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.

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

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.

Greasy sleazebag bullshit merchant or not, you had to hand it to Ravi. His BMW M3 was way phatter than other Beemers you saw round here. Most desi bredren had got the E36 model, but Ravi drove a E46. Slick side gills, wider wheel arches, curved roof an four chrome exhaust pipes stickin out from under the rear skirt. He’d stuck on an even slicker spoiler, alloy hubcaps that kept on spinnin at red traffic lights an matchin lilac windscreen wipers. The inside a the ride was pimped up with rally-car-style seat belts that criss-crossed over your chest, chrome plating over the gearstick an handbrake handles, Sony X-Plod three-way speakers with 220 watts a power an sand-coloured seats that looked lush even though they weren’t leather. He’d even got those neon lights fitted under the chassis that lit up the road underneath. But whereas most rudeboys’d got blue neon lights, Ravi’s were purple to match the car. Purple weren’t an exact match, a course, but he couldn’t find lilac neon lights an only people in Prince videos wore purple panties.

—Where we meetin Davinder? Ravi goes, tryin to shout down the DMX CD being turned up by his left hand an the engine being revved up by his right foot.— You hear me, blud? Where we meetin Davinder?

—I already told u, u thick khota: outside Nando’s, innit, goes Hardjit, though without needin to shout cos Ravi eased off with his hand an foot for him.— I also told’chyu we had 2 call Davinder b4 we left dis place, innit, so any a u chiefs know his mobile?

—Yeh, he got one a them new Sony Ericsson P800s, innit, came my voice from the back seat, all jumpy like when I used to sit up front in History lessons an knew the answer to Mr Ashwood’s questions.— It’s a wikid fone, man, it got a camera, it got a video player, it got them polyphonic ringtunes, an Java games.

—Jas, u pehndu. I meant his mobile numba. I’s gonna fuckin fone him, innit. Fuckin dickless piece a shit.

—Ah, sorry, man, my bad, I go as I start searchin my fone for Davinder’s number.

—Ras clat, fuckin useless, all a u, Hardjit goes, shakin his head an doing that suckin the inside a his front teeth thing. Hardjit could suck his front teeth louder, longer an harder than most people could. I in’t lyin, the man could tut like a black brother.

—Davinder got a lesson on Monday so he probly got his fone on silent, goes Amit.— Dem bhanchod teachers make you turn your fone off now. Stick it in your bag or sumfink so you can’t even flex it on your desk.

—Amit, I don’t give a fuck whether his fone’s on silent or stuck up his butt n set 2 vibrate, Davinder told me 2 call him when we left da school n we b leavin da fuckin school, innit. So c’mon, u bunch a chiefs. One a u’s gotta b havin his numba.

Amit dialled Davinder’s number from his Nokia fone book an passed his fone up front to Hardjit, all in a single, smooth move, like a cricket fielder scooping up an throwin the ball in one go.

—Shut da fuck up, dis b business, Hardjit goes to all a us as, somewhere near Hounslow High Street, Davinder’s fone started ringin, or vibrating, or flashin, or whatever the fuck he’d set it to.

—Kiddaan, man, ‘sup, homeboy?… Listen, blud, we jus leavin now, innit… Some gora got lippy wid us… Nah, u know it, blud …He ain’t got no lips no more, bhanchod… U know it, blud, innit …A’ight, safe… Nah, I call her tonite… I got me free minutes on my fone, innit…Say wat?…Nando’s. Safe. Nah, we’ll hook up wid’chyu dere… We leavin da school right now… We got da Beemer, innit …A’ight, safe, laters.

Soon as Hardjit hangs up, Amit takes his Nokia 6610 back an starts makin a call beside me. He’s being all polite an in’t using no swear words or nothin so is clearly chattin to his mum. But he makes sure he don’t look like he’s chattin to his mum, narrowin his eyes, suckin in his cheeks an noddin as he stares out the window. Amit pulled a better fone face than all a us. Tellin some stockbroker or banker to liquidate his portfolio a stocks an, no, he din’t give a damn how bad the market is today: just fuckin sell.

—Theekh hai, he goes.— Flour an eggs. Free range. I’ll get it, Mama. Alright, Mum, theekh hai.

—I ain’t squashin u back there, is it? Hardjit goes to me, his seat pushed all the way back so I was gettin, like, kneecapped.

—Nah, man, I’m cool, I go.— Move the seat further back if you need to. I’m cool.

When you’re in the back seat a some pimped-up Beemer it’s basically your job to be cool. To just chill, listen to the tunes an stare out the window like some big dumb dog with a big slobbery tongue. DMX pumpin so loud out the sound system you can hardly hear what the other guys’re sayin up front. Amit shuffles into the middle a the back seat, leaning forward into that death-if-you-don’t-wear-a-seat-belt position my mum was always going on at me bout. But I just stay sittin back. The world going by outside the window tells me that in the olden times, before the airport, Hounslow must’ve been one a them batty towns where people ponced around on cycles stead a drivin cars. Why else we got such narrow roads? Some a them were so narrow that the trees on each side had got their branches castrated to stop them fightin in the middle. In’t no leaves on em either, even in the summer. Talk bout a shitty deal for the trees. Castrated an no pubes. Standin there like giant, upright versions a the dried-up sticks a dogshit that lay at their feet. If I was a cycleriding, tree-huggin, skint hippie I might’ve given a shit bout the trees an all the posters pinned to them for some Bollywood film that’d been released two weeks ago, the new Punjabi MC single that came out a month ago or ads for a bhangra gig in Hammersmith that happened a year ago. But I in’t, so stead I hope the skint people who work for the local council would just finish the fuckin job an chop em all down. Make room for more billboards, more fuckin road. Only proper-sized roads round here were the Great West Road an London Road, both a them runnin along either side a this part a Hounslow like garden fences to an airport at the back where the garden shed should be (they called it Heathrow cos it’s bang in the middle a Hounslow Heath or someshit). Lucky for us there weren’t no other cars cruisin down all these side roa ds squashed between the garden fences. There were hardly any parked cars along the pavements either, partly cos the staff car parks at Heathrow were full but mostly cos all a the houses round here had got their front gardens concreted over an turned into driveways. Big wheelie rubbish bins an recycling boxes where the plants, flower beds an garden paths between them used to be. No sign a the other stuff I drew on houses when my playschool teacher moved me up from crayons to colouring-in pencils. None a them smokin chimneys an those lollipop-like trees were missin too. Missin, presumed castrated. Some houses had got Om symbols stuck on the wooden front doors behind glass porches, some a them had Khanda Sahibs an others had the Muslim crescent moon. All a them had satellite TV dishes next to the main bedroom window, stuck up there like framed dentists’ diploma certificates. If there weren’t no symbol on the front door, you could still tell if it was a desi house if there was more than one satellite dish. One for Zee TV an one for Star Plus, probly. You could tell if someone was home cos the daal an subjhi smell would mix in with the airport traffic on the Great West Road. An you could tell if the people at home were friendly if the car parked in the driveway was a car with a friendly face. I in’t jokin. That kid in The Sixth Sense, he sees dead people all the time - me, I see faces in cars. Maybe this makes me some mad weirdo psycho, but I been seein them ever since I was little. It’s like as if the headlights are the eyes, the grille the mouth an the wing mirrors the ears. The faces meant that, back before I got tight with Hardjit’s crew, I tended to like smaller cars. Ford Fiestas, Fiat Puntos an all the other crappy hatchbacks my schoolteachers drove. I din’t like them in a skint hippie way, though, I liked them cos they’d got friendlier faces. Take this red Nissan Micra that just pulled out behind us. It looked like a little, button-nosed puppy dog. The black Volkswagen Beetle parked in a drive on the left had got big friendly eyes. This was why, back when I was a gimp, I never got why everyone reckoned big flash cars were such big fuckin deals. Sure, flashy Mercedes were smiling cos a their massive grilles, but their faces weren’t friendly cos it was more like some smug grin: I’m a fuckin SLK, look at me, you pleb. Aston Martins got mouths like piranha fish, Beemers looked like androids playin fuckin poker an Italian sports cars were even scarier cos they’d got no mouths, no eyes even. I dig sports cars now a course, cos my head in’t so stupidly fucked up these days an I try an not see the faces no more. Matter a fact it’s the bodies I tend to notice now. Take the body on a Lexus SC430. So sleek an smooth you don’t even notice its face. Like Christina Aguilera. The curves on an Audi TT make it J-Lo while the Porsche 911 GTS got a booty like Beyoncé. An it in’t just divas: I got the Bentley Continental GT down as Snoop Dogg an the Hummer H2 down as 50 Cent.

If Ferrari made a 4x4 SUV, it’d be a Hardjit. A Hardjit SUV would have a big engine grille but it wouldn’t be grinnin. It’d be more like that constipated face he makes when he’s tensing his body an thinks no one else in the gym is watchin him. When I turned my head back from the window to see if anything was going on up front he was still settling into his seat, winding down the tinted electric window, resting his elbow on the door frame, flashin his Tag Heuer, sovereign ring an Karha bracelet. Grabbin the top a the door frame with his left hand, he straightened his shoulder so that his upper arm snapped into place, his tight black D&G vest givin everyone outside an even better view. An just like the empty side roads gave Ravi an excuse to slide down into second gear an do some seriously sharp rudeboy manoeuvres, they gave Hardjit an excuse to grip harder on the door frame an tense his arms up more. The engine an drivetrain connected to his biceps, the brake pads connected to his pecs. Ravi swervin past some random slowcoach Citroën like he was at the arcades playin Daytona USA. Beep beep, get the fuck off the street. Pump pump, we don’t slow for no fuckin speed hump. Luckily, Hardjit din’t notice me watchin him feel his biceps. Otherwise he’d have rinsed me for being gay or a gora lover, or both. I’d caught him enough times feelin his arms an just generally checkin himself out in mirrors an tinted car windows an somehow he always made me feel like I was the batty boy. Right now he only stopped checkin out his arms when he found some other limbs to check out. Her legs had come into view soon as we’d turned out the side roads an onto the London Road. Whoever she was, she was wearin one a them fuck-me miniskirts an fuck-me-harder knee-high boots. The skirt beige, the boots black. Ravi slowed the fuck down now while Hardjit turned up DMX’s ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem ’ with the arm that weren’t on display in the door frame. Soon as we’d passed her legs, Amit gives it,— Dat gyal ain’t nothin, if yous lot wanna see proper fitness you shoulda seen dis bitch I shagged last weekend. Harpinder was her name. Imagine if Aishwarya Rai n Shilpa Shetty had a twenty-one-year-old love child.

—Yeh, I bet ‘imagine’ is the right word seein as how you probly imagined the whole thing yourself, I shouted from the back seat before I could even remember that I was in the back seat.

—Fuck you, Jas, goes Amit.— Jus cos you in’t shagged no one. No one female anyway. An even if you did, da Durex’d probly slip off your pin-sized prick n you’d end up wid butt-ugly kids cos dey’ll have your genes.

