Londonstani

—Hahn hahn, ji ji. Sitting on silk bedcover. Wait, I tell your mama.

This weren’t just tough talk on Aunty’s part cos she was really tight with Amit’s mum. She was tight with all our mums, but she an Amit’s mum were like sisters. Called each other Bhainji, shared the pickin an droppin from school, wore their best jewellery to each other’s satsangs. They’d even tried to convince their husbands to go into business together one time, become one big happy family. Hardjit’s mum figured his dad could make better bucks than he already did running nine twenty-four-hour local convenience shops in partnership with two a his cousins. Amit’s mum thought her husband could do better than the aeroplane catering business he ran with his brothers in Heston. Things hadn’t been the same since they lost the contract with Air India or whatever. In the end, though, both men stayed in their businesses by promising their wives rapid, five-year expansion plans. An now it was Amit’s turn to plead with Hardjit’s mum—who’d already taken out her mobile as if she was bout to dial his mum. But a course she was only pretendin to dial. How much a this whole Rottweiler routine was just pretend it was hard to tell. That’s the way with her. She’d play it as sweet as an angel’s fairy godmother but if you pissed her off you were as good as dog’s diarrhoea on those silk bedcovers. Fucked: that’s what we were.

The only way to dodge Hardjit’s mum’s nastiness was to never cross her in the first place, which might sound like simple advice but it in’t easy to follow cos it’s really easy to cross her. It’s like as if she’s addicted to being offended. All her friends seem to have this same addiction, especially this one hairy-faced auntyji who was always round there complaining bout this shit or that shit. If holdin a grudge was an Olympic sport they’d all have even more gold to decorate their wrinkly bodies with. They’d play it in teams, especially at wedding receptions. You’d see them there, all sittin together with their fake smiles like rows a substitutes on the bench.

Hardjit’s mum din’t give us all a bollocking for too long though, probly cos she figured the doilies an teacups downstairs were becoming emptier than the ones she was clearin up here. So she picked up the silver tray an, scratch-scratch-scratch, went back down to her guest as quickly as she’d come up in the first place. This time slammin the door so hard that the num-chuckers nearly slipped off the handle. They carried on swinging against the door for the whole three hundred hours it took for someone to say something. It was Ravi.—Shit, we bust’d da fone, he said as he picked the pieces a the smashed-up E700 off the floor.

—Uh, I don’t fuckin fink so, Ravi, u da one wat bust da fuckin fone, goes Hardjit, puffing out his chest an clenchin both his fists before rememberin his mother’s words bout the noise an backin down again like she was still in the room, holdin a gun to his bollocks or someshit.—Look, Ravi, he said calmly,—u da one who threw it across da room pretendin u was playin fuckin cricket wid it. So u da one wat’s gonna find us a new one cos no fuckin way I’ma tell Davinder we broke one a his fones.

—C’mon, bruv, man, how’ma get a new E700?

—Dat’s easy enuf, bruv. We just take yours, innit.

—Uh-uh. No way. Ma mum jus upgraded to dis last month. Dey won’t give her no more upgrades if we tell dem it got bust so soon.

—Well, I guess u’ll jus have 2 find one, innit.

—I know what, why don’t we ask Jas to gets one from his dad’s warehouse, innit? Da man’s bound to have E700s in stock.

Before I can even protest Hardjit comes out with,—Why da fuck shud Jas call on a family favour 4? It ain’t his bad, it yo bad so u sort it. Best make it quick time tho, cos we gots 2 give dese fones back 2 Davinder by Friday.

As Ravi stood there with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, weighing up his options as if he had any, one a the mobiles on the bed suddenly started ringin. This should’ve made us jump cos the cops can track em if they’re pickin up a signal. But we all knew it was just Ravi’s mum callin one a Ravi’s Nokias. We knew this for two reasons. Firstly, his parents had one a them old mobile tariffs that was free after seven o’clock an rang on the dot if he weren’t back by then. Secondly, we all knew it was his mum cos Ravi’d got different ringtones for different people. She’d want to know why her son weren’t back from school yet. Was he shaming her by talkin to short-skirted kurhiyaan at the bus garage or had he just been kidnapped?

Amit’s parents, who lived three houses down from Ravi, would be gettin all worried too. We usually tried to get home before our dads got back from work so as not to give our mums another excuse to look at the kitchen clock an call us. But what happens when your dad works from home? Ravi’s dad had been offerin financial advice from behind an IBM Thinkpad in the living room for as long as I could remember. He made good bucks by it too, an best thing was he din’t have to commute in the traffic or sit there on the tube with all them plebs who can’t afford a decent car an the even plebier pricks who offer to stand up so that other plebs can sit down.

—Hahn, Mama, Ravi goes into his fone,—detention nahi hai, cricket club vich si…Hahn, Mama, OK, I’ll tell Amit…Hahn, eggs and naan bread from Budgens. OK, Mum, see you, bye. He closed his fone an turned to Amit.—I gots to chip now n yo mum wants you back quick time. Sound to me like it urgent.

