PC GREEN:(whispers)What’s everyone having for lunch?
PC BENNETT:What you having for lunch?
GUV:Key plot points of Meera Syal’s Anita & Me! Note pads out please.
Where? Tollington, West Midlands.
Not many jobs or much money about.
When? The 60’s forward slash 70’s. Note this down please: Meena and her parents are the only Indian family that reside there - which was still something rather unusual for a small, white, working-class neighbourhood like Tollington. Meena was born here and although forming bonds with some elderly neighbours, she doesn’t have anyone she considers a proper friend.
PC GREEN:Hang on. The book’s called Anita and Me. Who’s Anita? A friend, surely?
GUV:Patience, please, Green. We start with Meena Kurma at 9 years old, being dragged to the local shop by her Papa. Meena’s parents do not like it when she lies, ok? And right now, she has a pocket full of contraband sweets and Papa wants to know why.Guv points to the screen with her remote, hits play.
PC BENNETT: (writing out loud)A liar and a criminal.
PC GREEN:(writing out loud)Typical kid.
Meena sits on her doorstep scoffing sweets surreptitiously. A skin head walks past, Sam Lowbridge.
SAM: Hello Meeeeenaaaah…
MEENA: Hi Sam.
GUV:Here comes Sam Lowbridge, a bad boy, who’s always friendly towards her.
Meena’s Mama and Papa come outside. Mama picks herbs.
MAMA:Do you remember the smell of the herbs in India?
PAPA: Ah yes, I miss it so.
MEENA:Can we have fishfingers for tea?
MAMA:Take the best from their culture, not the worst.
Mama and Papa head into the house, flirting and kissing.
PC GREEN: S’gotta be tough on Meena having never experienced the India her parents pine for.
Anita swoops in, pinching the sweets off an awe struck Meena.
GUV:Uh oh
ANITA:Yow coming then?
GUV:The dreaded Anita Rutter - a couple of years Meena’s senior.
PC GREEN:I’m just pleased Meena’s got a friend.
GUV:You might not be saying that soon.
Anita does not treat Meena with respect, but then again, shedoesn’t treat anyone with respect.
Meena sits on the sofa, her parents next to her whispering.
PAPA:Your Mama is having a baby, a little brother or sister for you to play with. Would you like that?
MEENA: No.
GUV:Meena sneaks way from an important family gathering called Diwali…
SHANE:Oh I love Diwali, my neighbours celebrate it - it’s like a big festival; bright lights, fireworks, singing and eating. It’s sort of our equivalent to Christmas.
GUV:Very good yeah - you new?
SHANE:Been here two years Guv.
PC GREEN:Where did she sneak to Guv?
GUV: The Fair.
PC BENNETT:Won’t her parents be cross?
Meena watches her heavily pregnant Mum being carried out.
GUV:Meena’s parents are distracted luckily, by the birth of their son.
Meena reads Twinkle, Anita, Jackie. Meena copies Anita.
GUV:Sunil Kumar, Meena’s baby brother takes all of Mama and Papa’s attention, so Meena is unchecked to spend time with Anita, who is a bad influence - no question of that.
Meena now reads Jackie with some badly applied lipstick on. Meena puts pen to paper and starts writing a letter.
MEENA:(writing as she speaks) Dear Cathy and Claire. I am brown, although I do not wear thick glasses. Will this stop me getting a guy? Yours, Tense Nervous Headache from Tollington.
PAPA:(calling from downstairs) Meena, your cousins are here, come and play with them. They’re good examples of Indian girls.Meena rolls her eyes.
GUV:Meena and Anita steal a charity box from a local shop.
Meena successfully blames her goody two-shoes cousins, Baby and Pinky.
PC GREEN:I’m so disappointed in Meena.
PC BENNETT:Told you that Anita was a bad influence
GUV:But Anita’s impressed and that’s all Meena cares about right now.
SHANE:Did the magazine get back to her?
GUV:Only to suggest wearing a foundation to lighten her skin, and to love herself.
Tuts and gasps from the team.
Along with her Papa, Meena attends a local fete where tensions about race arise, instigated by Sam Lowbridge. In an ugly scene he objects to charity money going to help "darkies"…
SHANE:Unbelievable. What did the other bystanders say?
GUV:A few agreed with Sam. But worse than that, Meena’s new BFF Anita was thoroughly impressed by Sam.
PC GREEN:Meena needs better friends.
