Key points
Anita and Me was written by actor and comedian Meera Syal.
The story is about nine-year-old British Indian girl, Meena Kumar, and her difficult friendship with local bully Anita Rutter.
It is set in the fictional West Midlands village of Tollington.
Video
Watch the video below to learn about the plot, characters and themes in Anita and Me by Meera Syal.
"I had seen how in an instant, those you called friends could suddenly become tormentors." This is a quote from Anita and Meby Meera Syal, a book that tells the story of a young British Punjabi girl growing up in the Midlands during the 1970s.
The book is set in a small fictional village, where Meena is part of the only Punjabi family. Meena longs for independence but findsherself torn between two different cultures.
When Meena makes friends with Anita, who is a few years older than her, life becomes a lot more eventful. Meena looks up toAnita, but Anita can be manipulative and controlling and she encourages Meena to behave badly- trespassing and stealing.
After Meena's baby brother is born, her Grandma, Nanima, comes from India to help the family. Through spending time withher grandmother, Meena begins to value her own heritage more… but the cracks are growing in Meena and Anita'srelationship and they fall out when Anita is involved in a racist attack.
Meena is intelligent, adventurous and a little rebellious. She looks up to Anita at first but as time goes on she sees her racistattitudes and the truth of her troubled life.
Anita is confident and bold, but she can also be mean and hurtful and she likes to be in control.
Nanima is Meena's grandmother from India. Maternal, and observant, but also fun, she has a strong sense of her ownidentity.
This book is is semi-autobiographical. Which means the author has based it on her own life experiences, but she's alsoadded some fictional elements. Friendship and identity are central to Anita and Me. As Meena grows up she learns toembrace her Punjabi heritage and her confidence blooms. She also learns to recognise Anita's friendship as unhealthy anddistances herself from it.
"I now knew I was not a bad girl, a mixed-up girl, a girl with no name or no place. The place in which I belonged was wherever I stood."
I found this book so funny and relatable, it really made me think of my own childhood. You need to read it.
Did you know?
Anita and Me is This means that the story is partly based on real events in the author’s life and partly a work of fiction.. This means it is loosely based on the childhood experiences of the author, Meera Syal. Like Meena, Meera grew up in a village in the West Midlands with her Indian parents.
Plot
Meena and her parents are the only Indian family in Tollington, a village in the West Midlands. Meena’s parents struggle to deal with her bad behaviour, for example, when she steals sweets from a shop and lies about it.
Meena becomes friends with an older girl called Anita, whom Meena’s parents disapprove of. Anita encourages Meena to do things she isn’t supposed to do, like steal a charity collection tin.
In the village, locals are angry about a planned motorway that will destroy parts of Tollington. At the local fete, a boy called Sam Lowbridge, who is usually kind to Meena, angrily criticises the project and yells racist insults.
Meena’s mother struggles to cope after giving birth to Meena’s baby brother. Meena’s grandmother, Nanima, arrives from India to help the family. Meena learns more about Indian culture from her grandmother and becomes proud of her heritage.
Meena overhears Anita describing how she and Sam took part in a racist attack on an Indian man. Meena is shocked. She recklessly decides to ride a friend’s horse but falls and breaks her leg. She spends several months in hospital where she meets Robert, a boy her age who is very ill. They become close but Robert dies.
Meena decides to focus on studying for the eleven-plus exam which would allow her to go to the local grammar school. The night before the exam, Anita’s sister Tracey tells her that she is worried Sam is attacking Anita. When Meena goes to check, they realise Anita and Sam are having sex.
Sam doesn’t understand why Meena is angry with him and kisses her. Tracey, Anita and Sam get into a fight and Tracey accidentally falls into a pond. Tracey wants to tell the police that she was pushed into the pond, but Meena tells the truth. Meena passes the eleven-plus exam and her family moves away from Tollington.
Characters
Meena Kumar
Meena is the The main character in a novel. and narrator of the novel. She longs for drama and excitement. Meena can be cheeky and often gets into trouble but she is also kind, imaginative and intelligent.
Meena struggles to feel like she belongs in Tollington. Her family are the only Indian family living in the village and their culture and traditions are very different to those of her classmates.
Are there any similarities between the author, Meera Syal, and Meena?
Like Meena, Meera was born in the UK to Indian parents and grew up in the 1970s in a mining village in the West Midlands.