When everyone’s finished crackin up, Amit carries on:— Whereas me, if I had a kid wid dis bitch from last week, it’d b better-lookin than Pharrell, innit. Only there ain’t gonna b no kid cos I used protection, innit. Extra large a course, none a dat average-sized shit you get outta da machines. Matter a fact, da size I need is so large I gots to go to a special chemist, you get me.

—Safe, bredren, goes Ravi.— Extra large, innit.

—Yeh, bruv, if I din’t use a rubber, she’d probly have twins or triplets or four babies altogether or someshit.

—Yeh, you know it blud.

—I din’t even need to chirps her very long. Couple a jokes, dat’s all. She weren’t easy or nothin, she jus took one look at me n decided we was gonna get in my car, you get me.

—Safe, blud, Ravi gives it again.— Wat’s her friends like? I’ll bone em.

—Too late, bruv, I already shagged her best friend Mandeep last year. She was all over me. Kept textin me afta, leavin voicemails n dat.

—Wikid, man, you b da dog. Da dirrty dawg.

—Yeh you know it, Ravi. Back when I boned Mandeep I was jus using a large size. Now I need extra large, you get me?

—A’ight, blud, jumbo size, innit. Dat’s da way. Shag her, innit, Ravi gives it before Hardjit finally cuts in with:— Yeh n I had a nice dream myself last nite.

—So wat’chyu sayin, desi? goes Amit.— You bein like Jas here n thinkin I makin dis shit up?

—Nah, blud, I sayin I know u makin dis shit up.

—Fuck you, man. You think you da only one who’s been there, done dat, shagged dat bitch, done dat ho?

—No. I ain’t sayin dat cos I don’t get wid no bitches n hos.

The two a them carried on like that till we pulled up at a set a red traffic lights. This desi who pulled up in the lane next to us din’t even look our way once even though we were givin enuff stares at him an his silver Peugeot 305. You could tell from his long hair, grungy clothes, the poncey novel an newspaper on his dashboard an Coldplay album playin in his car that he was a muthafuckin coconut. So white he was inside his brown skin, he probably talked like those gorafied desis who read the news on TV. Probably even more poncier than the way how I used to talk. An think. Probly.

—U boys see how scared a us dat Paki is? Hardjit shouted over DMX so that the coconut heard him too.— Yah, u Mr Muthafucka, I mean u. I ain’t seein any otha Pakis round here, do u?

Still the coconut was too wise to bite, just carryin on lookin straight ahead.

—Tu ki samajda hai? U a Paki jus like me. Even tho u b listenin to U2 or someshit. Are u 2 scared 2 look at us?

The coconut pretty much answered this question by keepin his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Hardjit then tutted at regular intervals till the lights changed. We let the coconut drive ahead a us, cut into our lane an then turn right towards the Great West Road.

—Ain’t dat some muthafuckin coincidence, goes Hardjit.— We goin dat way too.

The Great West Road, which is basically the stretch a the A4 that runs along Hounslow, is a dual carriageway. It’s got three lanes in each direction so Ravi had no problem pullin up alongside the coconut the next time we got lucky with a red light.

—Oi, mate, Hardjit gives it, pointing at the coconut’s car door as if something was wrong with it.

This time, the coconut bit the bait, openin his door a little an then slammin it shut. Then the khota wound down his window.— Thanks, he goes,— I must’ve got my seat belt caught in it. Thanks again, mate.

Fool.

—No, Mr Matey, your door was shut just splendidly fine, old boy, Hardjit gives it in his best poncey Angrez accent.— I weren’t fuckin pointing at yo fuckin door, u bhanchod. I was pointing at yo fuckin car, innit. I mean, look at it.

—I’m sorry, mate? I don’t understand.

—Your car. Ain’t u noticed? It’s crap. Your car’s a piece a crappedup shit, innit.

—Well, it gets me from A to B, the coconut goes before winding up his window. Fool. Fool fool fool. In’t no point winding your window up now, not unless it’s soundproof or double-glazed or someshit.

—A to B? Hardjit shouted.— Fuckin batty boy, u sound like a poncey gora. Wat’s wrong wid’chyu, sala kutta? U 2 embarrass’d to b a desi? Embarrass’d a your own culture, huh? Thing is, u is actually an embarrassment to desis. Bet’chyu can’t even speak yo mother tongue, innit. I should come over there n cut yo tongue out, u dickless bhanchod. Then Hardjit started tuttin like he was in some fuckin teeth-suckin competition, before givin it,— Look at me when I talk 2 u. Ain’t nobody mess wid us. Fuckin R.E.M. playin on yo stereo. Ras clat pehndu. Tell him, Amit.

—Bhanchod coconut, Amit goes after openin his window.— Ain’t your own culture good enuf for you, you fuckin gora lover? Amit felt as passionate bout healin coconuts as Hardjit felt bout healin rednecks who used the word Paki an Ravi felt bout healin lesbians. —Wat da fuck happened wid’chyu you gots to act like a gora for? You think you better than your own kind cos you is so white n you read some poncey books n newspapers? I wipe ma ass wid yo fuckin newspaper.

As if tryin to show us he was as streetwise as those dicks who wear hats to horse races, the stupid idiot fuckin khota fool then wound down his window again an gives it,— Look, mate, I’m not looking for any trouble here. I’m just going about my business.

—Goin bout yo business? Ehh ki hai? Amit goes.— Wat business you got goin? Readin fuckin batty books? Take some advice from me, don’t mess wid us. Cos we b da man round here n you b da gora-lovin bhanchod who can’t even speak his mother tongue, innit. Wat’s wrong wid your own bredren, brown boy? Look at us. We’s b havin a nice car, nice tunes, nuff nice designer gear, nuff bling mobile. But no, you wanna b some gora-lovin, dirrty hippie wid fuckin Radiohead playin in your car. Look at ma man Jas here. Learn some lessons from him.

On green we left the coconut in our dust an Hardjit started laughin, givin it,— Bhanchod show’d us some respect. Nuff muthafuckin respect.

—I remember back in da day when most desis round here were like dat gimp, goes Amit.— Skinny saps pretendin like they were gora so no one treat’d dem like dey’d just got off da boat from Bombay, innit. But all da gora fuck’d wid dem anyway.

—Yeh, bruv, you know it, I cheered from the back,— that in’t being our shit no more.

—U can fuckin talk, Jas. U was da biggest sap in town till we took yo coconut-lovin, faggot ass in.

As we turned off the Great West Road an the coconut disappeared from the rear window I almost felt sorry for him. But I din’t. Not any more, anyway, not these days, not a chance. Coconuts like him deserved to have Hardjit an Amit lay into them. It in’t as if he had to be such a gorafied bhanchod: God had given him brown skin an so he could be a proper desi if he wanted to. He’d made a choice just like I made a choice when I started kickin bout with Hardjit. But the coconut’s choice was the wrong choice. In’t no desi needin to kiss the white man’s butt these days an you definitely don’t need to actually act like a gora. Fuckin bhanchod. Din’t matter what you called them. Coconuts, Bounty bars, Oreo biscuits or any other fuckin food that was white on the inside. Good desi boys who din’t ever cause no trouble. But how many a them’ll still be here in Hounslow in ten years’ time, workin in Heathrow fuckin airport helpin goras catch planes to places so they could turn their own skin brown? No fuckin way I was gonna be hangin round with them saps no more, with those gimpy glasses I used to wear, my drainpipe trousers an my batty books. Fuck that shit. I looked out the car window again to see if I could see any a them saps. See how far I’d come. Weren’t none around though, must’ve all been in lessons. You could play spot the sap in Hounslow these days just like when we went to Southall one time to play spot the gora. As Hardjit once said, any desi round here deciding they din’t wanna be part a the bredren was a bit like some cat barking with the bitches stead a meowing. Complete fuckin pussy, you get me?

We park up behind Davinder’s Johnny Depp on the single yellow line right outside Nando’s. He got out soon as he saw us an started pointing at his Cartier watch.— Kiddaan, pehndus? Where u been? We’s been waitin half an hour 4 yo asses. Wat da fuck is dis? I a busy man, innit.

The we referred to his mate Jaswinder, this tall, fat guy who was built like Hardjit an who was lockin up Davinder’s car. Jaswinder never said much. Probly the only time he’d ever spoke to me was when he told me he was pissed off I’d got the nickname Jas. You can be called Jas too, I’d said. Don’t be stupid, he’d said. It’s bad enough havin so many desis at school with the same names, it’d be stupid havin two people in the same class with the same fuckin nickname. I din’t argue with him, mostly cos Jaswinder at least had an easy surname - Singh. Me, I had one a them extra long surnames that nobody’d ever pronounce proply. All my teachers in all my lessons had always got it wrong when they called out the register an even my mum an dad pronounced it the wrong way. Matter a fact I in’t even gonna tell it to you it’s so fuckin shameful.

—Safe, blud, ma bad we late, Hardjit goes to Davinder,— but we had some business 2 sort on da way, innit. U know wat it’s like, bruv.

—Dat’s safe, but jus call me next time cos if I ain’t mistaken u got some lucrative business here too, innit.

Davinder smiled as he said that. He was easily the most loaded guy for his age we knew, an he knew it too. Stridin around wearin his Swarovski-studded medallion with the letter D on it - the kind that Usher wears, except his is a U an is made a ice. Even when we was all at school, way back before he’d set up his business dealings, Davinder’d got his own business cards printed. Davinder Singh, AKA - Acquirer a Knowledge an Assets.

Amit joined the others as they started walkin towards Nando’s when suddenly Davinder turned round to face the Beemer again, checkin out the engine grille as if he saw faces too.

—Ik minute, I got me one question bout dis ride I been meanin 2 aks u bredrens 4 time now.

—Look, don’t b sayin shit bout ma car, man. Da car in’t slow, Ravi said.— I din’t realise we was in a muthafuckin race.

—Nah, chill, dat shit’s history, Davinder said, pointing at the licence plate.— Wat I want’d 2 aks u is who da fuck is K4V1TA?

—It’s my mum a course, said Ravi.— Da Beemer belongs to her, innit.

3

The Beemer’s closed windows couldn’t block the smell a spicy periperi chicken. While the other guys were gettin stuck into stuffin their faces inside Nando’s, I was stuck in the car with the DMX CD an a copy a some tutty Bollywood magazine for company. I couldn’t be around when they did a business deal with Davinder, you see. He’d have problems with it. Problem number one: the cars might get parking tickets if nobody kept watch. Problem number two: the fewer a us that huddled round a rucksack full a Davinder’s merchandise, the less attention we’d attract. Problem number three: motherfuckin me.

