Parminder Nagra after receiving the honorary degree in Leicester. Telegraph picture

London, July 13: While Monty Panesar has been winning plaudits for learning to “spin it like Bedi”, another gifted Sikh, Parminder Kaur Nagra, has been honoured for learning to Bend It Like Beckham.

This week, when Nagra received an honorary degree of doctor of law from the University of Leicester — this is the city where she was born on October 5, 1975 — the congregation heard how the actress took professional lessons so that she could learn to curve a football through the air in the manner of the former England captain.

But the phrase has also come to represent how Asian women have bent the strict rules of their society in order to get ahead in Britain.

Beckham, incidentally, accompanied by his wife, Victoria, arrived yesterday in America to begin a new life playing soccer in Los Angeles — where Nagra is now based so that she can play Dr Neela Rasgotra in the American soap ER.

But Nagra has taken time off to return to Leicester where she donned red academic robes and made an emotional speech when accepting her award earlier this week.

She dispelled the notion that she had become arrogant after making millions in America.

A bystander remarked after hearing her response: “It was a lovely and touching speech. She was really thrilled and students came up to her afterwards and said, ‘You’re a top star,’ as she signed autographs and posed for photos with them.”

In a way, Panesar and Nagra are the new role models, examples of the fulfilment of the Indian dream. Both have emerged from working class Punjabi immigrant families and yet — while too many young Pakistanis and Bangladeshis sink into the terrorism trap — succeeded in pulling themselves up to become international celebrities.

Nagra’s achievements are all the more remarkable considering the majority of Britain’s top actors and especially actresses emerge from upper crust English families, with paths eased for them by influential theatrical mothers and fathers — rather in the style of Kapoors and the Bachchans.

There was no acting tradition in Nagra’s family where both her parents toiled in factories. Yet, through her efforts, she can now claim to be one of Britain’s most talented young actresses — not just an Asian one. But she emerged out of British Asian theatre, after some memorable performances for the Tamasha Theatre Company.

Last year, the University of De Montfort in Leicester honoured Amitabh Bachchan. This week, the much older University of Leicester conferred honorary degrees on a number of mostly distinguished academics but also included Nagra.

In his oration, Professor Gordon Campbell explained why Leicester University was honouring her.

“Parminder Nagra is known to the world at large as the star of Bend it like Beckham and as Neela in ER,” he said. “Here in Leicester, we think of her as one of us, one of whom we are immensely proud. Parminder was born in Belgrave, in the north of the city. Her family had emigrated here from India in the 1960s. The home language was Punjabi, which Parminder still speaks fluently.”

After attending a local school, “in 1991, at the age of 16, she secured a job as an usher at Leicester’s Haymarket Theatre, which enabled her to watch professional actors at work. Actors cannot make a living in Leicester, and soon Parminder made the inevitable move to London. In 2002, Parminder secured the part that was to transform her from a rising star on the London stage into an international celebrity: she was cast as Jess Bhamra in Bend It Like Beckham.”

Campbell revealed: “She also had to become a footballer, and so was inducted into the game by her coach Simon Clifford, who used the Brazilian technique of Futebol de Salã, in which the game is played on a small pitch with a small ball filled with foam. As the weeks went by, Clifford gradually taught Parminder to bend it like Beckham, and he then played the role of the coach himself in the film.”

In her speech, a tearful Nagra said: “You have no idea how much this means to me. A degree is something that I had always wanted but had thought it was something that had just passed me by. So I feel very fortunate to be stood here right now, especially in this rather fetching gown — I know my mom will love it.”

She added: “The inspirations of my life were… God, I’m getting emotional… the inspirations of my life were right there under my nose, my mother and family and amazing mentors, who have come and gone throughout my life, but people who I have always remembered.. so sorry, think I am about to cry …”

She said: “I come from a very normal background.”

And she recalled her mother’s words: “‘If there is a roof over your head and food on the table, then everything will be fine.’”