Anita Rutter
Anita is a thirteen-year-old girl whose behaviour can be mean and selfish. She To manipulate someone is to control someone to your advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly. and bullies her friends and is impressed by Sam Lowbridge’s racist behaviour. Anita’s home life is unstable and her parents are often not there to support her and her sister.
Meena’s family
Nanima
Nanima is Meena’s grandmother who visits from India. She appreciates Meena’s rebellious side and they become very close. Nanima inspires Meena to be proud of her Indian heritage by telling her stories and teaching her Punjabi.
Mrs Kumar
Mrs Kumar is Meena’s mother. She is kind, compassionate and well-liked by the Tollington community. She has high standards for Meena and does not approve of her friendship with Anita. Mrs Kumar misses India and struggles to cope when Sunil is born.
Mr Kumar
Mr Kumar is Meena’s father. He is devoted to his family and wants to give them a good life. He has strong values which he wants to pass on to Meena, such as honesty, respect and responsibility.
Sunil
Sunil is Meena’s baby brother. Meena resents him when he is born but soon grows to love him.
Other characters
Other important characters in Anita and Me are Sam Lowbridge, Tracey Rutter, Robert Oakes and Auntie Shaila.
- Sam Lowbridge
Sam is the village “Bad Boy”. He becomes Anita’s boyfriend but he is attracted to Meena. He uses racist language and beats up an innocent Indian man. He does not seem to understand that his racist behaviour hurts Meena too.
- Tracey Rutter
Tracey is Anita’s younger sister. She is quiet and anxious – the opposite of Anita.
- Robert Oakes
Robert is a boy Meena meets in the hospital. He is kind and funny. Meena describes him as her “soul mate”.
- Auntie Shaila
Auntie Shaila is one of the Kumar family’s Indian friends. Meena describes Auntie Shaila as the “most fun of all the Aunties”.
Activity
Themes
Themes are the main ideas that appear repeatedly in a novel. Some of the important themes in Anita and Me are:
- Friendship
- Belonging
- Racism
Friendship
In Anita and Me, there is a clear difference between true friendship and the way in which Anita bullies the girls she calls her friends.
When Meena first meets Anita she thinks they have things in common and that they can become good friends. However, as Meena matures she sees that Anita’s friendship is controlling and damaging to her.
What examples of positive relationships are there in Anita and Me?
Meena's friendship with Robert is caring and supportive, the complete opposite of the relationship Meena has with Anita. Meena and Robert enjoy each other’s company and write notes to each other in hospital, even making up a secret language.
The Kumars enjoy strong friendships with the Indian friends they call "Aunties" and "Uncles". They support each other through hard times and have a shared history as they all left India to start a new life in England.
Belonging
Meena feels like she is caught between two worlds. She doesn't feel like she belongs in the village of Tollington, nor does she feel a connection with her Indian Culture refers to the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society.. This leads Meena to feel unhappy and make some bad decisions.
By the end of the novel, Meena has learned to embrace her Indian heritage. She learns that, no matter how hard she tries to be like the other children in Tollington, there is a part of her that will “be forever not England”.
Which other characters struggle with belonging?
Mr and Mrs Kumar struggle to feel like they belong in Tollington. They feel pressure to change and fit in to the English culture, but their strong family values and friendships within the local Indian community help them to preserve their identity.
Sam and Anita try to create a sense of belonging by forming groups they call “gangs”.
Racism
Meena becomes increasingly aware of racism throughout the novel. She experiences racist abuse and encounters racist attitudes as part of her daily life. For example:
- She is unexpectedly called a racist name by a “sweet-faced elderly woman”.
- The name of Anita’s pet dog is a racist insult.
- Some people call Meena by a different name because they say her name is too difficult to pronounce.
This shows how racist attitudes are ingrained in the community around her.
While some of the racism in the novel is deliberate, other examples of racism come from Ignorance is not knowing or understanding something.. People don’t seem to realise that their racism is upsetting and hurtful to Meena. For example, when Meena confronts Sam about his racist behaviour, he tells Meena that he meant “all the others”, not her.
How does Meena feel about the racism she experiences?
Meena feels physically sick when she hears people using racist words or hears about racist incidents. When Sam is racist towards one of Meena’s "uncles" she says:
I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. My legs felt watery and a hot panic softened my insides to mush.