Davinder’d got beef with me since before our GCSEs. Since right back when we was in year seven an every time he passed me in the school corridors between lessons he’d, like, punch me in the face. I couldn’t ever see him coming either cos a all the Nike an Adidas rucksacks in my face. Then suddenly one a them rucksacks would turn into a fist. I in’t sure there was any specific reason for his beef with me. It was just all the usual things. The things bout me that Hardjit’d told Amit an Ravi to just allow. Things like I was a ponce, I acted an sounded like a batty, I was a skinny wimp, I was embarrassin to have around if ladies came by, I wore crap clothes, I used to have braces on both my upper an lower teeth, I’d read too many books, I walked like a fool, I had this annoyin habit a sniffin all the time, I couldn’t usually talk proply an even when I did I couldn’t ever say the right thing. Basically I was just generally a khota, like that coconut we’d seen earlier today except I din’t even have my own car. Hardjit’d stuck up for me like he always did. One time I heard him say,— Look, Davinder, if I b sayin Jas is safe then da boy is safe, u get me? In the end, Davinder’d said he din’t mind that I was part a Hardjit’s crew, but if that meant he had to hang around with me too then he’d rather take his merchandise somewhere else. Thing is, if people like Davinder hadn’t laid into me so much all the time, Hardjit’d never have started stickin up for me in the first place. An if he’d never stuck up for me, I’d probly never’ve become part a his crew. At first I figured the only reason he’d started backing me up was so he could act like Shah Rukh Khan in front a all the ladies. The Bollywood hero always takes care a the underdog, you see. Only difference was Hardjit din’t like takin no glory for stickin up for me. He din’t even like it whenever I thanked him for doing so. I reckon he was basically so freaked out by how gimpy I was that he felt he’d got to cure me. Like those people who are so homophobic that stead a beatin gay guys shitless, they actually try an turn em into straight guys.

The first time Hardjit ever backed me up was after I walked into a spare classroom one time. Room 418. We weren’t really allowed in 418 cos it’d been vandalised so much, but that meant I could usually be by myself in there at break times. One time, though, I walk in an I find Davinder sittin inside there with his tongue sittin inside some girl’s throat. She must’ve been from Green School, Brentford School or one a the other girls’ schools round here. I apologised for the interruption (I was really good at apologising in them days) but couldn’t bring myself to leave cos, well, she was fit. An her school blouse was half open. It was one a those plunge bras, with a tiny little bow between the white lace cups, probly underwired an with satin padding along the bottom. Davinder carefully removed his tongue an turned to me.— D’ya wanna watch? Dis is probly da closest a fuckin sap like u’ll ever get 2 kissin a lady, he goes as he put his hands on the lace straps to stop her buttoning up her blouse. —So why not pull up a fuckin chair, my friend.

Davinder’s words had their desired effect by makin him look tough in front a the girl. She rewarded him by crackin up as if he’d just told the funniest joke in the whole wide world an so he continued: — Look, let me explain: u put yo tongue inside her mouth like dis. See? U don’t kiss her on da mouth, u kiss her in da mouth. Da tongue knows wat it’s doin. But in’t no bitch gonna get wid’chyu anyway cos u ugly n u stink.

I wanted to stand up for myself but what do you say to something like that? Do you tell him that actually I in’t that ugly? That, OK, maybe my hair might’ve been too thick to style proply, but ever since I’d got it cut short an started stickin L’Oréal wax in it a couple a people had said I looked a little like Justin Timberlake, only skinnier. Before I could even begin, Davinder’d started rinsin me for staring at the girl’s still-open blouse until finally I turned to leave havin not said a single fuckin word.

—Check da gimpy way he walks away. A sap like dat’ll only ever b kissin himself.

—U gots 2 stick up 4 yo’self, Hardjit said, makin me jump as I shut the classroom door behind me.— Read da situation, man. Davinder’s too busy wid his ho 2 hit’chyu.

At first I was worried I was in for more a the same shit an so I tried to walk down the corridor away from him, like as if I was late for lesson or someshit.

—Yo name’s Jas, innit? U goes 2 da same German n Science lessons as me, but u sit up front wid all dem spods, innit?

I just gave it one a them polite, shit-scared smiles, showin him all the metalwork on my teeth just in case he din’t realise I was smiling. If you don’t smile proply at someone at a time like this, you’ll get accused a blanking them an then smiling won’t even be an option.

—Yeh, man, u da one wid da braces Kavi wired up 2 a six-volt battery, innit? Did dat hurt yo mouth, bruv?

Nobody’d ever called me bruv before cos, well, desis who called people bruv din’t want a pussy for a bruv.

—Jus ignore wat peeps like Kavi n Davinder say 2 u. Dey shud save up their aggro 4 Paki bashers, u get me?

—Y…y.I er y…

Shit, that was my voice. I tried to cough up any gungy spit an that from the back a my throat so that I could go an say whatever it was I was gonna decide I was gonna say. There weren’t nothin there though, an so I just sounded like one a them poncey tossers that go around clearin their throats. Back in them days, the braces on my teeth weren’t the only reason why it was generally a bad idea for me to try an talk. But I was talkin to Hardjit an Hardjit was sorted. You can’t give up tryin to chat proply when you’re chattin to someone sorted, someone like Hardjit. You’ll be thinkin I fancy him now, won’t you? That I really am a batty boy after all? But it in’t like that cos I in’t batty. I just wish I was as sorted as Hardjit is, that’s all.

—Yeh, I think I know what you mean, Davinder an that, like. I yer gey… Well, you know. In’t sure like. Depends what you reckon, I mean, no, depends, sorry.

Hardjit just looked at me, all confused like I was chattin in fuckin Scandinavian or someshit. An I was thinkin, What the fuck is wrong with me? Why say sorry when I weren’t? Why the fuckin fuck did people like me say sorry when we weren’t?

—I mean, maybe it don’t matter, no more. No, forget it, I agree now. Like just before. Sorry, yeh, OK. No, really I do, Hardjit, actually forget it, like I really think you’re right bout them. Sorry.

God. Why’d you make me have to say something if all I can do is talk a pile a shit. Stupid tutty shit at whoever it was I was talkin to. But for some reason I remember Hardjit seemed OK bout me being a dickless khota. He knew what I meant to say was the three words, OK, I agree. In fact, if Hardjit thought I was just some sap beyond help then he’d probly help me, say it for me like how most people do. Stead a that he just carried on tellin me I should stand up to Davinder.

Thing is, right, I din’t really agree with him anyway but decided not to try an explain why cos I probly wouldn’t be able to cos I’m a sap who can’t talk. Cheers, God. No use blaming God, though. S’pose I should really thank Him for givin us a tongue. If it was a proper problem, like a stutter or something like what Dave Gilbert has, or that problem with saying S’s what Spencer (fuckface) has got…

Then Hardjit said,— Laters, bruv, an then headed to the library. I in’t lyin, the library. This may sound like a strange place for someone like Hardjit but there weren’t no librarian no more so it was a safe place to go when you din’t want to go to lessons. Comfy chairs an that. The teachers din’t care. Only the librarian used to give two tosses bout the books an the noise an all the yellow stuffing stuff leaking out the chairs. Even though I din’t agree with all a Hardjit’s mafia rudeboy shit back then, suddenly I wanted to follow him, wanted to carry on talkin to him. Don’t matter that you can’t actually talk cos if you hang around with sorted people then other people’ll think you’re safe yourself. But I din’t go after him. Din’t want to push my luck, you get me?

Every time when it’s important to use this gob a mine I hear my voice, which never normly works proply an so I panic. It’s as if there’s some other voice a mine givin it, Don’t say that, it’ll make u look like a gimp. An so I’ll go, Yeh, maybe so, but…Then I’ll realise that the other person, the one I’m s’posed to be talkin to, can hear me. So I’ll quickly shut my gob, only to hear the other voice go, You fuckin sap. Now you look like you can’t even talk. Which you can’t, you stammerin piece a wasted shit. For fuck’s sake, just speak up.

Fuck off, leave me alone. I’ve just got gunge an shit down my throat.

Speak up, boy.

Obviously this voice must know that actually it can’t speak up, that it can’t talk cos it’s me, innit, it’s my voice. But it keeps tryin anyway. An then another voice, I reckon that makes it three fuckin voices, will go, Boy? In’t no fuckin boy. In’t no girl either but in’t no fuckin boy.

I just slated the way I was thinkin, same way my mind slates the way I speak. I slated it even before I finished thinkin it never mind sayin it, so I ended up soundin like a dick. An it’s like I know in my head an can even tell to you why I talked like a fuckin pehndu. But I couldn’t ever say it. Couldn’t ever explain it to anyone with my mouth. Couldn’t say, No, I in’t thick, I just got thinkin bout how wrong what I was sayin was, an then got thinkin bout how I weren’t totally right to think that way, but by then it was too late to say what I was gonna say anyway, so now I’m just sayin this instead. OK, I suppose it could make sense. I could’ve said it to someone an they might even’ve understood me. But I couldn’t really say it cos I’d mess it all up with loads a erms an sorrys an shit. An anyway, it only just makes sense an seeing as how I’ve probly already made a floppy dick out a myself, then the person I’m chattin to in’t exactly gonna listen to me explain why I sound so crap. It don’t matter none that this time I’d actually be makin sense. An so you just look like a sap an try to make things better by tryin not to give too big a shit. But I in’t a sap. OK? In’t a sap, in’t fuckin thick. I understand me. Fuck it all, fuckin useless tongue. Probly couldn’t even sixty-nine it. An no, I in’t a perve for thinkin that. This is just my mind remembering one time when my stupid tongue made me look a total khota in front a Kavi an Deepak an all the other guys in my Science lessons. I din’t know what sixty-nine meant, you see. I thought they were chattin bout the bus that goes down Chiswick, the one you take if you go down Brentford. I couldn’t even ask for a bloody bus ticket. Obviously I couldn’t. You can’t pull if you can’t fuckin talk, can you? Not unless you’re that Hugh fuckin Grant from that movie bout shaadis an funerals an shit. Always sayin sorry an erm an stuff. He still got his dick sucked, din’t he? It was on the news. Hugh Grant. Ponce.

Daydreamin is good for you. Better than wankin even, or at least that’s what someone told me one time. Actually he weren’t really tellin me, why would he? He was tellin someone else an I overheard him. At least my ears work. Unlike my fuckin tongue, my fuckin Shitesprecher. That in’t even my own word. It’s from a German lesson, I think. Or History. Same thing really, same teacher so you get em mixed up.— You’re trying harder these days, aren’t you, Jas? Carry on like this and I mean it, you’ll deserve at least a C in GCSE History…If you start having all those problems with it again, I’m always here to help. Not just History problems, you understand, any problems. We care about pupils at this school.

Lookin back, he was probly gay.

Or, again, was it German? We did bout Nazis in both lessons. Heil. I wonder if it’d be possible for a guy like me to be a Nazi. I’ll daydream that I’m a Nazi. I know it sounds like I’m being a wanker cos they were scum like suicide bombers, killin all them people an that. But were they all wankers? At least they walked an talked proply. An even if you reckoned they walked or dressed stupid, at least nobody’d take the piss outta them. Fuckin saluted them instead. Maybe I’d not talk such piles a shit if I spoke in German. It’s like, they don’t stammer cos they know what to say. An if they’re Nazis then fuck to all those voices criticising the way they think bout the way they talk an all that bollocks. Anyhow, fuck it. Someone made up the word Shitesprecher, meanin tongue, when we were doing a lesson on Nazis for History or for German. Mr Ashwood laughed with us even though I don’t think he found it funny.

