me (1996) – and today it is on school syllabuses and Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee (1999). Her most recent novel is The House of Hidden Mothers (2015).
Syal’s husband Bhaskar was back on TV in the much loved and critically appraised Unforgotten, playing Detective Inspector Sunny Khan.
In its fourth series, the intrepid detective coupling - of Bhasker and Bafta nominated Nicola Walker – investigate long forgotten murders that have gone ‘cold’.
Series creator Chris Lang said before its return in February that he was delighted to have brought together an “astonishing cast”.
ITV added: “Unforgotten has gone from strength to strength since its first outing in 2015, proving hugely popular with viewers and critics alike. The series has received two Bafta wins and a further nomination for its compelling performances.”
Warm and often self-deprecating, Bhaskar revealed in an interview in The Times he was in some ways living out his boyhood fantasies of hob-knobbing with successful artists.
A big fan of Monty Python, he is friends with Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones. He has also appeared in a Terry Gilliam (another of the original comedy gang) film – The Zero Theorem (2013). He was also friends with Roger Moore and met three of the Beatles.
Perhaps poignantly Bhaskar and Syal played parents to Himesh Patel’s character in Richard Curtis’s summer film smash in 2019, Yesterday, in which Patel plays a musician who is the only person to know and be able to play Beatles’ tracks.
Bhaskar started out creatively as a stand-up in a double act with friend and musician Nitin Sawhney, when he was spotted by BBC producer Anil Gupta who went onto make Goodness Gracious Me.
Previously, Bhaskar had spent seven years as an IBM marketing executive, before a contractual issue and a legal dispute left him with more time to devote to creative pursuits.
He said he enjoyed performing and making people laugh, but the expectations of his factory-working father were a bit different. Aged five, Bhaskar expressed an ambition to be an actor - his father, he reported, heard doctor.
Bhaskar met Syal on Goodness Gracious Me; they married in 2005 and have a teenage son, Shaan. Syal also has a grown-up daughter Milli, whose father and Syal’s first husband, is award-winning journalist Shekhar Bhatia.
In November, at an anniversary event to mark 50 years of the arrival of Ugandan Asians in the UK, Bhaskar read a poem he wrote at a Buckingham Palace reception. He is an ambassador for the British Asian Trust, whose patron is the King.
Milli is a theatre, film and radio director and dramaturg who is an associate director at the Royal Court Theatre.
Her directorial Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner was nominated for the Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in an affiliate theatre. It is touring the US this year.
Milli has extensive experience in new writing and dramaturgy, having read for several theatres including The Bush, The Royal Court and Birmingham Rep. She has facilitated playwriting workshops and courses and has developed and directed plays internationally.