Activity
Language
Writers choose words and phrases carefully when they write. Readers can look closely at texts to think about how and why the writer made these choices.
Imagery
Imagery is descriptive writing which appeals to one or more of the five senses. It can help writers create worlds that readers feel part of. Meera Syal uses imagery to help her readers understand Meena's world and get a deeper understanding of her experiences.
What do the following examples of imagery from the novel tell the reader?
I heard a song, or rather I felt it, a lilting lullaby in a minor key which made me think of splashing stone fountains in shadowed courtyards and peacocks ululating on tiled flat rooftops…
In this quotation, Meena describes a lullaby her grandmother sings. She says it sounds like water splashing and peacocks calling. These are sounds that the reader would associate with lands far away from the UK showing how Nanima is linked to a world that is very different from Tollington. They could also be relaxing sounds, suggesting the lullaby was soothing to Meena and Nanima’s presence was comforting.
I was ten feet tall, I had a hundred arms, like the goddess on top of the fridge in Auntie Shaila’s house, I was swathed in red and gold silk like a new bride.
Meena uses a metaphor “I was ten feet tall” and a simile “like the goddess on top of the fridge” to describe herself standing up to Sam and his gang. The reference to Hindu mythology tells the reader that Meena is feeling powerful and drawing strength from her Indian heritage. The fact she is dressed in bold, rich colours shows Meena’s confidence and the simile “like a new bride” suggests that she feels beautiful and special.
Did you know?
Many Hindus have a shrine at home where they perform personal and family worship. A Hindu shrine often contains offerings of fruit and flowers, pictures or statues of Hindu gods and goddesses, a bell, an arti lamp and an aum symbol. Find out more about these objects on Bitesize Religious Studies.
Structure
Structure refers to how written text is organised and the way the story is ordered and shaped.
Bildungsroman
Anita and Me is a type of story called a A bildungsroman is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the main character as they grow up.. In a bildungsroman, the main character grows up to become a wiser person. There is usually a life-changing event where they learn more about themselves and their personal values. The story arc of a typical bildungsroman usually contains six main stages.
How does the story arc Anita and Me follow the bildungsroman structure?
| 1. Exposition: where the background information on the characters and setting are explained. | Meena seeks to belong. She feels she does not fit in so she chooses to befriend Anita. Her lying creates a rift in her relationship with her family. |
| 2. Conflict: where the main character faces a problem or conflict and struggles with it. | Meena feels even more left out after the birth of her baby brother. She rebels against her family and spends more time with Anita. |
| 3. Rising action: where the story builds towards the climax. | With the arrival of her Indian grandmother she begins to be proud of her Indian heritage. She starts to realise that Anita does not act like a true friend. |
| 4. Climax: the highest point of tension in a story. | Meena finds out Anita has been part of a violent racist attack on an Indian man. Shocked, she tries to ride a horse and falls, hurting herself badly. |
| 5. Falling action: the conflict gives way to resolution. | Time in hospital gives Meena the chance to reflect on her life and what she wants to achieve. She realises she must distance herself from Anita. |
| 6. Resolution: how the story ends and the conflict is resolved. | By the end of the novel, Meena chooses not to lie. She passes her eleven-plus exam and leaves Tollington for a new life with her family. |
Did you know?
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë are other examples of novels that follow the bildungsroman structure.
Context
The The factors surrounding a text that help us to understand it; the background events that help to explain something. in which a novel was written can sometimes reveal more about its themes, message and meaning.
The 1970s
Anita and Me is set in the 1970s which was a time of great change in the UK.
Image caption, Many of the old industries, like coal mining, were in decline which meant that many people were losing their jobs. There were national pit strikes in 1974.
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The Partition of India
International events also contributed to change in British society, for example, the Partition of India. In 1947 India gained independence from the British Empire.
On 15 August 1947, the Indian Independence Act divided British India into two countries, India and Pakistan, declaring both countries free and independent states. India had a Hindu government and Pakistan had a Muslim government.
The new boundaries of India and Pakistan meant that 15 million people became religious minorities overnight.
In trying to migrate to and from the new states of India and Pakistan, 1 million people died in the violence that broke out, although some historians estimate that the death toll may be higher. Hundreds of thousands of people migrated to other countries, including Britain.
In the novel, Mr and Mrs Kumar share stories with the other Indian Aunties and Uncles about the violence that occurred during the time of Partition.
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