Maybe I should’ve followed Hardjit to the library. I couldn’t go back to Room 418 cos Davinder an that girl were probly still in there an I was so late for lesson I’d get a detention if I showed up now. Should I daydream bout being a Nazi, or doing History bout Nazis when Mr Ashwood was always late himself so never got pissed off if you were? I remember that lesson when he… oh, man, no way. You in’t gonna bunk off lesson just so you can spend your time daydreamin bout some other lesson, you sad, sad, gimpy sap. I’m such a fuckin pehndu that not only can’t I decide what to say but I can’t decide what to daydream bout either. You could choose anything. But I reckon daydreamin is like proper dreamin, when you’re actually sleepin. You can’t sleep less you stop tryin to. Just got to ignore the voices tellin you how tired you are, an those that keep sayin, Get to fuckin sleep or tomorrow you’ll be knackered. Shouldn’t listen to them voices. Shouldn’t think at all. I only got bout twenty minutes left so I shouldn’t think at all.

—Why you being so quiet now, Jas? I tell you, sometimes you’re just like your father. I’m sorry, Bobby, but my son, he’s just like his father.

It’s Uncle Bobby, one a Dad’s best mates from Ilford who always cracks rude jokes whenever he comes round an who somehow makes Mum an Dad stop tryin to sound so fuckin posh all the time. He’s probly come over to see Dad but Dad’s still at the office cos Dad’s always at the fuckin office.

—Don’t worry, let him sulk in the corner, Uncle Bobby goes to Mum.— His salad is tasty today. Nice and meaty. Not like that rabbit’s food last week, thank God. These vegetarian children. Bloody gaylords, all of them.

—Jas’s not vegetarian, Mum goes, grabbin the corner a her turquoise pashmina shawl before it slips off her shoulder.— His grandmother is, and I’m trying to cut down for this new diet I’m trying. But Jas just doesn’t like meat, do you, Jas? That’s why usually he doesn’t put it inside these healthy salad plates of his. He doesn’t even eat my chicken biryani any more, even though I put extra chillies in it just for his sake.

—There’s a word for this kind of behaviour: arrogant. That’s what you are, Uncle Bobby says to me.— You should be grateful for the food your mama cooks for you. I remember I was bloody grateful to my mother when I was a young boy.

—Oh, don’t worry, Bobby, I don’t mind. It means I don’t have to reheat yesterday’s leftovers so I don’t have to feel like a bad mother, she goes, lettin out one a her posh laughs that makes her shawl nearly slip off again. Fuckin pashmina shawls. She’s got eight a them. She even wears one when she’s gardening. She bought them one time when Amit’s mum came back from Bombay an turned their living room into Pashmina Shawls ‘R’ Us or someshit. After she’s finished ‘R’

straightening it again she tries a spoon a my salad.— He’s trying to be a healthy young boy, that’s all, she goes. She makes me feel nauseous. Mum always makes me feel nauseous.

Can you imagine me makin a salad? Fuck that. But sometimes I’d like to, just to be healthy an that, I’d like to like salad. So fuck it, let me have made the salad.

—This, lamb is it? Never had lamb in a salad before but it’s not bad, young man. Then he winks at my mum.— Looks like you’ve got yourself a gaylord chef in the family. It’s a bit too spicy for an old man like me, but it’s not bad, son.

Fuck off, you wanker, an stop callin me a gaylord. I so wish I could say this out loud. You wanker, please fuck off. I request you to fuck off out our house an cease referring to me as a homosexual, you wanker. I in’t your son. I’d rather be your own personal fuckin rent boy than be your fuckin son. Leave my mum alone, she’s only laughin along with you cos she’ll laugh along with anyone when they’re puttin someone down. My tongue may be fucked but my eyes are wide open. I can understand this kind a shit. But I can’t tell that to you, or her.

—It’s lamb, no? Just want to make sure because I don’t eat beef no more, not after all that mad cow business.

Sorry, but I honestly can’t talk to you. Maybe I want to. But I can’t.

—Jas probably doesn’t even know himself, Bobby, he hates meat. Is that why you’re not eating your own salad today, Jas? Oh, just forget it. You just sit and sulk. Bobby, let him sit and sulk. He is always sulking. Just like his father, I tell you.

Suddenly in my mind I can hear all those kids at school. Hardjit, Davinder, Amit. That lot who never spoke to me back then.— Fine, sulk even more, they all go in chorus.— Don’t answer yo mama, don’t chat 2 no one. U jus like yo papa, u jus like yo papa… So jus eat yo fuckin food, u useless khota.

—Oh, come on, Uncle Bobby says, tryin to keep my salad in his mouth,— all this sulking is no good. Jas my boy, tell us what happened, was it girls? That would be a big relief, woman. You don’t want a gaylord son, so be grateful if he’s sulking about girls.

—In’t no chance a dat, go the guys in my head again,— pehndu can’t even chat to blokes proply. Probly couldn’t even kiss a girl. Probly couldn’t even kiss a girl. Take it from da experts, jus open your mouth n da tongue knows wat it’s doin. You don’t kiss her on da mouth, you kiss her in da mouth, u get me? Best try it on yo’self tho, innit, best try n lick your own tongue.

—Jas? Girls? Not yet, Bobby, Jas is too young to have a girlfriend, goes my mum.— Jas doesn’t go around giving kissies to girls, do you, Jas? He probably doesn’t even know how to give kissies.

Before Mum has even finished, Uncle Bobby spits his laughter into his plate an quickly eats it again.— If I didn’t know how to kiss, my wife would never -

Then Mum turns back to me again, this time makin that face she always makes when she decides it’s time for her to stick up for Dad stead a layin into him all the time.— Now you listen to me Bobby, you stop saying bad things about my son.

Uncle Bobby weren’t havin none a it, though, so Mama then turns to me an goes,— Jas, don’t leave this all to me, you’ve got to stand up for yourself and say something. Open your mouth, please? she sighs. —Why can’t you open your mouth?

She is right. I should stand up for myself. I shouldn’t leave it all to her. But she orders Dad around enough, why can’t she just order Uncle Bobby to ease up? An anyway, it’d be pointless for me to tell Uncle Bobby anything cos I can’t talk an I can’t eat an it hurts so much. What’s the point in feelin pain if you can’t even tell your mama bout it? An it don’t even matter that Mama is now on my side. Don’t matter cos it’s started bleedin again. An my cheeks swell up with the blood. Fill em up. Oh, ouch. Ow. Mama, Mama, my mouth hurts. Ouch.

At first it had seemed the blood was violently bellyflopping over my bottom lip, like how it all explodes when you start to puke. Gushin out from where it’d been hardest to scissor it, from the middle bit where my Shitesprecher had been thickest. Then the blood settled once again, just trickling over my lip an painting my chin an neck a sort a blackish kind a red. So wet it was, my blood. I could feel it all mess up with the bits a ugly, stragglin bumfluff on my face cos I was tryin to grow a goatee beard. But I could only feel it on my face when I tried to concentrate on something other than the swirling pain inside my mouth an the sound a ‘Kiss’ by Prince, which is suddenly blastin outta the oven, fridge an microwave. Think bout the world outside your mouth, I tell myself, think bout your mama’s calm, fuckin Forest Moods CD. Think bout the drip-drippin a blood from the end a my shirt collar an into my plate a cucumber, tomato an diced up, lean an tender (but otherwise fuckin useless) Shitesprecher. Think bout Mama mopping up my blood with her pashmina shawl, dancin to Prince. My own head stirring, draggin though the air. Fuck knows whether I’ve suddenly gone bald but my head’s fuckin freezin, slowly fallin forward so that I in’t got no choice but to let my bloody, painted face roll down with it. Down towards my salad. The kitchen table din’t seem so massive before. An all the stains on Mum’s pink frilly tablecloth move further out, makin space for all a my blood.

—Oh…bloody mad boy, bloody fool, Uncle Bobby gives it, desperately spittin out my salad when I finally open my mouth. He jerks up the table, which launches the whole bowl a salad at me, almost as if to help me reach it as my head continues to slump down, slowly dragged by my mama-it’s-so-painful mouth. As I meet the bowl halfway my jaw is still locked wide open an meaty bits a my salad enter, kissin me. A proper kiss. In the mouth.

4

—Wat da fuck you been doin, you woman, playin wid yourself? Amit shouts at me as he opens the car door.— Can’t you see Davinder’s gettin a parkin ticket?

Shit, he was right. How can I have missed the traffic warden when the fucker’s standin right in front a me, wearin that yellow jacket that glows in the light an that traffic warden’s hat, the kind security guards wear to look like cops. An in case all that in’t enough, there’s a massive afro oozing out from underneath it. People usually cuss me for being deaf or mute, but not blind.

Davinder an Jaswinder were standin in the traffic warden’s face, shoutin him down so loud, people spilled out the newsagent’s next door to see, in their own words, what the fuck was goin on ‘ere then.

—Thirty fuckin seconds, man, dat’s all I wos, goes Davinder. —I got food poisoning, innit. Had 2 vomit in Nando’s toilets. Or wudyu prefer it if I threw up in da street? Oolti out on da pavement here where u cud slip on it?

How gandah is that? The traffic warden was as ready to swallow this excuse as he was the stomachful a vomit Davinder went on to describe. My own stomach felt like it could offer the boy some inspiration, that’s how much I was dreadin the rinsin I’d just let myself in for. I turned back to face Amit to see whether it’d be a super-rinse with spin cycle or whether he’d just lay into me with a light-wash piss-take. I try an head him off either way by sayin,— Shit, Amit, I’m really, really sorry, man.

—Ohw, you’we weally weally sowwy, arwe you?

His Tweety Bird impression again. Bang outta order then, cos I never spoke like that. I never had a problem with my Rs. I never had no stutter an I never even had a lisp, I just had a problem speakin. An I hardly ever have that problem no more anyway. But none a this matters to Amit. I hate the way people bring up your fuck-ups from the past to make your fuck-ups in the present seem even worse. My mum does the exact same shit with my dad. They’ll be all luvvyduvvy n tight but then Dad’ll forget something or fuck up somehow an then it’s thapparh time. She’ll bring up beef she had with him from, like, before I was even born.

—I’m sow weally weally sowwy dat I tawlk n act like a woman tawlkin n actin like a batty boy, goes Amit again.— Wat’s da point in sittin in da car if you jus gonna let someone give Davinder a parkin ticket? Fuck’s sake, Jas, you give us all nuff grief by being such a sap.

Amit carries on layin into me for being dickless an also for being dickless to someone like Davinder, someone who was the opposite a dickless. So I’m sittin there wonderin whether that means Davinder’d got a big dick while Amit brings up things like how safe Davinder’d been to us all these years, how we’d already kept him waitin that afternoon, what a great customer he’d been, how he’d given us nuff business an even what a bling car he’d got.

