Sanjeev Bhaskar, comedian and writer of The Kumars At No 42, reveals the inspiration behind his latest BBC Two series India with Sanjeev Bhaskar, as his eponymous tie-in book is published.
Writer, actor and comedian Sanjeev Bhas-kar was literally lost for words when judging a Mrs India beauty pageant while filming his current BBC2 series India With Sanjeev Bhaskar.
When a fellow judge asked a contestant how she felt about marital rape, Sanjeev looked on aghast, before being nudged by the same judge to ask a follow up question.
“The only thing I could think of was, ‘What’s your favourite animal?'” the creator of The Kumars At No 42 recalls.
It was just one of a mass of memorable moments for Bhaskar, 43, as he visited India to make a documentary series as part of a BBC season marking the 60th anniversary of independence.
In a country with a population of 1.1 billion, he was pretty chuffed to find that locals recognised him from his hit series The Kumars at No 42. Fans were not backwards in coming forwards, he recalls: “On two occasions somebody handed me a mobile phone and said, ‘Talk to my daughter - she’s a big fan.'”
Yet when the series – in which he starred as incompetent amateur chat show host Sanjeev Kumar – was first syndicated to Indian TV, he phoned a cousin to find out how it was doing. Not so well, he was told. It was only watched by about 40 million people.
His gentle, deadpan humour is peppered throughout the series and the eponymous tie-in book, which sees him embark on a journey through modern India, where millionaires and beggars live cheek by jowl.
Bhaskar was born in Ealing, west London, and grew up in the ’70s above his parents’ launderette.
“As a child I went to India about three or four times. It was starkly different to here. It felt like a poor country,” he says. “My grandmother, who lived in Delhi, didn’t have running water all day, there were communal loos, she basically had two rooms and my widowed aunt and her three kids lived with her.
“When my family pitched up it was packed, like being a commuter. I was never particularly comfortable there.”
But returning now he found a very different India – a new economic superpower with state-of-the-art technology and city whiz kids, as far away from the tales of exotic old India as you can get. There is still a massive gap between the haves and the have-nots, but people seem to accept it.
“India is still a fatalistic country. People believe in fate and destiny. So even though you have abject poverty living next door to unbelievable wealth, what you don’t have is an attitude from the poor where they spend all their time thinking about how they can break into the rich houses and nick all their stuff.
“They may wish they had that good fortune but they don’t begrudge it. Within the Hindu philosophy the poor person will think, let me be the best person I can be and then when I come back maybe I’ll have moved up a notch and I won’t be poor next time.”
When many Indians moved to Britain following partition, which split British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, they believed they were coming to a land of opportunity, where hard work and decency were a way of life.
“When India became independent 60 years ago, a lot of people who had gathered to mark the moment turned round and hugged the British soldiers, which is an extraordinary statement.
“There has never been a history of Brit-bashing in India. There’s still this view in India that Britain is the land of good manners, fair play, Shakes-peare, Dickens and the Beatles.”
When Bhaskar was filming, the Celebrity Big Brother furore involving Jade Goody’s comments about Shilpa Shetty kicked off. “Surprisingly, there were no screaming headlines in India. It was a measured response,” he says. “The primary one was, look, she’s getting £350,000 – what’s she complaining about? The second was, it’s a TV programme. The people in the house aren’t representative of Britain.
“I don’t think Jade is a racist. She was loud-mouthed and a bully and in a way has been made a scapegoat. She was like a pitbull, goaded by the others and then unleashed.”
But he was saddened by the image the show would give to Indians. “I thought, suddenly they are getting this glimpse of the Asbo, yobby side of Britain. With the internet and reality programmes, that view of Britain as the land of fair play and good manners will be diluted.”
Bhaskar ditched a career in marketing to go into comedy, which didn’t go down well with his parents. “They were distraught. The first time I’d done anything of stand-up quality which had been videoed I showed to my dad and within about a minute he was reading the paper, without comment, which was slightly devastating.
“But once it all kicked into gear they were incredibly proud.”
He made his name in the ’90s with the Asian sketch show series Goodness Gracious Me, co-starring Meera Syal, to whom he is now married. The show, which mocked British and Asian cultures and became famous for its ‘Going for an English’ sketch, became a runaway hit.
Then came The Kumars at No 42, which he wrote and which he hopes will return.
“I don’t think The Kumars had an Asian slant,” he reflects. “It could have been a family from Humberside or from Cornwall. I was just trying to give myself a job.”
When the show first launched, he arranged for his parents to meet his fictional parents on the set.
“In the Kumars’ house on the set we had photos of our real parents in the house. I have them in mind whenever I’m working. I want them to be proud.”
He and Syal, who have collaborated on a number of projects, are not artistically competitive, he says.
“With The Kumars, I gave her the funniest part (Granny). I can say, ‘I gave you the best part in the Kumars’ and she can say, ‘Well, I gave you a son.' The argument ends there. She’s incredibly talented, a really good writer.”
Filming of the documentary took him away from his home in London for around four months – and he didn’t realise how much he would miss their son, Shaan, who is now 19 months old.
“I found it really difficult because Shaan was just under three months when I first went. In India I had this little video of him on my mobile phone that I would look at every night before I went to bed.
“Fatherhood is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s incredible. I feel very privileged.”
Syal’s 14-year-old daughter from a previous relationship also lives with them.
“We get the best of both worlds – hormonal teenager and teething baby. There’s a challenge,” he jokes.
He’s just finished writing another script for Mumbai Calling, which ran as an ITV1 pilot earlier this year about a British man, Kenny Gupta, dispatched to work at an Indian call centre. And he’s hoping the Kumars will return but with some changes.
“There’s life in those characters. Given the work that Meera and I have done in the last few years, we’ve had interest from Hollywood A-listers who want to come on.”
Bhaskar has received a few criticisms over the years from Indians who have taken offence at his comic treatment of Asian families.
“With Goodness Gracious Me, a guy came up to me once and said, ‘Why do you want to wash all our dirty linen in public?' I said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather your linen was washed?' And he said, ‘Maybe,' and I said, ‘Do you have dirty linen at home?' and he said, ‘No.'
“Then he said, ‘I love the show.'”
India with Sanjeev Bhaskar is published by HarperCollins and is available now
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