Londonstani

—It ain’t necessary for u 2 b a Pakistani to call a Pakistani a Paki, Hardjit explains,— or for u 2 call any Paki a Paki for dat matter. But u gots 2 b call’d a Paki yourself. U gots 2 b, like, an honorary Paki or someshit. An dat’s da rule. Can’t be callin someone a Paki less u also call’d a Paki, innit. So if you hear Jas, Amit, Ravi or me callin anyone a Paki, dat don’t mean u can call him one also. We b honorary Pakis n u ain’t.

—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi. Don’t ask me why the white boy still looked confused. It was the exact same for black people. They could call each other nigger but even us desi bredrens couldn’t call them niggers. Or niggaz, if you spell it like that. At least that’s how NWA was spelt when their name was spelt out in full. In fact, I figured that if Niggaz With Attitude followed the usual rules a acronyms, it’d be more accurate to use a capital letter, as in Nigga or Paki. I know I should’ve fuckin known better, but I decided to share this thought with the other guys.

—Yeh, motherfucker, an even when you allowed to call someone a Paki, it be Paki wid a capital P, innit.

—Jas, u khota, Hardjit goes, swivelling round so fast his dog tags would’ve flown off someone with a thinner neck,— why da fuck u teachin him how 2 spell?

I shrugged, deeply lamenting my lack a rudeboyesque panache.

—Da gora ain’t no neo-Nazi graffiti artist n dis ain’t no fuckin English lesson, innit.

An so I shut the fuck up an let Hardjit sum up his own lesson.

—A Paki is someone who comes from Pakistan. Us bredrens who don’t come from Pakistan can still b call’d Paki by other bredrens if it means we can call dem Paki in return. But u people ain’t allow’d 2 join in, u get me?

All a this shit was just academic a course. Firstly, Hardjit’s thesis, though it was what Mr Ashwood’d call internally coherent, failed to recognise the universality a the word Nigga compared with the word Paki. De-poncified, this means many Hindus an Sikhs’d spit blood if they ever got linked to anything to do with Pakistan. Indians are just too racist to use the word Paki. Secondly, the white kid couldn’t call no one a Paki no more with his mouth all cut up. It was still bleedin in little bursts, thick gobfuls droppin onto the concrete floor like he was slowly puking up blood or someshit. It made me feel like puking up myself (the samosas an a can a Coke we got at the college canteen at break time). The blood trickled differently down his chin than down his cheeks. A closer look showed it was cos he’d got this really short goatee beard that I din’t notice before. What’s the point in havin a goatee if it’s so blond no one can even see it unless your face is covered in blood? Amit’d always said goras couldn’t ever get their facial hair right. If it weren’t too blond, it was too curly or too bumfluffy or just too gimpy-shaped. One time he said that they looked like batty boys when they’d got facial hair an baby boys when they din’t. I told him I thought he was being racist. He goes to me it was the exact same thing as sayin black guys were good at growin dreadlocks but crap at growin ponytails. Amit probly had the wikidest facial hair in the whole a Hounslow, better than Hardjit’s even. Thin heavy lines a carefully shaped, short, unstraggly black hair that from far back looked like it’d been drawn on with a felt-tip pen. Anyway, even if it was possible for a gora to have ungay facial hair, the gora in front a us now looked like he’d shaved himself with a chainsaw.

Hardjit was tellin the gora something else, but I din’t hear what. I’d zoned out during the short silence an tuned into the creaking a these mini goalposts Hardjit’d hung his Schott bomber jacket over. You could tell from the creaking that they’d rusted an were meant to be used inside the school sports hall rather than stuck out here opposite the dustbin an traffic cone that made up the other goal.

—Ansa me, you dirrty gora, Hardjit goes, before kneeling down an punchin him in the mouth so that his tongue an lower lip explode again over the library books he’d tried to use as a shield. Even if the white kid could say something stead a just gurgling an splutterin blood, he was wise enough not to.

—Dat’s right, the three a us go in boy-band mode again,— ansa da man or we bruck yo fuckin face.

—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi.

We should’ve just left the white kid then an got our butts back to the car. We’d still got some other business to sort out before headin back to college that afternoon. We were also takin some serious liberties with our luck that none a the teachers’d look out the classroom windows or step into the playground to pick up litter. They’d ID us for sure if they did. Not just cos we hung round this school’s sixthform common room now an then, but also cos up till last June we were sixth-formers here ourselves. We all fuckin failed, a course, despite all our parents’ prayin an payin for private maths tuition. An so now we were down the road at Hounslow College a Higher Education, retakin our fuckin A-levels at the age a fuckin nineteen when we should’ve been at King’s College or the London School a Economics or one a the other desi unis with nice halls a residence in central London.