—Him n Jaswinder bringin all their crew to Hardjit’s fight tomorrow, Amit goes on.— An you pay dem back by bein a sap n lettin em get a fuckin ticket. Fuckin dickless woman. You lucky dat traffic warden in’t got round to givin our own Beemer no ticket yet cos Hardjit’d break yo face. Fuck’s sake, Jas, why da fuck din’t you call us, you sala kutta?

—I, well, I, the traffic warden, I was kind a, I…er, I, you know, er, you know…

—For fuck’s sake, boy, how can anyone argue wid’chyu if you can’t fuckin talk?

—Well…I…I, er…

Remember that Fatboy Slim CD? The one that all the goras liked cos it mixed electric guitars with breakbeats. Remember what it was called? You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.

—I…I, er, I did call you guys. I was shoutin for you lot to come.

—Wat’s da point in dat? How we meant to hear you holler from da muthafuckin car?

—No, I…I, er foned you, man. I was shoutin on the fone.

Rudeboy Rule #1:

My dad always said that you shouldn’t ever lie cos you’ll have to tell another ten lies to back it up. However, Hardjit’d taught me that if the back-up lies are good enough, then so fuckin what?

How to tell a good lie, though? Especially when sometimes you stammer even when you tellin the truth. Mr Ashwood taught us in History lessons that Hitler thought a good lie was a big lie.— He even had a minister for propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Jas, explain to the rest of the class what propaganda is. However, Hardjit’d taught me that a good lie is a lie with lots a detail in it. That’s why, right now, Davinder an Jaswinder were being even more gandah, listing the ingredients a Davinder’s imaginary vomit. Rice, daal, aaloo ki subjhi mixed in a base a bhindee an bile. If the back-up lies were detailed enough, then so fuckin what?

—I foned Davinder to warn him, innit, I say to Amit as I carefully reached for the Nokia 3510i in my back pocket an dialled Davinder’s number, stealth-style behind my back. Davinder an Jaswinder were frettin so much they probly wouldn’t hear the fone ring anyway. A long way indeed, baby. —Trust me, Amit, I din’t have time to come in an get you guys cos the traffic warden only just showed up. But I swear I foned Davinder though. Check his fone if you think I just be chattin shit. A hundred bucks says it shows a Missed Call.

Amit walks over to Davinder an does that whole Chinese whispers thing in his ear. Sure enough, Davinder’s Sony Ericsson P800 colour display showed a Missed Call from me, prompting Davinder to hold his forehead as if to go, Shit, how could I be such a deaf khota? Amit held his palm out towards me, as if he was givin me blessings, though what he was really going was, Shit, sorry, Jas, my bad. Jaswinder held his own palm out to Davinder, though not in a givin blessings kind a way but stead pretendin like he was gonna give him a thapparh across the face for being deaf. All a them too vexed to check the exact time the Missed Call had been missed. Then there’s Hardjit givin me a proud grin as he gets in the car an silences the drama outside by shuttin his door.— U jus call’d Davinder now, din’t u, bruv? I always knew u could b nuff smart when u proply tryin.

Davinder’s leather rucksack had twenty fones inside it this time. I nearly dropped the thing when Ravi passed it to me, though obviously I din’t look like I nearly dropped it. Most customers usually give us bout two or three at a time but Davinder normly gave us more’n ten. That was why we bought him some Nando’s or kebabs or whatever whenever we did dealings with him. The bredren was our best customer, you see, an if a good desi knows anything, it’s how to look after their best customer.

I don’t even want to know where Davinder’d got all his merchandise from, but it kept us in business an you can’t be a businessman if you in’t in business, innit. Our business is reprogramming mobile fones, which basically means unblocking them or unlocking them so that they can be reconfigured. To unlock a fone, you change its security code so that the handset can be used on a different network from the one it was originally bought on. Most people came to us cos they wanted to swap fones with their dad or mum or sister or whoever but keep their own fone numbers an tariffs an stuff. After all, what’s the point in your dad havin a blinger fone than you when he probly can’t even use the thing proply. So say your dad gets a handset upgrade to some slick Samsung on his Orange network an you want to swap it with your Nokia 6610 that you got on a T-Mobile network. You can’t just stick the SIM chip carryin your fone number an tariff an stuff into your dad’s new handset. It won’t work cos most fones are locked to the network they were originally bought on. To switch networks you gotta unlock the handsets by changin the security code. For some reason, the fone companies din’t allow people to have their fones unlocked in proper fone shops. In business-speak, that meant the fone companies had gone an left a gap in the market.

Rudeboy Rule #2:

Havin the blingest mobile fone in the house is a rudeboy’s birthright. Not just for style, but also cos fones were invented for rudeboys. They free you from your mum an dad while still allowing your parents to keep tabs on you.

So any time anyone round here wanted to enforce Rudeboy Rule #2 by doing one a these family fone swaps while keepin their own fone number, all they had to do was dial our fone number. Easy. Except for one thing: Davinder may’ve had a lot a cousins an uncles an aunts an everything, but he din’t exactly have twenty relatives all wantin to swap their fones round all at the same time like unwanted mithai boxes being recycled at Diwali.

Customers like Davinder were different to our normal family fone swap customers cos there’s more to this business than just switchin fones between different networks. If a fone gets reported missin or stolen or whatever, the fone company blocks it so that it can’t be used no more. They do this by deactivating a 14-17 digit code called the IMEI number. To unblock a fone (stead a just unlocking it) you gotta change the IMEI number. This code also makes it easier for the police to trace the thing, so if you ever find or jack some fones an want to use them you first gotta change the codes or find someone who can change them for you. Davinder an his crew had found us. Every couple a weeks we’d hook up with him an he’d give us this black leather rucksack full a fones. Fuck knows how he got them an how he never got caught gettin them. But he got them. An Amit’d got all the software an hardware for changin the IMEI numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, we in’t wannabe badass gangstas or someshit. We din’t jack no fones or sell no jacked fones or nothin. We just provided a service. We’re businessmen, innit. Our business dealings with Davinder just meant that he could guarantee to whoever he sold the fones to that they’d work an that they’d never be identified as being jacked. People keep sayin it’s becoming illegal or someshit to tamper with a fone’s codes, but, let’s face it, the cops would only round up all the little dodgy corner shops that offer this service, they’d never get round to little people like us. The feds were such pehndus they thought the little shops were the little people.

Rudeboy Rule #3:

My dad always told me to stay outta trouble. However, Hardjit’d told me to stay outta trouble with the police. After all, while the law is for goras, so is Feltham Young Offenders Institute. An while the police may be a bunch a pehndus, so are those who end up in prison.

Only last week we’d helped Amit swap fones with his dad. We did that job for free a course, even though Amit’s dad wanted to pay us anyway cos he said he admired our business skills.— Give me invoice minus VAT and I pay you boys cash, he’d said.— No use making taxman richer so he can give to bloody Somali asylum seekers. When we told his dad that we din’t have any a that VAT thing going on in the first place he got even more excited. Said he’d send more business our way. So let’s face it, we’d be gimps not to play this game. It’s what our A-level Economics retake teacher calls the informal economy. There was demand for a service out there an we could supply it. An it was all cash, so why not? Amit had the tools, Ravi had the transport, Hardjit had the contacts an I did what I was asked an din’t ask no questions.

Actually I did bring something to this gig: market information. As our A-level Economics retake teacher always said, markets can’t work proply without information. That’s why, before the Internet, they invented pigeons an newspapers. I got my information from my dad. After all, he’s a businessman too. He’s in the mobile-fone business, though it in’t like I’m tryin to copy him or nothin. He’s got a warehouse an office near the airport that sells handsets an accessories. He only sells stuff to all them small, independent mobilefone shops though, cos all the big high street chains have got their own supply networks. Anyway, thanks to all a Dad’s catalogues an magazines an leaflets an shit that the fone companies keep givin him, I could provide our own business with all kindsa info bout all the different fones that were on the market already or coming onto the market soon. I in’t exactly sure how much a this info we actually needed to do our business dealings, but we figured when you’re chattin to customers it’s best to sound like you know what the fuck you’re chattin bout. All I had to do was ask Dad for all the stuff when he’d finished readin them. Said it was for my Economics coursework. The old man was so happy his son was takin an interest in his shit, thinkin maybe I might even work with him one day. He probly even messed up the bed sheets dreamin bout havin some big family business. Wake the fuck up, I felt like sayin. It might’ve been like that in your generation, but why’d anyone want to work for their dad nowdays? I mean, what the fuck were you s’posed to do with your own plans? An how the fuck would you ever really know if you were really any good? Only fuckin reason I can see for joining my dad’s business is maybe that way I’d get to have a proper converfuckinsation with the man. Matter a fact, stead a gettin me ready to work with my dad, our business was actually competing with him, puttin him outta business. After all, if people round here couldn’t come to us to get their fones unlocked they’d probly end up buyin new ones from shops supplied by my dad. Serve him right.

I’d never told my dad bout our unblocking operation. Not just cos he was allergic to conversation an so I never told him much bout anything, but also cos he’d know our fone operation weren’t totally, 100 per cent legal. So stead he thought we made all our extra bucks by DJing. The man was probly proud I din’t spend Saturdays being another fast-food or supermarket pleb, I guess. Probly proud a the fact that he bought my first record player. That’s my dad: the man might not talk much or do much when it comes to me, but when it comes to tellin other people how proud he is a the way I turned out, the man’ll open his gob quick time, soakin up the credit like it was fuckin coconut butter.

We did in fact actually do some DJing one time. We used Hardjit’s Technic turntable an Amit’s Jamo speakers. Ravi was a pretty fly MC, probly cos he talked so much shit all the time anyway. I was crap at all that stuff a course so I just handed out the flyers. We don’t do DJing nowdays cos there in’t as much bucks in it no more. In business-speak it’s called price deflation prompted by oversupply. Too many other desi kids round here set up their own sound systems an there just weren’t enough bhangra, RnB gigs an wedding receptions to go round. Back before the market got too crowded you could get four hundred bucks just doing a big shaadi reception in a hotel ballroom near Heathrow. Also, as Ravi kept pointing out, being a DJ meant it was practically your job to flirt with fit, tipsy ladies. But when the usual Saturday-nite shaadi rate fell to, like, two hundred bucks, we decided unblocking mobiles would be better business an so now it was fones for us.

Here’s hoping fones don’t give you radiation when they’re switched off cos otherwise there’ll be no grandchildren for my dad to be proud bout. I had to move the rucksack onto my lap when Amit got back inside the Beemer, givin me another silent apology as he did so by tapping his left shoulder with his fist an then givin me a high-five with it. As if that were some kind a signal, Ravi turned the key in the ignition. But before revving, he waited for Hardjit to finish callin out to Davinder an Jaswinder,— Relax, blud, it’s all good. Jus let da traffic-wallah do his shit n we’ll settle da ticket wid’chyu later, a’ight.

5

I was secretly lookin forward to our Economics lesson today. I guess I hadn’t openly looked forward to a lesson in years, not since we were back at school an Mr Ashwood showed us Schindler’s List to help us understand the Second World War.

—I’ma take da short cut back to college, goes Ravi,— othawise we b headed for traffic, innit, Hardj?