GUV:Correct Green. And you’re in luck.
One comes along in the form of Namina, Meena’s Mama’s… Mama so…
SHANE: Meena’s Gran?
GUV:Meena’s Gran! Exactly. Meena’s Gran, Namina, and Meena, despite the fact they’ve never met, hit it off immediately.Namina giggles as she whispers something to Papa who laughs.
PAPA:She thinks you’re wild and uncivilized.
MEENA:Thank you Namina!
PAPA:It wasn’t a compliment.
PC GREEN: Makes a change from being criticized.
GUV:Namina’s visit helps Meena in a nmber of ways. She learns to love her brother, and is surprised at how protective she is of her newest BFF, her Gran, Namina.
Sam Lowbridge saunters up to Meena’s who’s clearly worried for Namina. They have a conversation.
GUV:But, perhaps most importantly, Meena realises the heavy sacrifices that her parents made to come to England - to give her a better life.
Whatever Meena said to Sam worked as he walks away.
GUV:Next year, Meena must pass the 11+ exam in order to get into the grammar school. She’s worried that if she fails, the 5,000 mile trip her parents made all those years ago will end up be even more disappointing than it is already.
GUV:So next, Anita’s Mum, Deirdre, abandons Anita and her sister Tracey to live with a butcher. This is the first and only time Meena sees Anita cry.
PC GREEN:Well, despite Anita’s bad behavior, she is still a kid too. She must be so sad.
GUV:Even though they’ve always disapproved of Anita, Meena’s parents invite her round for tea.
Anita’s shocked to see the Kumar’s using their hands to eat.
ANITA:Where’s me knife and fork?
PAPA:Eat with your hand. Right ,for the right bite.
MEENA:It’s how people eat in top places.
PC BENNETT:
Her parents won’t like her lying.
PAPA:All the expensive restaurants are now finger only.
GUV:Now, work begins on a motorway which will be running through Tollington. The news cameras, plus the fact the work has an Indian overseer, gives Sam Lowbridge even more reasons to be racist. Shortly afterwards the Indian overseer is viciously attacked.
GUV:And surprise, surprise, it’s Sam Lowbridge - Anita’s new boyfriend - and his gang that carried it out. Shortly after that Meena breaks her leg and is in hospital for months.
She studies hard for her 11+ and she becomes very close with another patient, Robert. They communicate by note.
PC GREEN: Aw, so romantic.
GUV:Right you two, stop flirting.
GUV:The night before the 11+ exam, Meena gets embroiled in yet more mess…
PC BENNETT:Damnit. Thought we’d seen the back of Anita Rutter.
GUV:It’s Anita’s sister Tracey who comes to find Meena as she’s worried Anita’s in trouble but they discover her in the bushes with Sam Lowbridge.
Sam looks down at Meena.
SAM:I’ve always liked you Meena. You’re the best wench in Tollington.
You’re dead funny. It’s the others I got a problem with.
MEENA:I am the others.
GREEN/BENNETT/SHANE: Wahooo!/Sock it to him!
GUV:Then… big dramatic plot shock! Anita's sister Tracey nearly drowns in a horrible accident.
POLICE OFFICER:Are you sure falling in the river was an accident? Sam Lowbridge blames Anita Rutter and Anita blames Sam.
MEENA:It was an accident.
GUV: The end.
ALL: Whaaat?
GUV:Only pulling your plonkers. Meena is allowed to sit her exam, she passes and she and her parent move away from Tollington and Anita forever.
The team cheer.
PC GREEN:So does she end up getting together with that lovely Robert from the hospital?
GUV:Are you joking? Read the book Green!
GUV: I’m disappointed in you.
The plot of Anita and Me by Meera Syal is explored using a mixture of a police case conference-style discussion, interspersed with short video sequences of plot re-enactment from the novel.
The police officers discuss the plot with the support of a ‘case wall’ with photographic depictions of the key characters and a TV screen to show some of the dramatised moments from the novel.
As the police officers discuss the ‘case’, they explore the developing plot and use quotations from the text to support their developing understanding of the events in the novel.
This is from the series: LIT P.D
Teacher Notes
Could be used to summarise the events of the novel as a revision activity.
After a first, initial reading, students could watch the sequence in order to gain a fuller understanding of the main events and the shape of the novel as a whole.
Curriculum Notes
This short film is suitable for teaching English literature at GCSE in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 5 and Higher in Scotland.
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