Teachers or no teachers, fuck it. I had to redeem myself after my gimpy remark bout spellin Paki with a capital P. After all, Ravi had spotted the white kid in the first place an Amit’d helped Hardjit pin him against the brick wall. But me, I hadn’t added anything to either the physical or verbal abuse a the gora. To make up for my useless shitness I decided to offer the followin carefully crafted comment:

—Yeh, bredren, knock his fuckin teeth out. Bruck his fuckin face. Kill his fuckin…well, his fuckin, you know, him. Kill him.

This was probly a bit over the top but I think I’d got the tone just right an nobody laughed at me. At least I managed to stop short a sayin, Kill the pig, like the kids do in that film Lord a the Flies. It’s also a book too, but I’m tryin to stop knowin shit like that.

—U hear wot ma bredren Jas b chattin? Hardjit says, welcoming my input.— If u b gettin lippy wid me u b gettin yo’self mashed up. I’ll bruck yo face n it’ll serve u right, fuckin bhanchod. Shudn’t b callin us Pakis, innit.

There weren’t much face left to bruck, a course. No way Hardjit could’ve done that damage with his bare fists. I weren’t sure whether he’d used his keys or his Karha. One time, when he sparked Imran I think, Hardjit slid his Karha down from his wrist over his fingers an used it like some badass knuckleduster. Even though he was one a them Sardarjis who don’t even wear a turban, Hardjit always wore a Karha round his wrist an something orange to show he was a Sikh. Imran’s face was so fucked up back then that we made Hardjit promise never to do that shit again. We weren’t even Sikh like him but we told him he shouldn’t use his religious stuff that way. Din’t matter that he was fightin a Muslim. Din’t matter that he was fightin a Pakistani. His mum an dad got called into school an after dinner rinsed him for being a badmarsh delinquent ruffian who’d abused his religion an his culture. Then again, Imran did call it a bangle so served him right.

My fledgling rudeboy reputation redeemed, I was now ready to get the fuck away from there. But Hardjit weren’t. He still needed to deliver his favourite line. An just like one a them chana-daal farts that take half an hour to brew, out it eventually came.

—U dissin ma mum?

The blood on the white kid’s face seemed to evaporate just to make it easier for us to see his expression a what-the-fuck? But before he could start screamin denials an protesting his innocence, Hardjit delivered his second an third favourite lines,— U cussin ma mum? an the less venacular,— U b disrespectin my mother?

The rest a us knew where all a this was headed an Amit, who’d known Hardjit since the man was happy just being called Harjit, was the best placed to challenge him.

—Come now, bredren, dat’s nuff batterings you given him. Da gora din’t cuss no one’s mum.

—Yeh, Amit, yeh he fuckin did.

—Nah, man, come now, we done good here, let’s just allow it, blud.

—Allow him to dis ma mum? Wat da fuck’s wrong wid’chyu, pehndu? U turnin into a batty boy wid all a dis let’s-make-peace-n-drink-spunk-lassi shit?

—No, I mean allow as in, u know, leave it be, blud. He din’t cuss your mum n no fuckin way he ever gonna call no one a Paki no more. Let’s just leave it, blud. Let’s just allow it n get goin wid our shit, innit.

—Da fuckin gora call’d me a Paki. He cuss’d da colour a my skin n my mama got the same colour skin as me, innit.

None a us dared argue, an Hardjit’d found a reason to kick the white kid in the face again, an again, an again, this time punctuating the rapid-fire beatin with,— U fuckin gora, u cuss’d my mum, an then adding variations like,— U cuss’d my sister n ma bredren. U cuss’d my dad, my uncle Deepak, u cuss’d my aunty Sheetal, my aunty Meera, ma cousins in Leicester, u cuss’d ma grandad in Jalandhar.