—Nah, man, it gettin late an we gots twenty fuckin fones in da bag. Fuck college, let’s take em straight 2 my yard.

Rudeboy Rule #4:

According to Hardjit, it don’t matter if the proper word for something sounds fuckin ridiculous. If it’s the proper word then it’s the proper word.

Yard is one a them words. If it was me who was the American hiphop G or whoever the fuck it was who invented all this proper speak, no way the proper word for house’d be yard. That’s the garden, for fuck’s sake. I in’t feelin the word crib either cos that’s what American babies sleep in. Also, I wouldn’t decide that the proper word for wikid is heavy. Why they decided that The Shit should mean The Greatest I got no idea, maybe cos bad’s always meant good. But more than all a this, if I was the Proper Word Inventor I’d do two things differently. I wouldn’t decide that the proper word for a deep an dickless poncey sap is a gay batty boy or that the proper word for women is bitches. That shit in’t right. I know what other poncey words like homophobic an misogynist mean an I know that shit in’t right. But what am I s’posed to do bout it? If I don’t speak proply using the proper words then these guys’d say I was actin like a batty boy or a woman or a woman actin like a batty boy. One good thing though: now that I use all these proper words I’m hardly ever stuck for words. I just chuck in a bit a proper speak an I sound like I’m talkin proper, talkin like Hardjit. I just wish I was the Proper Word Inventor so I could pick different proper words, that’s all. But, seeing as how I in’t that person, we were cruisin to Hardjit’s yard in Ravi’s ride, checkin out the bitches round the high street. We nod at some bredren we know from Hounslow Manor School as we turned off the London Road. We pass some G drivin a red Pharrell Williams with a number plate that says D3S1, which we figure is meant to mean DESI. We talk bout how you never see a car like that without a personalised number plate. We turn up DMX again as we drive up alongside some ladies in a little convertible Justin Timberlake who’re waitin to turn into the Treaty Centre car park. We see some Somali kids makin mischief near some other car park by the Yates pub. We see Deepak Gill an his crew hangin outside the car park by Hounslow West tube station an normly we’d’ve shouted Kiddaan at them but we din’t this time cos he’d got some beef with Amit’s older brother’s fiancée’s brother-in-law’s nephew. We din’t shout Muthfuckin bhanchods either, though, cos Amit’s brother’s shaadi was only a few months away an we din’t want to fuck things up for him by causing some complicated, family-related shit. Ravi slid down from fourth to second an tried to pull away from the station, partly to make a loud, angry noise at Deepak Gill an partly to try an overtake this pain-in-the-butt H91 bus in front. But the oncoming lane in’t clear an so we’re fuckin stuck. Right behind the rear end a some fuckin Grampa Simpson when we could be chasing the rear end a some J-Lo or Beyoncé instead.

—Fuckin plebs, Ravi keeps shoutin at the Grampa Simpson in front. Then,— Oi, you gandah fucker, every time it, like, farts at us. We couldn’t squeeze past it cos the dickless driver din’t pull into the bus stop proply cos there was another bus in front a him. That bus was a H91 as well. Now that we cleaned these streets a saps, coconuts an Paki-bashing skinheads, we gotta do something bout all these buses. Even with a special slip road for them outside Hounslow West tube station, they always managed to cause chaos there. It was the same near Hounslow East tube, Hounslow Central tube, Hounslow railway station an Hounslow bus station (though I in’t sure it’s fair for us to have beef with buses hangin round at that last one).

The oncoming lane finally clears up, but we still don’t overtake the buses in front cos suddenly one a the H91s opens its doors again to let out a bunch a sixth-formers from the Green School. The Green School for Girls, that is. An even more accurate name would be the Green School for Fit Girls. They were upper sixth-formers, meanin they’d binned their dark green school uniforms a couple a years back an were now struttin around in their best casual garms. Good desi girls, though, so no fuck-me clothes. Jeans an jumpers mostly, but with enough Lycra to make you glad it weren’t cold enough for coats. Hardjit leaned out the window an did whatever it is that he does so well. I couldn’t hear exactly how he was chirpsin them over the CD, but I caught him givin it the line:— Oye oye sohni kurhiyo! The girls did that giggle-disguised-as-a-smile thing an Hardjit was out the door, escorting them to the tube station before you could say, Dude, the station’s only five metres away.

—What the fuck’s he gonna do? Buy their tube tickets for them? I asked the other guys. No answer.

—Or does he reckon he’s gonna get off with one a them in the photo booth?

Still no answer. So I look at whatever it is Amit an Ravi are busy lookin at. An suddenly I’m thinkin Cheers God for makin us bunk off lesson.

—Phwoar! Gimme some air, goes Ravi as another Green School girl steps off the bus.— Wat da fuck is Samira Ahmed doing ridin on a bus?

— I dunno, man, maybe her Beemer broke down, goes Amit.

—But ridin on a bus wid all dem plebs, man. She is so fit, she should b in my Beemer ridin wid me. Actually, scrap dat, she should b ridin me.

—Or maybe even me, goes a voice that sounds a lot like mine. Shit. I covered my mouth as I realised I’d just said that out loud. I apologise to my mind even before it starts givin me a bollocking, but it’s too late to apologise to Amit an Ravi. It weren’t my fault though. I mean, just look over there. Just look at Samira Ahmed. She was the reason guys round Hounslow’d bothered learnin how to spell the word Beautiful stead a just writin the word Fit inside their valentine cards. She was beautiful like them models in make-up ads, the ones where they’re so fit they don’t even look like they’re wearin any makeup. Unlike any a the other desi girls that’d got off the bus before her, Samira Ahmed weren’t even wearin no jewellery either. That’s how fit she was. I in’t lyin. She made you realise how some desi princesses were lookin more an more like clowns dressed up like Christmas trees with all their bling-bling Tiffany tinsel an Mac masks. It was like as if they were tryin to distract your attention from other shit on their faces, like their noses, mouths an eyes. Like they’d got so hooked on who’d got more bling that they’d forgot what jewellery was originally for, same way some desis keep complaining bout non-spicy food cos they forget the original reason for drowning food in chillies was cos the desis in the pinds were so skint they could only afford off meat an so wanted to hide the taste. In business-speak it’s called overinvesting in marketing stead a product development, an sometimes overstating the value a your assets as a result. Soon as the customer’s focus shifts back to the product again your business is fucked cos the whole demand curve, like, shifts inwards. That’s why fizzy soft drinks in’t sellin so well no more now that people know they should be drinkin pani an fruit juice stead a all them artificial flavourings an colouring s an all that other shit desi princesses slap on their faces. But not Samira Ahmed. No marketing, no make-up, no sodium benzoate, no jewellery, no aspartame an none a that potassium sorbate shit. Multiply her usual fitness by ten the way she was lookin today, dressed in that tight black polo neck that stretched round her chest an that khaki skirt - shiny, soft, slinky. Satin, probly. What is it bout shiny skirts that let you see a lady’s curves even better than you’d be able to if she was wearin no skirt, no nothin? All a that Heaven held together by this thin brown leather belt fastened diagonally across Samira’s butt an matchin her boots.

—Yeh, right, goes Ravi.— Why’d she go for a deep n meaningful gimp like you when she cud wrap dem legs round a stud like me?

But Amit is less willin to just roll with my comment bout wantin Samira to ride me.— Easy now, Jas, he goes.— Ravi here jus b chattin bout how fit she is. Da way you say it, it soundin like you onto her. Samira outta bounds for all a us bredrens an you know it. She Muslim, innit. We best all stick to our own kinds, boy, don’t b playin wid fire. An you best not b chattin like dat in front a Hardjit.

Amit had a point a course. If any a us ever got with Samira, her mum an dad’d probly kill her and then try an kill us. That’s if our own mums an dads din’t kill us first. An then that’s if Hardjit din’t kill us before they did. Mr Ashwood had taught us bout the bloody partition a India an Pakistan during History lessons. What we din’t learn, though, was how some people who weren’t even born when it happened or awake during History lessons remembered the bloodshed better than the people who were.

—Relax, Amit, I jus be jokin, innit. I jus be chattin shit, checkin her out same way Ravi is, I go, tryin to sound casual but not managing to sound casual enough. Not nearly casual enough.— But it in’t as if she’s like a strict Muslim, is it?

—Wat da fuck is wrong wid’chyu? Wat da fuck’d I jus say, Jas? None a us lot should ever b goin there, man. Don’t matter whether she strict n dat. Jus don’t b fuckin goin there, a’ight.

I figure things can’t get any more tense, so I defy him an go there a little more:— Yeh, but I’m just sayin, how strict can she be? I mean, she’s a she. Most Muslim fundamentalists are blokes.

—Look, she got three brothers an dey well strict. One a dem even belongs to Hizb ut-Tahrir or Al-Muhajiroun or one a dem groups. Dey stricter bout keepin their sister halal than my mum is bout keepin her shit vegetarian so you jus best shut da fuck up before Hardjit gets back.

—I jus sayin she can’t be that strict, that’s all, I go,—I mean you seen her when she dresses an dances like she the fourth member a Destiny’s Child or someshit. Come on, Amit, admit it, surely even you think she’s fit.

—No I don’t, Jas. An you best calm da fuck down n focus your hormones on your own kind. Anyway, wat da fuck we arguin bout her being Muslim for? Samira Ahmed ain’t nuffink special whether she b a Muslim, a Sikh, a Hindu or a mermaid on a beach in fuckin Goa. In fact, my bum is buffer than her.

—Ahh, blud, now you shut yo mouth, goes Ravi.—Jus cos I ain’t wantin to get wid her, it don’t mean dat girl ain’t da fittest lady in da hood. At da end a da day, she did win Miss Hounslow two years in a row, innit.

—Dat’s jus cos I din’t enter ma ass. Look at her. She a tramp, da lady ain’t got no class. She ain’t even wearin no jewellery or makeup, man.

—That’s cos she don’t need none, I go.—Sayin she ain’t got no class is like sayin Pamela Anderson’s got a flat chest cos she don’t wear a Wonderbra.

Just then Hardjit gets back in the Beemer, bringin a smile an the smell a perfume with him. We stop the conversation bout Samira an skip to the next track on the CD.

—Wat’chyu boys been doin? Hardjit asks as he starts struggling with his seat belt again.

—Nothin, I go.—Jus chattin bout business, checkin out da bitches, innit.

Hardjit’s yard had a double driveway, big enough to park his dad’s Al Pacino an his mother’s Mary J Blige, but probly not big enough for a Mary J Blige an the Amitabh Bachchan his dad’d always wanted. They really needed a driveway cos his yard was right up near where the Great West Road an the Bath Road joined into the road that takes you to Terminal 4 or the road that went straight to Terminals 1, 2 or 3—the gateway to India just down the A4. Living there, they din’t know what was worse—the traffic on the road outside or the traffic in the sky. Either way the double glazing weren’t thick enough an they’d had to hook up their living-room TV to two sets a surround-sound speakers. It’d probly be the best TV ever for watchin MTV Base or the B4U desi music channel, only we’d never know cos we never actually went in the living room when we went round. There was always some auntyji in there with Hardjit’s mum, you see. Her an a friend gup-shupping bout this bit a gossip or that bit a gossip. Somehow they always managed to sound like those emergency sessions in the Indian parliament you sometimes see on Star News.