—Oh fuck, Amit gives it,—I forgot we got anotha a dem family committee meetings bout ma brother’s wedding.

—I give you a lift, blud, goes Ravi.—Also, you gotta get eggs n naan on da way. Jas, lift to da tube station, right?

Before we left, Ravi tried to turn his mum’s polyphonic ringtone into a bell he could be saved by. But let’s face it, that weren’t ever gonna happen with the theme tune to Jaws.

—Hardj, man, fuck’s sake. How’ma jus find anotha E700, man?

—Not ma problem, bruv. Same way Davinder jus found all a dese.

—I thought you said we din’t jack fones, man. Dat ain’t where we at in da supply chain, you says.

—Yeh, but I ain’t ever said we b bowlin muthafuckin fones round like dey b fuckin cricket balls either, did I? Dat means dat 2moro, afta ma fight wid Tariq, u best not even show me yo face till u jack’d us a new E700 or I’ma mash u up like u mash’d up da fone.

It still seemed early cos we’d bunked off college most a the day. That really fucks up your sense a time. Like them nightclubs that hold bhangra gigs at two in the afternoon cos they know it’s the only time some desi mums’ll let their daughters go out. Not only was it still daylight as we left Hardjit’s house, but his little sister had only just arrived back from after-school netball practice. Hardjit’s mum was standin in the porch, arms folded, waitin for her. Waitin an watchin as her daughter got her big bag a netball kit from her friend’s mum’s car boot an said bye, bye an bye to her three netball buddies.

Did seeing all a that human warmth inspire Hardjit’s mum to get in on the action an say the same to us? Did it fuck. She was still vexed bout us showin her up in front a her guest. Times like this you’re even more grateful for fones. Means you don’t have to deal with your mates’ parents so much, at least not every time you fone em. It’s like I said with Rudeboy Rule #2: you’ve got your own fone, you call your own shots. Now all they need to invent is that other bit a gear from Star Trek, the one that just beams people wherever the fuck they want to go so they don’t have to deal with this kind a shit. We could just beam ourselves straight back to our own bedrooms, not even have to deal with our own mums.

You should have seen the face Hardjit’s mum made at us as we put on our shoes in the porch. It was the one where she was sayin her ways an standards were so great that even her after-chana-daal farts smelt as sweet as the jalabi an mango pulp she ate for dessert. She was obviously the smell version a deaf or blind cos what the fuck did she know bout what really went on under her nose? What bout the people-pulp made by her own darling son? Would she have made that face if she knew bout all the faces he’d ruined? Or if she knew the truth bout all those days when school or college just happened to finish an afternoon early? Or even bout them daytime bhangra gigs her daughter went to? How could anyone really think gigs in the afternoon made any difference? Daylight robbery is as easy as nite-time robbery for a good-lookin guy who spends enough time fixin his hair an workin out in the gym. Especially when the thing that’s being robbed is some snooty mum’s daughter’s dignity. The blanking Hardjit’s mum was givin us as we left his house was even more blatant cos a the way she exaggerated the hello an hug she gave her daughter. She was rewarded by being told she din’t need to take the netball kit to wash cos it weren’t that dirty. A course, we all still made a point a thankin her again for the pakoras, samosas, chai an Coke. We were rewarded with just enough noddin to ruffle her sari. Scratch-scratch. Gotta respect your elders, innit.

8 (#ulink_8c1670b5-a2ef-540a-b60f-7f9ac521644b)

It was the morning a Hardjit’s big fight an the two a us were kickin bout on the corner a Hounslow High Street an Montague Road. Right outside the Holy Trinity Church. All the other rudeboys hung bout by the bus stop outside WHSmith. All the fit Panjabi girls hung inside the Treaty Centre (where the security guards din’t chuck em out cos apparently it in’t loitering if you’re a fit Panjabi girl). Me, I get the Holy Trinity Church. The place looks more like some school sports hall stead a some church, an in case you’re ever hangin outside long enough to wonder why, there’s a sign tellin its history.

—Bruv? I go to Hardjit.—Bruv, d’you know the original church got burnt down by two schoolboys in 1943? Hardjit’s busy lookin too hard an slick to be hangin round with someone like me. So I try again.—This one here was rebuilt in the 1960s, in the exact same spot.

—No shit, Jas. Does it look like I give a shit? Som’times I’s embarrass’d 2 b hangin round wid’chyu. Why da fuck’d I wanna know bout some church’s history 4? Do I look like a vicar? U da one wat probly likes choirboys.

I tell him he shouldn’t be dissin Christianity, that he should check out his mum during Christmas time. You can tell from the way his eyes kick back that he’s considering this for a minute: the way his mum always sends out Christmas cards with a picture a the Nativity on them. How she even puts up a plastic Christmas tree with an angel on the top, right next to the Buddha statue they got in their living room. She told me it’s cos she believed all the different Gods are all part a the same crew.

