Londonstani

Londonstani

GAUTAM MALKANI

For my wife Monica and in memory of Mum

‘Londonstani is a bold debut, brimming with energy and authenticity, verve and nerve’

Observer

‘A compelling, impressively sustained, skilfully written and structured novel…exhilarating’

Daily Telegraph

‘Malkani’s debut novel displays all the bravado of his swaggering young protagonists. It’s hard not to be dazzled by the way this novel hurtles us into the rudeboy scene. He demonstrates his sharp eye for the contradictions and absurdities of the pseudo-gangsta life these boys have fashioned for themselves. His writing achieves…real verve and power’

Washington Post

‘A novel that is exceptionally funny and heartrendingly moving…a killer piece of dazzingly original fiction. Londonstani’s tremendous energy and vitality stems from the fact that it does not simplify complexities into black and white and brown, but thrives in the grey areas, where values are tested, questioned, set against each other. Such an infectious, evocative voice as this seems destined to enchant’

Herald

‘The first true twenty-first century British-Asian novel. Dealing not with dreams of the motherland but the British-Asian suburban experience, told through the eyes and mouths of mummy’s boy rudeboys. Londonstani is fast, furious, curious and sobering. No cornershops, no flock wallpapered Indian restaurants, and no sitars and saris. It talks how the streets talk - they may not be the streets you recognise though’

NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE

‘Artful, thought-provoking and strikingly inventive. An impressive, in some respects brilliant, first novel. Londonstani deserves a wide audience’

Los Angeles Times

‘I love this book. Everybody that reads it is gonna be in stitches. It’s written in a way that young Asians speak right now and even if you’re not Asian you’re still gonna get it. This is what goes on’

HARD KAUR, BBC Radio Asian Network

‘Smart, linguistically inventive and very funny’

Times Literary Supplement

‘Malkani captures the soul of a subculture that has spread far beyond his hometown. Londonstani - with all its bling, gore, graphic language - will get the kids’ attention. In a language they understand, innit’

Time magazine

‘With street language and typical rudeboy speech, including the obligatory innit and a liberal dose of swearing, it portrays the power struggle most youngsters were going through 10-15 years ago, but cleverly brings it forwards to the present with the stark reality of how people speak here’

Hounslow Chronicle

‘Londonstani turned my scepticism upside down. It subtly explores the contradictions and complexities of relations within Britain’s black and Asian communities. Malkani’s observations about Britain’s urban modern culture are razor-sharp’

RAGEH OMAAR, New Statesman

‘Written in an ingeniously communicable melange of slang. It’s shocking, ball-grabbing stuff and not designed for the weak-hearted. The most powerful strand of this book is the enormity of peer pressure, the overwhelming expectations of burgeoning masculinity’

Financial Times

‘You need this book in your life’ Panjabi Hit Squad, BBC Radio 1Xtra

‘Undoubtedly the biggest British Asian novel of the millennium. Londonstani is a book that appeals to anyone who feels isolated from the tag their parents gave them and longs to be part of something that makes them feel stronger. Have a read of it. You might just want to hug a rudeboy afterwards’

Asiana magazine

‘Captivating…London’s second-generation Asians are given the Trainspotting treatment’

The New Yorker

‘Malkani has effectively dropped a sociological bombshell with the potential to blow apart bland assumptions about ethnic minorities’

The Times of India

‘Sensational. Profane, outrageous, completely original, Londonstani is an explosive first novel which is infinitely readable. A devastating satire of male insecurity hiding inside middle-class alienation’

Now

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Praise

PART ONE: PAKI

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

PART TWO: SHER

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

PART THREE: DESI

22

23

24

25

26

27

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

E-book Extra

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE: PAKI

1

—Serve him right he got his muthafuckin face fuck’d, shudn’t b callin me a Paki, innit.

After spittin his words out Hardjit stopped for a second, like he expected us to write em down or someshit. Then he sticks in an exclamation mark by kickin the white kid in the face again.— Shudn’t b callin us Pakis, innit, u dirrty gora.

Again, punctuation came with a kick, but with his left foot this time so it was more like a semicolon.— Call me or any a ma bredrens a Paki again an I’ma mash u an yo family. In’t dat da truth, Pakis?

—Dat’s right, Amit, Ravi an I go,— dat be da truth.

The three a us spoke in sync like we belonged to some tutty boy band, the kind who sing the chorus like it’s some blonde American cheerleader routine. Hardjit, Hardjit, he’s our man, if he can’t bruckup goras, no one can. Ravi then delivers his standard solo routine: —Yeh, blud, safe, innit.

—Hear wat my bredren b sayin, sala kutta? Come out wid dat shit again n I’ma knock u so hard u’ll b shittin out yo mouth 4 real, innit, goes Hardjit, with an eloquence an conviction that made me green with envy. Amit always liked to point out that brown people don’t actually go green:— We don’t go red when we been shamed an we don’t go blue when we dead, he’d said to me one time.— We don’t even go purple when we been bruised, jus a darker brown. An still goras got da front to call us coloured.