It was obviously deeply disrespectful if we din’t go in an say hello to the auntyjis, but it’d’ve also been deeply disrespectful to just suddenly barge in unexpected. This time we figured it’d be more disrespectful to go in than it’d be not to. We could hear Hardjit’s mum inside talkin importantly, sayin things like Hai hai. So stead, we politely took our trainers off in the porch, whispered the usual jokes bout Ravi’s paneer-smellin socks an legged it upstairs, givin it a respectful Hi, Aunty to his mum, an adding another Hi, Aunty for whoever else was in the living room with her. Aunty’s freshly cooked subjhi chasing us all the way upstairs, even though Ravi’s feet were cheesier than usual an even though she’d shut the kitchen door to stop the smell escaping. Up on the landing, the subjhi mixed with the incense sticks burning in bedroom number one along the long, L-shaped corridor. There weren’t no bed in bedroom number one. It was where they kept their copy a the Guru Granth Sahib on a table. They’d hung their pictures a various Sikh Gurus on the landing walls outside. They’d even got a couple a pictures a Hindu Gods too. Usually you only get Hindus who’ll blend their religion with Sikhism but Hardjit’s mum an dad were one a the few Sikh families who blended back.

Bedroom number two: Aunty an Uncle’s. Stricly off-limits, although just inside you can see a blown-up photo hangin on the magnoliapainted woodchip wall. It’s from when Hardjit’s family went to Disneyland with his chacha’s family in New Jersey. Hardjit’s dad’s also got another brother living back in Jalandhar, where according to Mr Ashwood the smells are even stronger an the colours even brighter. But Hardjit prefers visiting his cousin in New Jersey cos she’s got fitter friends in her desi scene out there. Fitter buddies with fitter bodies who dress like desi versions a Britney Spears—in the video for ‘Slave’ a course, not ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’. Before you turn the corner to get to bedroom numbers three, four an five, there’s a laundry basket on the landing lookin like a milk pan that’d been on the hob too long. Amit takes one look at it an gives it,—Ehh ki hai? Wat’s wid all dis gandh, man? You best gets your mum to do your laundry quick time or you’ll have to wear da same smelly kachha every day.

—Ain’t ma fault, blud. Da washing machine’s fuck’d, innit. Dad was tryin 2 do some shit 2 da plumbing n pipes n dat, n suddenly da washin machine, dishwasher n even da fuckin tea-maker all fuck’d up in one go.

—How da fuck’s your chai-maker connect’d to da pipes? Ravi asks.

—I dunno. Maybe it ain’t. I ain’t fuckin Bob da Builder, innit.

—You know wat I’d do if my washin machine, dishwasher or chai-maker broke down? goes Ravi.

—Wat?

—Divorce da bitch, innit.

On the floor by the laundry basket lay a pile a Bollywood magazines. Old issues a Cineblitz an Stardust mostly, which Hardjit, his parents an his little sister had agreed to keep out on the landing so that they din’t fight over who could keep them in their bedroom.

—Nice stash, bruv, goes Ravi, lookin down at them, which was probly difficult for him seeing how he was more used to angling his neck upwards when he was checkin out magazines,—verrry nice stash, he gives it again.—Hope u in’t got yo Playboys tucked away in da middle a them. Jus imagine yo mama or sister’s face next time dey wanna read bout Shah Rukh Khan, innit.

Hardjit sometimes gets pretty vexed bout that kind a shit. Porn, hookers, slutty ladies. Other times he’ll be laughin along, actin like a pimp. I in’t lyin, one minute he’s talkin bout how he’s gonna get inside some desi girl’s lace kachhian an the next minute he’s actin as if a girl’s gotta be a virgin if she wants to be a proper desi. Fuck knows why sometimes he’ll act one way an other times he’ll act the other way. Could be he’s only OK bout it when it’s obvious we’re only chattin bullshit or just fantasising or someshit. Problem is, you in’t allowed to fantasise bout Bollywood actresses cos he reckons they’re s’posed to be all pure an everything. You in’t allowed to fantasise bout someone real in case Hardjit thinks you’re being serious bout them an you in’t allowed to fantasise bout someone famous cos chances are they’re a Bollywood actress. You in’t allowed to fantasise bout blatant sluts like porn stars cos desi girls in’t meant to be into that kind a thing. An you in’t allowed to fantasise outside your own race, like when Ravi goes on bout Page Three models, glamour girls an lap dancers. Those kindsa ladies get Hardjit so vexed that when he calls them bitches he don’t just mean they’re female. But right now Ravi’s only fantasising bout fantasising. That’s the way Ravi is. Sometimes if you allow him to just carry on, his gandahness can even get funny. Like when he got us kicked outta B&Q in Brentford by actually using one a the toilet bowls in the bathroom showroom.

—Jus imagine it, man, goes Ravi,—imagine if Aunty n Uncle picked up some bedtime Bollywood readin, innit, n out fell some topless gori woman wearin lacy black chuddies n suspenders, innit. Again, Hardjit just let Ravi carry on:—Or maybe jus a black thong, innit. Maybe it’d even help yo mum n dad, you know, get jiggy wid it.

Hardjit shot him a look, but still without sayin nothin or doing nothin or smackin nothin.—Help em make such a rumble in da jungle dat dey break da fuckin bed, innit, Ravi goes,—maybe even yo dad cud stop takin his Viagra.

The boy was well into red rag an bull territory now, as Mr Ashwood used to say. I guess Hardjit must’ve been too busy thinkin bout something else. Tomorrow’s fight, today’s fones, yesterday’s fuck. If everyone who dissed him was as lucky as Ravi right now, the ER bit a Ealing Hospital wouldn’t be so busy all the time. Stead a coming back proply with his fists, Hardjit just gives it,—Yeh n maybe ma dad can give his Viagra 2 u innit cos u clearly needin it, u fuckin sexually frustrated sex maniac.

—Safe, bruv. But I’m da mack already, innit. I only needs Viagra if ma bitch wanna cum forty times a nite steada thirty. An anyway, ma bitch is so fine I ain’t needin no Playboy magazines to get ma soldier ready for action, you get me.

—Shut da fuck now, Hardjit gives it.—U best jus shut yo dirrty mouth now, Ravi. Dere ain’t no fuckin Playboys in dere. ‘Sup wid’chyu?

—Yeh, you know wat, bruv, you is right, innit. My bad. Now I’ma got to thinkin, you ain’t gonna b havin no Playboys in here. You’s a desi, innit. You’s gonna b havin copies a Asian Babes! G-strings always look better on some nice Indian butt. At da end a da day, you b wantin yo meat proply cooked not raw, you get me.

Ravi did some more free advertising for Asian Babes before adding:

—Hey, any a you boys heard bout dat new American porn star who’s actually a desi? Dey call her Miss Vagindia. In dis new film she done, right, I heard she wearin nuffink but a bindi. Seriously, no kachhi, no banan, nuffink.

Forget the red rag an bull territory, Ravi may as well have stripped that porn star’s red kachhi off himself an waved it in Hardjit’s face.

Rudeboy Rule #5:

Bout six months ago Hardjit taught me that you couldn’t learn to chat proply if you also din’t know when to stop chattin.—U gots 2 know when 2 shut yo mouth, he’d said.—It da same when u stickin yo tongue down a lady’s throat, u can’t jus go on an on an on, she’ll get bored or fuckin choke, innit.

Ravi was the kind a rudeboy who could never stick to Rudeboy Rule # 5. The trouble with rudeboys like Ravi, by which I mean the sheep kind a rudeboy, is they never realise when they’re lucky. Stead they think it’s some desi skilfulness they got that keeps other people’s fists outta their faces. Just watch em next time you’re in a nice bar or a club or whatever. They reckon they’re being the shit an so they can’t help pushin it.

—Hey relax, blud, goes Ravi again.—You know I’d bruck anyone who bought dat Asian Babes shit too. I jus mouthin off cos I got me a high sex drive, dat’s all, man. I can’t help it if I is a wild fuckin beast. Better’n bein a deep n skinny batty bwoy like Jas here, innit. He probly got a stash a gay porn. Bud Bud Batties or sumfink, innit. Dat’s if there is a mag for batty desis. Wat bout one for lesbian desis, man? If there ain’t one a dem then somebody shud start one cos they’d make big bucks. Desi dykes, bindi’d bisexuals n dat, innit. Bring it on, blud.

It was just a punch on the arm an a follow-through elbow in the ribs. An when it was done, Ravi quietly examined his bruises an Hardjit crouched down by the pile a magazines, flickin through them as if to prove there really were no pornos in there. Then he started readin an article bout Hrithik Roshan’s daily bodybuilding routine, as if the rest a us weren’t even there an as if he hadn’t already read it bout ten times already. This might seem rude seeing as how we were guests in his house, but I guess he knew from the new smells runnin up the stairs that his mum’d already started fryin samosas an makin chai for us.—Dat’s some fly shit, he whispered bout something he’d just read, givin Hrithik Roshan a high-five on the shoulder with his still-clenched fist as he did so. Then he closed the copy a Cineblitz, wiped it with his vest an placed it on top a the pile, leavin the front-cover shot a Hrithik Roshan facing up so that the rest a us could feel skinny, spotty an just generally ugly.

Not being a bunch a desperate fourteen-year-olds, we’d not come over with the ulterior motive a huntin for hidden pornos. We’d come to check something else out. An, as if she’d just heard the commotion on the landing, she an her glorious midriff were out waitin for us, standin round the corner outside bedroom number five, right where she usually did when we came round, dressed in tight, black satin. A desi Catwoman outfit. It was as if her black, shoulderless top had been moulded over the breasts beneath it, so that it weren’t even satin but a thick stripe a that body-paint stuff you hear bout, exposing her midriff, bare hips, bronze collarbone an the soft brown flesh above it that connected her shoulder to her neck. Staring at the three a us from the bedroom door, as if to say, Now which one a you boys is gonna be my man?

Ravi strode up to her, placed his hand over her left breast an proceeded to lick her right breast. Slowly at first, but speedin up after bout six strokes. Well, pretend-lick to be precise. He weren’t bout to ruin Hardjit’s prized poster a Kareena Kapoor by gettin his saliva all over it.

—Fuckin get yo mouth off ma door, u perve, Hardjit said, pullin Ravi away from the poster,—or I’ma glue yo tongue 2 da inside a da door frame n slam dis muthafucka shut. I mean it, Ravi, u best jus ease up on dissin ma shit today b4 I smack u again.

—Safe, bruv, ma bad. But chill, man, I wouldn’t really lick yo poster anyway.

—Fuckin tell me 2 chill, Ravi. D’yu know where u is at, bhanchod? In ma mum n dad’s house. Not some fuckin perve’s sex shop in Soho. We treatin our bitches wid respect, innit.

