We were a lively family, the Indian version of the Von Trapps. Dad sang all the time. My sisters were in a pop band: a cross between Bollywood and Abba. We had a lot of freedom to express ourselves.
My earliest memory is having a cry on the sofa with my shawli, a comfort blanket, recovering from my petulance while everybody left me to it. Quiet time – like being on the naughty step. I was a handful. I still am.
I had very open-minded parents. Dad, a GP and paediatrician, could fit in with anybody. He taught us not to be judgmental. Without his ability to see beyond tradition and patriarchy, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
When we lose our parents, we become aware of our own mortality because, in that linear way of looking at it, we’re next. You shouldn’t be understanding that in your 20s, but my dad was 49 when he died and I was 18. We’d been living in Technicolor. Suddenly, the colour seeped out of life.
I’m really shy and a bit awkward. Sometimes I don’t know how to be. Nobody can quite believe it because of the job I do, but the person I know is not the person that appears to everybody else.
Age is not a burden; it’s a wisdom. I’m more me in my 50s. It’s archaic how people are left on the shelf as they age. That needs to change – the idea of the usefulness of women post their ability to reproduce.
When I was in Corrie, I was asked to name my character Sunita’s twins. I named her Asha after Mum. As her dementia progressed, when she watched and heard someone say Asha, she had a little smile.
Caring for someone with dementia is an isolating experience. Your world is reduced to that one room. You can’t live your life at the same time as living in theirs. I was at Mum’s for about five years. It changes you completely.
We never said “I love you” to each other, but we knew. At the time I needed her, Mum was very much there for me. I was a single mother. She helped me bring up my son. I often think about what she did.
Dementia is never identikit. No research can prepare you. Memories from different periods in my mum’s life would appear to her simultaneously, like a complex piece of jazz. I joined her on her journey. I would say: “What’s it like there, Mum?”
When I got coronavirus I feared I wouldn’t get through it. I didn’t take a deep breath for three months. My limbs felt like they’d been run over. I was exhausted. I couldn’t taste or smell, had headaches daily. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and had three rounds of antibiotics. The virus was relentless. You can see how it can kill.
My greatest achievement is being able to love – finding it, experiencing it, sharing it. And forgiving myself. Just to be in work, as an actor, is an achievement, too. Mum would love that I appeared on a Coronation Street stamp, but she wouldn’t tell me directly. There’d just be a pile of stamps somewhere. She was very proud, but she didn’t shout it from the rooftops.
Remember Me? Discovering My Mother as She Lost her Memory by Shobna Gulati (Octopus Books, £16.99) is out now. Buy a copy for £14.78 at guardianbookshop.com
