its been a breathless year for writer and actor meera syal it began with her stint at national theatre in david hares adaptation of beyond the beautiful forevers then came the citation of the cbe in may followed by the news that her bookturnedfilm anita and me has been enlisted in the british school syllabus now her third novel on surrogacy the house of hidden mothers is already on its way to television how do her works end up with multimedia lives meera syal tells joeanna r fernandesdo you see a greater accommodation of surrogacy now among britishindians the best answer i can give you is that the couple i met who are britishindian have asked to remain anonymous as they do not want any of their extended family to know that their children were born via a surrogate that tells you how much of a stigma infertility still is amongst some families and also attitudes towards using a surrogate however i am heartened that many of the professionals i met said they have seen a growing albeit slow awareness and understanding amongst the community towards infertility i hope my book will at least encourage more debate around this areadid you struggle with telling this story interestingly the most difficult part of the book was not the relationship between shyama the britishindian woman who hires the surrogate and mala the surrogate but the subplot concerning shyamas parents in the novel prem and sita like many nris of their generation have put their life savings into a property in delhi intending to move into it once they retire and spend their sunset years in their motherland a common dream for many firstgeneration immigrants however their own kind hearts lead them to lending the property to a relative who promises to vacate it when prem and sita retire and well you can guess the rest so they end up in a decadeslong court case trying to reclaim their flat which breaks their wallets financially and emotionally breaks their hearts because this is about family betrayal more than anything else i have lost count of how many people have come up to me and said this happened to my family too there seems to be an nri epidemic of families who have spent years trying to reclaim their retirement homes and land and are left languishing in the legal system with no supportyour work always somehow manages a multimedia life what do you make of it i honestly just try to keep working i never intended to be a writer when i started it was just the lack of interesting roles for a woman like me that made me so frustrated i thought i may as well try and create my own i cant tell you how many scripts i would open with a heavy heart and find i was once again being offered victim of arranged marriage or woman in newsagent none of the roles reflected the strong funny dynamic indian