Anita and Me (Grades 9–1) York Notes

Meena goes through a lot of changes. The first is in her lying. The story begins with a lie, Papa is taking her to the shop to see if she was really given sweets or if she stole a shilling for them and she admits in the end that she was lying. She admits she lies a lot, like when she tells ‘harmless fabrications’ like her being a Punjabi princess or ‘major whoppers’ to get out of trouble. She still does this kind of thing much later, she tells some women that Nanima speaks Russian and is a diamond miner who escaped a volcano. But in the end she gives up lying and tells the truth to the police. This is an important change because she could get revenge on Anita and Sam by saying they threw Tracey in the pond.

Meena also changes in her relationship with Anita. She starts out believing whatever Anita says, for example that her dad is a sailor, she also totally admires Anita: ‘knowing that I was privileged to be in her company’. This means she thinks she is lucky just to be with Anita. Later she says ‘Anita talked and I listened.’ But the power balance changes when they go to the fair and Meena protects Anita from knowing what Anita’s mother is up to with ‘the Poet’. She also shows sympathy for Anita when she sees her mother make her cry and when her mother has gone off and Anita is crying in the park. Meena begins to see that Anita is not just hard and ‘cock of our yard’.

The friendship goes downhill as Meena becomes more independent. For example, she objects when Anita approves of Sam’s racism. Meena stands up for her views at this point. She eventually realises that Anita needs her more than she needs Anita, and that Anita was never going to get a pony. Meena pities her, but in the end she rejects her for enjoying a racist attack.

Meena also changes towards Sam. At first she thinks he is ‘ polite, even kind’, then she regards him as a racist and stands up to him. In her final meeting with him it seems she has always found him secretly attractive, but now she feels powerful and sees him as pathetic.

However, the biggest way Meena changes is towards being Asian. All through the novel she identifies more with English culture than Indian. An example is when she sings a pop song at the music evening instead of an Indian song. She even wants to be white and writes to ‘Jackie’ magazine about it. But because of Nanima, she starts to get interested in India and her heritage.

With Meena’s new sense of belonging in the world, we rely on what she tells us about herself. Losing Nanima and Robert has made her stronger, so she knows: ‘the place in which I belonged was wherever I stood.’ She does not feel ‘displaced’ now.

By the end Meena has changed hugely, mostly because of losing Anita, Nanima and Robert. She has come to accept herself and does not need to tell lies all the time.