It was an old joke but, green or not, I in’t shamed to admit I’m envious a Hardjit. Most bredren round Hounslow were jealous a his designer desiness, with his perfectly built body, his perfectly shaped facial hair an his perfectly groomed garms that made it look like he went shopping with P Diddy. Me, I was jealous a his front - what someone like Mr Ashwood’d call a person’s linguistic prowess or his debating dexterity or someshit. Hardjit always knew exactly how to tell others that it just weren’t right to describe all desi boys as Pakis. Regarding it as some kind a civic duty to educate others in this basic social etiquette, he continued kickin the white kid in the face, each kick carefully planted so he din’t get blood on his Nike Air Force Ones (the pair he’d bought even before Nelly released a track bout what wikid trainers they were).

—We ain’t bein called no fuckin Paki by u or by any otha gora, u get me? Hardjit goes to the white boy as he squirms an splutters in a puddle on the concrete floor, liftin his head right back into the flight path a Hardjit’s Air Force Ones.— U bhanchod b callin us lot Paki one more time n I swear we’ll cut’chyu up, innit.

For a minute, the gora’s given a time out as Hardjit stops to straighten his silver chain, keepin his metal dog tags hangin neatly in the centre a his black Dolce & Gabbana vest, slightly covering up the & A little higher an he could’ve probly clenched the dog tags in the deep groove between his pecs.

—Ki dekh da payeh? U like dis chain I got, white boy? Fuckin fiveounce white gold, innit. Call me a Paki again n I whip yo ass wid it.

—Yeh, blud, safe, innit, Ravi goes, cocking his head upwards. This weren’t just cos most desi boys tended to tilt their heads up when they spoke, but also cos Ravi was just five foot five. The bredren was chubby too. Matter a fact, if you swapped Ravi’s waxed-back hair with a £5 crew cut an gave him boiled-chicken-coloured skin he could pass for one a them lager-lout football thugs, easy. The kind who say En-ger-land cos they can’t pronounce the name a their own country.

The boiled-chicken-coloured boy on the floor in front a us weren’t no football hooligan nor no lager lout. He wouldn’t want to be one an wouldn’t want to look like one either. These days, lager louts had got more to fear from us lot than us lot had to fear from them. I in’t lyin to you, in pinds like Hounslow an Southall, they feared us even more than they feared black kids. Round some parts, even black kids feared people like us. Especially when people like us were people like Hardjit. Standin there in his designer desi garms, a tiger tattooed on his left shoulder an a Sikh Khanda symbol on his right bicep. He probly could’ve fit a whole page a Holy Scriptures on his biceps if he wanted to. The guy’d worked every major muscle group, down the gym, every other day since he was fuckin fourteen years old. Since, despite his mum’s best efforts, he hit puberty an became a proper desi boy. Even drinks that powdery protein shit they sell down there but she don’t care cos he mixes it in with milk.

—How many us bredren u count here? Hardjit goes to the white boy.

—Uuuuurgh.

—Fuckin ansa me, u dirrty gora. Or is it dat yo glasses r so smash’d up u can’t count? Shud’ve gone 2 Specsavers, innit. How many a us bredren b here?

—F-F-F…

For a second I thought the gora was gonna say something stupid. Something like F-F-Fuck off perhaps, or maybe even F-F-Fuck you. F-F-Fuckin Paki would’ve also been inadvisable. Stead he answers Hardjit with a straightforward, —F-F-Four.

—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi.— Gora ain’t seein double, innit.

So now it was Ravi’s turn to make me jealous with his perfectly timed an perfectly authentic rudeboy front. I still use the word rudeboy cos it’s been round for longer. People’re always tryin to stick a label on our scene. That’s the problem with havin a fuckin scene. First we was rudeboys, then we be Indian niggas, then rajamuffins, then raggastanis, Britasians, fuckin Indobrits. These days we try an use our own word for homeboy an so we just call ourselves desis but I still remember when we were happy with the word rudeboy. Anyway, whatever the fuck we are, Ravi an the others are better at being it than I am. I swear I’ve watched as much MTV Base an Juggy D videos as they have, but I still can’t attain the right level a rudeboy authenticity. If I could, I wouldn’t be using poncey words like attain an authenticity, innit. I’d be sayin I couldn’t keep it real or someshit. An if I said it that way, then there’d be no need for me to say it in the first place so I wouldn’t say it anyway. After all, it’s all bout what you say an how you say it. Your linguistic prowess an debating dexterity (though whatever you do don’t say it that way). The sort a shit my old schoolteachers told my parents I lacked an which Mr Ashwood’d even made me practise by watchin ponces read the news on the BBC. I in’t lyin. Why’d the fuck’d anyone wanna chat like that anyway? Or even listen to someone who chatted like that? I respect Mr Ashwood for tryin to help me lose my stammer or whatever kind a speech problem it was I’d got when I was at school. But I’d’ve wasted less a the man’s time if I just sat down with Hardjit in the first place. Let’s just say Hardjit’d make a more proper newsreader. An the white boy here was listenin to him.

—Dat’s right, goes Hardjit,— we b four a us bredrens here. An out a us four bredrens, none a us got a mum n dad wat actually come from Pakistan, innit. So don’t u b tellin any a us Pakis dat we b Pakis like our Paki bredren from Pakistan, u get me.

A little more blood trickled down the gora’s face as he screwed up his forehead. He wiped it with his hands, still tryin to stop it from staining the sappy button-down collar a his checkered Ben Sherman shirt.

—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.