Summary
The chapter begins with the grand arrival of Nanima, Meena’s grandmother, to Tollington. Meena instantly gets along with her playful grandmother: Nanima laughs at fart jokes and cheekily calls Meena a “junglee,” a wild girl. A party is held at the Kumar house in Nanima’s honor. There are so many visitors that the party spills out into the front garden, making Meena uncomfortable: this is the first time her “private” life—her Indian community—has become public. Meena sees Anita and Anita’s mother pass on the street corner. The two girls ignore one another. Anita’s mother, Deirdre, says something to Anita and Anita begins to sob, before leaving the street. Soon after, Meena sees a lone figure standing at the Big House, watching the Kumar’s party, without moving, and almost looking like a bear.
Retiring for the night, Meena finds Nanima asleep in her bed: it’s the only space they have in the house, explains Mrs. Kumar. So, Meena sleeps with her grandmother. In the middle of the night, Meena “dreams” of Nanima singing a lullaby to her crying baby brother Sunil. Meena wakes to find Sunil peacefully cradled in her grandmother’s arms, which surprises Meena; hitherto, Sunil has had separation anxiety when away from Mrs. Kumar. Nanima has cut the symbolic “umbilical cord,” explains Meena, and in the days that follow Meena develops a new bond with Sunil, as she helps her mother to take care of him. The Kumars fall into a “comfortable routine,” and Meena gradually learns more about her family through Nanima’s dramatic stories of India, before and after British Imperialism. Through these stories, Meena recognizes the sacrifices her parents have made in bringing their family to England, and her parents’ hope for a better future for Meena and Sunil.
On the first day of spring break, Nanima cannot be found in the house. Mrs. Kumar visits her neighbors, to check if any have seen Nanima, and finds that Nanima has gone next door, and is eating snacks with Mr. and Mrs. Worrall. Meanwhile, Deirdre (Anita’s mother) confronts Mrs. Kumar outside, asking, “Mrs. K, have yow stopped yowr Meena seeing my Anita?” Although Mrs. Kumar has privately expressed disapproval of Anita, Mrs. Kumar puts on a pleasant demeanor and tells Deirdre that Anita is always welcome. Deirdre leaves, and Meena and her mother return to Mrs. Worrall’s house. They watch—amazed—as Nanima speaks rapid Punjabi to Mr. Worrall, despite the fact that Mr. Worrall’s wartime injuries left him unable to form words.
After Mrs. Worrall tells Mrs. Kumar, “Yow should tek her [Nanima] out more,” Mrs. Kumar asks Meena to bring Nanima and Sunil on a shopping trip to Mr. Ormerod’s. On their walk, Meena and Nanima encounter several neighborhood women (members of the “Ballbearings Committee”), who ogle at Nanima, “wanting to touch and feel her like an imported piece of exotica.” When the women assume that Nanima doesn’t speak English (she doesn’t), Meena lies and says her grandmother is fluent in five different languages, and owns a precious-minerals mining operation. Meena wants to challenge their assumptions. Soon after, another passerby, Mr. Topsy, stops to greet Meena and Nanima. He begins talking to Nanima in fluent Punjabi, a language he learned while deployed in India as a British soldier. Meena treats Mr. Topsy coldly.
Meena is afraid to enter Mr. Ormerod’s shop because, at the Spring Fete, Meena had heard someone near Mr. Ormerod support Sam Lowbridge’s racism, and Meena suspects Mr. Ormerod is complicit. So, Meena sends Nanima into the store alone. When Nanima returns with the groceries and change, Meena thinks Mr. Ormerod has overcharged Nanima sixpence. Meena enters the store to accuse Mr. Ormerod of cheating Nanima, but Meena learns that she had secretly purchased a chocolate bar for sixpence.
On the walk back from Mr. Ormerod’s, Meena and Nanima encounter Uncle Alan in conversation with Sam Lowbridge and Sam’s gang. Alan is giving advice to a uninterested Sam. Sam calls to Meena, “Are yow angry with me, Meena? […] Ain’t we friends any more then?” Meena stares at Sam and his gang with a look of fury, and the gang falls silent. Meena and Nanima return home.
At home, Meena feels sick. She crawls into bed, comforted by her father. Meena asks if she can visit Anita at Sherrie’s farm the following day, before drifting off to sleep. In her sleep, Meena feels her grandmother enter the bedroom, and cradle Meena in her arms. Nanima speaks to Meena in Punjabi, and miraculously Meena understands every word despite not knowing the language. Nanima speaks of the stages of life, and how her family has been “reborn” through emigration. When Meena wakes, her grandmother is gone, and it is left uncertain whether or not Meena dreamt the whole exchange.
