Daljit Kumar (Mama)

Daljit Kumar — referred to almost entirely as "Mama" — is Meena's first-generation Punjabi immigrant mother, settled with her husband Shyam in the fictional Midlands village of Tollington. She is a compact but formidable presence: immaculately dressed, an accomplished cook of elaborate Indian sweets, and fiercely protective of both the family's domestic space and its reputation. Syal depicts her as someone navigating a permanent double bind — maintaining Indian cultural standards inside the home while managing the condescension or indifference she faces outside of it. Her sharp intelligence emerges through dry observations about Tollington's social hierarchies, and her pride remains steadfast; it acts as armour, carefully constructed against a world that routinely underestimates her. She bakes and gifts food to neighbours who respond with little reciprocity, an act that reflects her entire social position: generous, dignified, and quietly unrewarded.

Daljit's arc is less a dramatic transformation than a gradual revelation. In the novel's early chapters, she functions, in Meena's child-eye view, primarily as an enforcer — correcting her daughter's Punjabi and her English simultaneously, establishing standards that feel arbitrary and suffocating to a girl yearning to belong in Tollington. Her core motivation, however, remains consistent throughout: she wants Meena to have a future that justifies the sacrifices that migration demanded. This imbues her strictness with a poignancy that Meena only partially understands as a child.

The pivotal shift occurs with Nanima's arrival from India. In her mother's presence, Daljit visibly softens and adopts a more carefree demeanor — laughing more freely, moving with less caution — allowing the reader to understand retrospectively how much she has performed composure in Nanima's absence. The two women conversing in Punjabi, partly excluding Meena, highlights Daljit's dual belonging: she is neither fully rooted in England nor simply able to return to her origins. Her arc reaches an emotional closure in the hospital scenes after Meena's road accident, where fear strips away the composed surface entirely, revealing her love unmistakably.

• The sweet-making and neighbourly visits: Early scenes where Daljit prepares intricate Indian sweets for Tollington neighbours establish her as someone who extends cultural generosity even when it is not reciprocated. The asymmetry subtly indicts the village's insularity.
• Corrections of Meena's language: The recurring motif of Daljit correcting both Meena's English slang and her faltering Punjabi dramatizes the immigrant parent's anxiety: losing English respectability is perilous, but losing Punjabi signifies a different kind of loss — loss of self.
• Nanima's arrival: Daljit's evident transformation in her mother's presence stands out as one of the novel's most emotionally precise passages. The woman who appeared to Meena as a monument of domestic authority briefly reverts to being a daughter, making her loneliness in England suddenly palpable.
• Opposition to the Anita friendship: Daljit's subtle, ongoing campaign against Meena's attachment to Anita Rutter — expressed through warnings, cool silences, and pointed remarks — proves prophetic. Her early assessment of Anita as a dangerous influence is completely validated.
• The hospital aftermath: When Meena is hospitalized following the road accident, Daljit's relief and terror are conveyed without irony. This scene most openly expresses the bond between mother and daughter rather than implying it.

With Meena: The emotional core of the novel. Meena views her mother primarily as a source of constraint — someone who insists on standards that mark the family as different. Yet Daljit's values serve as a gradual moral education; by the novel's conclusion, Meena begins to perceive her mother's principles as something to embrace rather than escape.

With Shyam: Their partnership is defined by easy mutual respect and a united parental front. Small domestic rituals — shared decisions, quiet cooperation — create a stark contrast to the dysfunction seen in households like the Rutters'. Their relationship suggests that the immigrant community Syal portrays is not monolithic but encompasses its own forms of quiet fulfillment.

With Nanima: This is where Daljit's inner life is most visible. Nanima's visit uncovers the emotional sustenance Daljit has been missing in England and highlights how much of her inner life she suppresses in daily existence in Tollington.

With Anita and Tracey Rutter: Daljit's wariness of Anita is perceptive from the start — she identifies neglect and instability in the Rutter household. Her concern for Tracey carries pity rather than warmth, and both girls serve as cautionary examples that reinforce her belief in attentive, principled parenting as her most important work.