The Ending & Growing Up
Nanima: The Catalyst for Change
The arrival of Meena’s grandmother, Nanima, is a turning point in the novel. Nanima does not speak English, yet she communicates powerfully through storytelling, food, physical affection and sheer force of personality. She tells Meena stories about Partition — the traumatic division of India and Pakistan in 1947 — revealing a family history of displacement and loss that puts Meena’s own struggles into perspective.
Nanima reconnects Meena with her Punjabi heritage by telling stories of Partition, showing her that the Kumars’ experience of displacement and racism has deep historical roots. Meena begins to see her dual identity not as a burden but as a richness — she belongs to a story much bigger than Tollington.
Nanima’s stories of Partition — families torn apart, villages burned, the journey to a new country — make Meena realise that her parents’ quiet dignity is not passivity but extraordinary resilience. The Kumars have survived far worse than Tollington’s petty racism. This realisation is the beginning of Meena’s maturity.
Rejecting Anita
Meena’s fall from a bolting horse, which breaks her leg, functions as both a literal and symbolic crisis. In the aftermath, Meena is confined to bed and has time to reflect. She begins to see Anita clearly for the first time — not as glamorous and free, but as cruel, damaged and racist. The scales fall from Meena’s eyes in a moment of painful epiphany.
The riding accident is loaded with symbolism. The horse that bolts represents the uncontrollable forces — racism, poverty, adolescence — that have been building throughout the novel. Meena emerges physically broken but emotionally clearer, and the long recovery in bed and in hospital marks the death of her childhood innocence. Syal uses this dramatic event to accelerate Meena’s coming-of-age.
The Scholarship and Leaving
Meena passes the eleven-plus and wins a place at a grammar school outside Tollington. This is significant on multiple levels. Educationally, it confirms what the reader has always known — Meena is intelligent and capable. Socially, it separates her from Anita and the village. Symbolically, it represents social mobility — the promise that education can transcend the limitations of class and race.
The scholarship represents escape, social mobility and the fulfilment of her parents’ immigrant dream. It separates Meena from Anita and Tollington, confirming that her future lies in a wider world. It also validates her intelligence, which has been channelled into lying and storytelling but can now be directed towards genuine achievement.
The Ending: Growth and Ambiguity
The novel’s ending is bittersweet. Meena leaves Tollington, but she does not leave with triumph — she leaves with understanding. She has learned that belonging is not about fitting in but about knowing who you are. She has rejected Anita’s version of Englishness in favour of a more complex identity that embraces both her Punjabi heritage and her English upbringing.
Syal deliberately avoids a neat resolution. Racism has not been defeated. Sam is not punished (at least not definitively). Tollington has not changed. The motorway is still being built. Meena has grown, but the world around her remains the same. This ambiguity is realistic and, in AO3 terms, reflects the ongoing nature of racism in Britain. The novel was published in 1996, and Syal knew that the problems of the early 1970s had not been solved — they had simply taken new forms.
The final image of Meena in the car, looking back at Tollington as it recedes, is deeply resonant. She is moving forward, but she is also losing something. Tollington, for all its flaws, was home. Syal captures the particular sadness of the immigrant experience: you can never fully belong where you are, and you can never fully return to where you came from.
Meena learns that belonging is not about fitting in but about knowing who you are. She embraces her dual identity rather than trying to choose one side. She rejects Anita’s narrow version of Englishness in favour of a complex, bicultural identity informed by Nanima’s stories and her own experience.