—Look, don’t b cussin ma mum, Jas. Least ma mum’s got friends to send cards to. I ain’t jokin wid’chyu, man. U wanna start actin like a coconut then go inside here n start prayin. Betta b prayin dat I don’t break yo ass 4 bein a gimp.

Just before a fight was a pretty good time to be gettin down to some serious prayin. Lord, maketh me victorious in battle or whatever. Then again, maybe that’s bollocks, maybe God don’t cheer people on when they bruck each other. I mean, chanting Om Shanti, Shanti wouldn’t exactly make sense right now cos Shanti means peace. Anyway, whatever the Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Muslim Gods thought bout whatever Hardjit intended to do to Tariq’s face today, the bredren hadn’t come out here to the Holy Trinity Church to say a prayer for victory. He hadn’t come here to pray for forgiveness either an I’m pretty sure he din’t know what irony was so that also weren’t the reason we were hangin round outside a church. We were waitin for Ravi an Amit to show up in the Beemer before we all headed down to Tariq an his crew. Waitin for fuckin ages.

Hardjit kept sayin something bout how, in life, you gotta be a man an scrap a lick with fools now an then. That in’t an option, he said. But why you fight them is. Today, Hardjit was gonna teach Tariq a lesson or two for going out with a Sikh girl an then tryin to convert her to Islam. That’s, like, the desi version a someone fuckin your wife. Sikh bredren’re always accusing Muslim guys a tryin to convert their Sikh sisters. Seems that they even got a proper word for it: sisterising. Sometimes the Sikh girls’d start cryin, sayin they’d used brainwashing techniques an that. Sometimes this shit even turned out to be true. Sometimes, though, it was just the girl’s way a dumpin some good-lookin Muslim guy she’d been seeing without gettin killed by her community for seeing him in the first place. The desi version a waking up the next morning an thinkin, Oh fuck, I best say he raped me. It’s not my fault, he brainwashed me into his religion. I said no, please no, but he forced it into me.

Truth is, none a us knew whether the girl that today’s fight was bout was tellin the truth or not. Matter a fact, we din’t even know her name. What we did know was that her parents were dyin a shame, her two older brothers had got a restraining order put on them by the feds an all her cousins lived in Birmingham. So it was up to some other Sikh guy to sort things out, an round here that other Sikh guy normly meant Hardjit. Even Hindu kids called on him when they’d got beef to settle. You know how the people a Gotham City’ve got that Bat signal for whenever they need to call Batman? The homeboys a Hounslow an Southall should have two signals for Hardjit: an Om for when Hindus needed him an a Khanda for when Sikhs needed him. He always used to go on bout how Sikhs an Hindus fought side by side in all them wars. Both got beef with Muslims. Both support India at cricket. Both be listenin to bhangra, even though Sikh bredren clearly dance better to it. He says Sikhs were the warriors a Hinduism one time. Like the SAS but in a religious way too, so more like Jedi Knights. But even though Hardjit said all a this stuff, he din’t like the way his mum had hung up pictures a Hindu Gods on their landing at home next to their pictures a Gurus. But then there in’t no point tryin to talk to your mum or dad bout religion, innit. They don’t know jack bout religion. I seen Hardjit win arguments with his dad by quoting bits a the Guru Granth Sahib that his dad din’t even know—like them hardcore Muslim kids who keep tellin their parents what it says in the Koran.

If Hardjit din’t like his mum’s definition a Sikhism, Amit an his older brother Arun hated their mum’s definition a Hinduism. I remember one time we’d all been round their house during one a their mum’s high-society satsangs. Snuck a peep round the livingroom door a couple a times, watched all the aunties in their pashmina shawls, sittin on the floor, sayin all the usual prayers, singin all the usual bhajans an singin prayers in the form a bhajans. Those a them with bad back problems or diabetes sat on the leather cowhide sofas, which was just as well cos all this sittin on the floor business usually meant some serious strategic crisis for Amit an Arun’s mum. How to help the oldies stand up on their feet again? How to rearrange the furniture? Where to put the cups a masala tea? They couldn’t exactly use their expensive coffee tables with the golden legs cos they’d be too high for those on the floor an’d been moved to the corners a the room for protection anyway. An they couldn’t put the cups on the floor in case one spilt an ruined the expensive silk an satin sheets that’d been laid down especially to protect the carpet.

Arun was chattin to me bout it while Amit, Ravi an Hardjit were playin on their Xbox. He was a safe guy, Arun. Two years older than Amit, but smaller an with no facial hair. He could’ve even been part a the crew but he spent most a his time with this girl he’d got engaged to. He also weren’t exactly a proper rudeboy cos he had these boffiny tendencies, but he weren’t a coconut either. He always wore jeans, a white T-shirt an a biker jacket made a canvas cos he said it made no sense wearin leather if you din’t eat beef. Anyway, while he was dissin the satsang going on downstairs, he told me it’d been even worse in the afternoon, before all his mum’s guests arrived. Apparently she’d done so much screamin an shoutin at him, Amit an their dad to tidy the house an wear socks without holes, that Arun reckoned it was amazing she’d still got a voice left for singin bhajans.