Meera Syal Parents: Meet Surendra Syal, Surrinder Uppal

Meera Syal is a British actress, comedian, writer, and singer. She is the daughter of Surendra Syal and Surrinder Uppal.

Syal was born in Wolverhampton on June 27, 1961, and grew up in Essington, Staffordshire, a mining village a few miles to the north.

Her parents Surinder Syal and Surinder Kaur both Indian Punjabis, immigrated to the United Kingdom from New Delhi. Her family relocated to Bloxwich, north of Walsall when she was a child.

This landscape, as well as the family’s status as the only Asian family in the small Midlands mining village of Essington, would later serve as the backdrop for Syal’s novel and film Anita and Me, which she described as semi-autobiographical in a 2003 BBC interview.

Meera Syal rose to prominence as a member of the production team for Goodness Gracious Me and as Sanjeev’s grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42. She rose to prominence as one of the UK’s most well-known Asian figures.

She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1997 New Year Honours and was named one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy by The Observer in 2003. In the 2015 New Year Honours, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama and literature.