Meera Syal, an accomplished British actor, writer and singer of Indian origin, has revealed that back when she was a struggler in her 20s, she was subjected to two instances of sexual misconduct.

“I was out of work, I was homeless, sleeping on people’s floors, and then these two things happened in quite quick succession,” recalled Syal in a recent interview. The first was a casting couch experience, when a theatre director insinuated he’d cast her in a pantomime in exchange for sexual acts. However, she turned down the offer and left.

The second instance, which happened soon after, was when an older male actor invited her home, claiming to help her advance her career. However, he instead assaulted her. She wrote in her book that the actor is no more. “You wouldn’t even bother to report half of these things because A, you wouldn’t be believed and B, everyone was doing it,” Syal told BBC Asian Network.

Meera claimed that silence around sexual assault was “absolutely part of the culture” back in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, when she started out. “When I have talked about this incident to other women, particularly of my age, they’ve all said that ‘happened to me’, and a lot of them have never talked about it because it was part of the culture,” added the actor.

During the interview, Meera Syal also talked about how she overcame sexual assault trauma. “It could have been a point where I gave up,” confessed Syal, adding, “It put some fire in my belly because the reason I wanted to tell these stories is that I did survive, and not only did I survive, I thrived. The anger of the injustice of the situation made me seek out a bunch of women that changed the course of my life.” She then primarily worked with two Asian women’s associations because she wanted to “create South Asian women that roared.”

“All of that came from the fury I felt at what had happened to me. It did change the course of my life,” said the actor.

Born in Essington, Staffordshire, a mining village in the UK, her parents had migrated from Delhi. She began doing theatre while studying as an actor and a writer, before she played a minor role in Peter Sasdy’s 1985 show The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4.

Story continues below this ad

The same year, Meera made her screenwriting debut alongside Farrukh Dhondy with Jon Amiel’s sitcom Tandoori Nights. Eight years later, she made her film screenwriting debut with Gurinder Chadha’s 1993 directorial debut feature Bhaji On The Beach. Her big breakthrough in acting came with the role of Sushila, grandmother to her real-life future husband Sanjeev Bhaskar, in Sharat Sardana’s International Emmy Award-winning sitcom The Kumars at No. 42, which ran for seven seasons from 2001 till 2006.

Meera Syal continued to write for and perform on the stage, bringing Bollywood to Broadway with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2002 musical Bombay Dreams, which was composed by AR Rahman and choreographed by Farah Khan. Meera made her debut as an author with the 1996 semi-autobiographical novel Anita and Me, which was also adapted into a film in 2002, starring veteran Indian actor Kabir Bedi.

HELP IS A CALL AWAY

MENTAL HEALTH HELPLINE NUMBERS

Story continues below this ad

AASRA – Contact: 9820466726; Email: aasrahelpline@yahoo.com; Timings: 24×7; Languages: English, Hindi

Snehi –  Contact: 9582208181; Email: snehi.india@gmail.com; Timings: 10am – 10pm, all days; Languages: English, Hindi, Marathi

Fortis MentalHealth – Contact: 8376804102; Timings: 24×7, all days; Languages: Achiku, Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu

Connecting NGO – Contact: 9922004305, 9922001122; Email: distressmailsconnecting@gmail.com; Timings: 12pm – 8pm; all days; Languages: English, Hindi, Marathi

Story continues below this ad

Vandrevala Foundation – Contact: 18602662345; Email: help@vandrevalafoundation.com; Timings: 24×7; Languages: Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and English