Hardjit was so fast with his moves that the white boy had hardly got time to scream before the next impact a the man’s foot, fist, elbow. Hardjit’s thuds against the gora’s body an the gora’s head against the concrete playground had a kind a rhythm bout it that you just couldn’t block out. Ravi starts cheering as if Ganguly had just scored six runs an there’d be no saving the gora’s Ben Sherman shirt now. When it was done, stead a knockin the white kid out, Hardjit straightened himself up, took his Tag Heuer out his pocket an put his keys back in it. He could’ve done the same damage even if he’d just used his bare fists. He does four different types a martial arts as well as workin every muscle group, like I said, down the gym, every other day. He says it don’t really matter how many times you go down the gym, you can’t be proper tough less you also have proper fights. It was the same with all his martial arts lessons. There weren’t no point learnin them if he din’t use them in the street or in the playground at least. His favourite martial art that time was kalaripayat, which in case you don’t know was one a the first kindsa martial arts ever to be invented. A big bonus point if you know where it was invented. China? Japan? Tibet? Fuck, no. It’s from India, innit. Chinese an Tibetan kung fu came later. People tend to forget this cos the British banned kalaripayat when they took over India. But now Hardjit’d found out bout it he wouldn’t let no one forget. He reminded the white kid never to call anyone a Paki again before we headed across the playground to the gate where Ravi’d parked the Beemer on the zigzag line. We were stridin slowly a course, so as not to look batty. With the gora gone quiet you could now hear screamin from inside the school. It was the usual voices. Four, maybe five different teachers yellin an shoutin at the usual kids for fuckin around in lessons, resulting in more laughter from the back rows followed by more shoutin from the front. From outside, the place sounded more like a mental home than a school. Lookin at where the sounds were coming from I figured no way any a the teachers would’ve spotted us through a classroom window. Even those that were clean were covered in masking tape cos they’d been broken by cricket balls. The result a special desi spin-bowling probly.

Nobody said jackshit to nobody in case it took the edge off Hardjit’s warm-up for the proper fight he’d got lined up for tomorrow. But as the four a us got to the Beemer, Ravi remembered he’d left Hardjit’s Schott bomber jacket wrapped round the goalposts in the playground.

—U fuckin gimp, was all Hardjit said. He weren’t even referring to me for a change but still I volunteered to go get his jacket, even though it meant a spectacularly gimpy fifty-metre trot to the other side a the playground. Not exactly my most greatest idea seeing as how I’d just spent the last twelve months tryin to get upgraded from my former state a dicklessness.

As I got nearer the goalposts, I watched the white kid wipe his face with his shirt. You hardly ever saw a brown-on-white beatin these days, not round these pinds anyway. It was when all those beatins stopped that Hardjit started hooking up with the Sikh boys who ran Southall whenever they took on the Muslim boys who ran Slough. Hounslow’s more a mix a Sikhs, Muslims an Hindus, you see, so the brown-on-browns tended to just be one-on-ones stead a thirty desis fightin side by side. Whenever those one-on-ones were between a Sikh an a Muslim an whenever the Sikh was Hardjit, people’d come from Southall an Slough just to watch his martial arts moves in action. If you don’t believe me, wait till the big showdown with Tariq Khan he’d got lined up for tomorrow.

The white kid was now lookin me straight in the eye in a way that made me glad we hadn’t made eye contact while he was being beaten.— What, white boy? I said.— Did you expect me to stop them? Do you think I’m some kind a fuckin fool?

—Jas, I didn’t call nobody a Paki, he said, coughin.— You know that’s the truth.

—I don’t know shit, Daniel.

—I didn’t even say nothing, Jas. Nobody would ever be so stupid as to mess with you lot any more.

I tried to ignore what he was sayin an the way sayin it had made his lips an tongue start bleedin again. But I couldn’t help noddin. Damn right.

—Why didn’t you tell them I didn’t say anything, Jas? What’s happened to you over the last year? the gora says before havin another coughin an splutterin fit.— You’ve become like one of those gangsta types you used to hate.

Damn right.

—Why didn’t you tell them I didn’t say anything?

—OK, Daniel, I go,— swear on your mother’s life you din’t call us Pakis.

—For fuck’s sake, Jas, you know my mother’s dead.

—So, swear on your mother’s life.

—But Jas, she’s dead. You came to the funeral.

I picked up the jacket, turned around an jogged back to the car. Hardjit’d been wise to take it off. He’d worn the jacket during other fights but wanted to be careful with it now cos he’d just got the word ‘Desi’ sewn onto the back. He’d thought bout havin ‘Paki’ sewn on but his mum’d never let him wear it an, anyway, nobody round here ever, ever used that word.

2 (#ulink_4f28ddd9-2de4-5bed-8fa1-9106eef82994)

Most desis had either black, blue or silver Beemers, but Ravi’s was a purply kind a metallic grey. Lilac, I think he said one time. Yeh. He said lilac was his favourite colour a ladies’ underwear an he wanted the outside a the car to match the panties pulled off inside.

—If she b wearin black thongs dey’d still match da dashboard, he’d said, stroking the BMW’s bonnet before he took us for our first ever ride in it.— But if dey b dem red panties then she a dirrty ho an I’d bounce her ass out ma car, da bitch.