Analysis
After Meena’s relationship with Anita is damaged in Chapter 7, Meena must reevaluate her identity and relationships in Chapter 8; Meena grows closer to her family, and her heritage, in large part fuelled by the arrival of Nanima, Meena’s grandmother. Meena describes Nanima’s symbolic importance to the Indian community of Tollington: Nanima was “a beloved parent, a familiar symbol in her billowing salwar kameez suit whose slow deliberate gestures and modest dignity reminded them of their own mothers” (p. 201) Seeing the homesickness of her Aunties and Uncles, Meena vows to “never leave” her own mother (p. 202). This stands in stark contrast to Meena’s perspective in earlier chapters, for example when, in Chapter 6, Meena is grateful to have a chance to temporarily “forget” her mother “and move onto other loves” (p. 135). Meena continues her vow: “this wrenching of daughter from mother would never happen again […] I would still travel and cure sickness and rescue orphans and star in my own television series, I would just have to make sure mama came with me, that was all” (p. 202). Although there is a clear dramatic irony to Meena’s childish dreaming—perhaps suggesting an instability to her current perspective—it remains clear, as well, that Meena has a newfound love for her mother.
In earlier chapters, we analyzed the complex balance of Meena’s public and private life: before, Meena identified her British culture as her public identity, and her Indian culture as her private. However, in Chapter 8, this balance is–– quite literally–– subverted, and the private becomes public: while celebrating Nanima’s arrival, the Kumars host a party that spills out onto the street. This is the first time Meena sees the Indian community socialize in public. She says, “It felt so strange to hear Punjabi under the stars. It was an indoor language to me” (p. 203). This moment carries symbolic value and emphasizes Meena’s growing acceptance of her Indian heritage: it is something that she no longer needs to keep private.
Meena’s growing self-confidence is exemplified near the end of Chapter 8, when Meena confronts Sam Lowbridge and his gang. Meena describes silencing the boys with her furious gaze: “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” (p. 228). Through imagery and metaphor, Meera Syal likens Meena to a Hindu deity, emphasizing not just Meena’s acceptance of her heritage, but her pride in it: Meena now associates her heritage with power—with feeling “ten feet tall.” But there’s another, more personal, significance to this metaphor, too: earlier in the novel, Meena uses a similar comparison to describe her mother’s anger: “Mama rarely raised her voice but when she did get angry, she looked like one of the ornamental statues I had seen on my Auntie Shaila’s shrine. The goddess she resembled most when in a strop, the one that both terrified and fascinated me, was Kali, a black-faced snarling woman with alarming canines and six waving arms” (p. 27). These parallel comparisons—with Meena and Mrs. Kumar both being likened to Hindu deities—point to Meena’s character growth throughout the novel; she has become more mature, more self-assured, and developed powers like her mother.
As Meena grows closer to her family, she also distances herself further from her English neighbors, in part spurred by Tollington’s recent upsurge in race-based violence, and the personal sense of betrayal Meena feels towards Sam and Anita. However, in intentionally distancing herself from her English neighbors, Meena falls victim to her own prejudices and naivete. For example, Meena is shocked to learn Mr. Topsey can speak fluent Punjabi when Mr. Topsey meets Nanima on the street. Moreover, Meena responds to this discovery with exaggerated anger: “I felt hot with fury […] How dare this fat man with the ridiculous crimplene strides know more Punjabi than me!” (p. 222). Meena does not acknowledge the irony of faulting someone else for her own lack of knowledge. Later on in Chapter 8, Meena becomes similarly angry at Mr. Ormerord. When the grocery receipt is sixpence more than usual, Meena assumes Mr. Ormerod has cheated Nanima, who cannot speak English. But when Meena accuses Mr. Ormerod of fraud, Mr. Ormerod reveals Nanima had secretly purchased a sixpence chocolate bar (p. 225). Through situational irony, Meena’s presumptions about Mr. Ormerod are shown to be wrong. In both of these examples, Meena’s anger towards her English neighbors is satirized: her anger towards Mr. Topsy is portrayed as childish through comically exaggerated diction, and her anger towards Mr. Ormerod is ironically revealed to have been misplaced. By satirizing Meena’s anger, Meera Syal reveals a larger theme: that hatred should not be fought with hatred—i.e. that Meena will struggle to fight her neighbor’s bigotry with prejudices of her own.
Chapter 8 ends with a dream-like sequence: in the middle of the night, while Meena’s eyes are closed, Meena hears Nanima enter the bedroom, and tell Meena stories of Nanima’s own childhood in India; Meena understands every word, despite not speaking Punjabi, Nanima’s native tongue. Nanima’s last words before Meena opens her eyes are, “Again we lost everything and this time we were reborn in Delhi. What is there to fear when you have already lived two whole lives? And how many more to come? Your mama is on her second one, here, over here. And you Meena…” (p. 232). The final sentence is left open, and the reader must wonder what this means for Meena. Arguably, Nanima’s words suggest Meena is entering into her own second life–– that Meena’s character arc has reached a point of transition, that Meena has been “reborn.” It is left ambiguous whether or not this moment is a dream. Regardless, it is a moment of magic, with inexplicable circumstances. As such, the scene can be understood as a symbolic exploration of Meena’s subconscious: with the subconscious becoming conscious, the magic becomes real.