Amit began to say something, then hesitated, but then had to say it now cos he’d look like a batty boy for stammerin.—Da poster n da door, dey probly already sticky, innit, n I ain’t meanin from glue.

Sayin shit like that was Amit’s privilege in life. If those words had come outta anyone else’s mouth, Hardjit would’ve smacked them for dissin him, dissin his house, dissin his mum’s magazines, dissin the poster he probly got free with one a them magazines an dissin bitches in general. Truth is, we weren’t actually dissin nothin. We were appreciating his poster, like how poncey people do when they go to poncey galleries to check out paintings a sunflowers an shit. I know this cos I seen em do it. We all went to one a them places one time, I in’t lyin, up near Trafalgar Square. Ravi’d wanted to go inside cos he said his mum had suddenly gone all poncey bout famous paintings. She wants some tutty picture a fuckin water lilies, he’d said as we headed straight to the gift shop. We soon managed to get ourselves kicked out by some bitch who wore glasses on the tip a her nose, loads a make-up over her wrinkles an who spoke like she was the Queen’s first cousin or someshit. Seems that you in’t allowed to say things like Check out da size a her melons, not when you’re lookin at a painting which shows a naked woman with big melons. Seems that it in’t no defence if you argue that you din’t even use the word tits. Also, it don’t help if you say, Fuck off, bitch, u jus jealous cos your own melons are saggy wid cobwebs in between them, innit.

Anyway, if you ask me, posters a Bollywood babes are better to look at than them poncey paintings. Matter a fact, I reckon they’re better than posters a fit goris like Kate Moss or Caprice or fit kaalis like Beyoncé Knowles or Halle Berry. Indian women (I know I should say bitches stead a women to keep things proper but I’m still workin on it) are different. Bollywood babes are obviously not black or white so in’t bootylicious or waifs. They’re somewhere in between. Midriffs. Hardjit’s dad once explained his theory bout all this when he caught me staring at a picture a Kate Moss in the paper one time.—Jas, my boy. No waste your time with all these skinny kurhiyaan, he’d said.—I’m like uncle to you. As your uncle I tell to you this: If she thin, that means she not eating. She is sick with this anoraks-yar disease. An if she not eat, she not do cooking. So then what’s the use is she?

I remember noddin politely, tryin to think a something to say, before Hardjit’s dad continued:—See this young kurhi in newspaper, Jas, I say she look like drug addict. I know how these girls are, I tell you. Look at her. I know she not even clean the house. Why she show off her belly button to whole wide world when she not even have belly in first place?

—There’s nothin wrong with being slim, Mr Johal, I go.—It doesn’t mean she does drugs.

—No, no, young man, nothing wrong with slim. I not say she should look mohti and pregnant. But this girl in newspaper, she starving to death.

Even though Hardjit’s dad was chattin some blatant shit bout ladies, at least the man was chattin bout ladies. Only time my own dad ever talks to me bout women is if he’s got an important female customer or supplier or whatever. An that’s hardly ever seeing as how he mostly does business with businessmen.

—All these kurhiyaan they all look like drug addicts, goes Hardjit’s dad again,—I know what I’m saying. Delinquent drug addicts. I know what I’m saying. I’m like uncle to you. My father, before he die, he telled to me, you keep your eye on bellies of well-portioned kurhiyaan and you get good portions in your own stomach.

I remember I wanted to disagree with Hardjit’s dad again, outta respect for Kate Moss an women generally. But Hardjit’s mum was standin right beside him givin me two good reasons to hold my tongue. Firstly, she was noddin in agreement with everything he’d just said. Secondly, it would’ve been disrespectful to her if I disagreed with her husband in front a her.

6

We were huddled in the king-sized bathroom between bedrooms number four an five. Hardjit’d got one a his urges to go shape his facial hair in the big magnifying mirror above the sink. There was always a couple a hairs that the beard trimmer missed an if Hardjit din’t pluck em or scissor em they’d totally fuck up the outline a his goatee. It was the same with the lines he’d cut through his left eyebrow like three Adidas stripes. The jacuzzi an shower cubicle in this bathroom had never worked as well as the other two they’d got, not even before his dad’s fuck-up with the plumbing. So, depending on which member a his family was lookin into the mirror, this bathroom was only used for shaping, shaving, plucking or waxing facial hair.

I turned my back to the other guys an stared back out across the landing at the Kareena Kapoor poster. I carried on staring at it even as Amit started takin the mick. Stop dreamin, Jas. You couldn’t pull a nympho. Fuckin Seema mohti Patel is outta your league. That kind a thing. Still, I carried on staring, thankful that I weren’t a gimp into that whole Britpop/R.E.M. scene no more cos if I was I’d probly still be wearin skintight Levi’s 501s stead a my baggy Evisu’s. Skintight jeans hurt at times like this. Even Hardjit’s bedroom-door handle pointed upwards at the poster it shared a door with, though that was probly cos it’d been fixed upside down in another one a his dad’s drunken DIY moments.

Rudeboy Rule #6:

Although desi ladies should dress like Bollywood actresses, under no circumstances should desi men try to dress like their male co-stars. Bollywood actors are the only desi men on Planet Earth who’re allowed to wear skintight jeans. Watchin em carry it off as they carry the heroine outta the fountain during the soaked, see-through sari scene is just one more reason to sit through more Bollywood movies than you currently do. Must really fuckin hurt em though.

Finally, Amit grabbed my arm, yanking me from Kareena Kapoor’s soft arms an then draggin me outta Bollywood altogether.—Kareena Kapoor ain’t nothin special, he goes,—none a dem Bollywood bitches is. It all make-up, innit. Even Aishwarya Rai ain’t all dat. Jus like I told’chyu boys earlier, I ain’t caring how many beauty contests all a dese bitches won. My bum is buffer’n dem.

—Yeh, OK, Amit, we heard it all before, I give it, all pissed off as if my mum had just woken me up from a wet dream before it’d actually become one.—Let me guess, you pulled someone fitter than her last week, right?

Sayin that turned out to be a bad, bad, fuckin bad move on my part cos Amit goes an retaliates by tellin Hardjit how I’d been pervin over Samira Ahmed earlier that day.

—You shoulda seen him, he goes.—Afta we park’d up by Hounslow West, innit. Had his tongue hangin out da car window when she got off da bus.

—Fuck’s sake, Jas, goes Hardjit,—I ain’t caring how much u fancy a piece a her ass, u stay da fuck away from her. Dat bitch b trouble, u get me?

—Look, man, all I did was tell Amit that she’s fit, that’s all, bruv.

—No dat ain’t all, bruv. How many times I’ma gots 2 tell u she fuckin bad news? Shudn’t even b finkin bout her, fuck sayin shit bout her.

—Look, Hardjit, just cos she’s Muslim. I in’t sayin I wanna marry her, I’m jus sayin she’s fit. Wat’s wrong with that? You’re being racist, man. An anyway, the fact that she’s Muslim means it’d be even harder for me to get anywhere with her even if I wanted to, which I don’t. So what’s the big fuckin deal?

—Muslim ain’t got nuffink 2 do wid nuffink, Jas. Everyting u sayin got shit 2 do wid shit. Dere b Sikh n Hindu girls who act like hos n I stay da fuck away from dem too. Bottom line, da bitch is a ho n u best stay clear—less u want me 2 pull out yo tongue wid dese tweezers.

—OK, whatever, man. But it in’t right to call her a ho.

—I aksed u 2 shut da fuck up, Jas, I don’t wanna hear u sayin shit bout her or shit bout any shit no more, u get me? U seen dat bitch in action when she surround’d by munde? Trust me, I’m da expert. She a muthafuckin ho.

Ravi was even quicker to agree with Hardjit an Amit than he usually was. I should’ve buckled as well, but that would’ve contravened my sense a chivalry an shit. An so I carried on standin up for her, carried on defendin her ways. Right up until Hardjit raised his hand as if was gonna give me a thapparh across the face.

Rudeboy Rule #7:

It’s Basic Bollywood for Beginners. In situations that involve defending or rescuing a fit lady, you can stand tall with your front intact even if all your crew walk out on you or try an thapparh you. They call it being a hero. An when a lady’s got your hormones bubbling like two different types a toilet cleaner mixed together in a jacuzzi, you got no choice but to be a hero.

I’d wanted to get off with Samira since the first time I saw her, but I fell for her proply at Ritu Singh’s seventeenth birthday party. Ritu’d only invited me cos I used to help her with her English homework so I’d bought her a book. Her dad’d bought her a VW Golf an she ended up dancin with the keys round her neck before her mum walked up to her an told her she’d ruin her new Swarovski necklace underneath it. Can you imagine havin your mum an dad hangin with all your mates at your seventeenth? Most parents clear the fuck away soon as they’ve taken all their photos, sung ‘Heppi Birday’ an then passed round thookafied slices a birthday cake. But not Ritu’s. Her mum an dad stayed all the way through, right to the end, makin sure there weren’t no troublemakers, ruffians, smokin or underage drinkin. Her dad pretendin like he weren’t really checkin out her friends, her mum mingling as if she was only double her daughter’s age.

Back then I weren’t that tight with people like Hardjit, Amit or Ravi, so I just hung back with the coconuts who were standin around wonderin how come they weren’t on the dance floor with all the fit people. Even Ritu’s dad was on the dance floor, his blatant wig blatantly slidin outta place. He was dancin bhangra-style to some old-skool hip-hop tune by De La Soul an kept smiling at people who were crackin up at him. Then he kept wiping his thick moustache with his handkerchief an lassoing the sweaty thing around his head until everyone else moved off the floor. Everyone except Samira Ahmed, that is. She never once left the dance floor all the time I was watchin her. An the only time she was dancin without some fitlookin guy was when she was left on the floor with Ritu’s dad. From the way he was lookin at Samira an her tight black dress I knew his wife was gonna pull him away an that was the first an only time I saw Samira Ahmed without other people round her.

September before that we’d both started sixth form, which was the first time I’d had lessons with girls since primary school. Did I ever get the seat next to Samira? Did I fuck. It weren’t even as if everyone in the lesson liked her, it’s just that those that did really did. At the same time, those that din’t really din’t. An Hardjit was one a those that din’t. Kids back in the sixth form reacted in ways you couldn’t predict when it came to Samira Ahmed. Din’t matter whether they were Muslim like her, Sikh like Hardjit or Hindu like Amit. Some Muslims, Sikhs an Hindus wanted to shag her, other Muslims, Sikhs an Hindus wanted to smack her. Generally, the more hardcore they were, the more likely that they’d have beef with her. This was odd, seeing as how she mostly hung around with hardcore desis. Matter a fact, it weren’t till I started kickin round with Hardjit an his crew in upper sixth that I started seeing Samira Ahmed more an more outside a school. Afternoon bhangra gigs, Treaty Centre library, Edward’s bar in Ealing Broadway, proper desi events in Hammersmith. First time I ever spoke to her proply was at this desi gig Hardjit’d taken me to cos all fifteen boys from RDB were doing a live set. That stands for Rhythm, Dhol an Bass in case you don’t know, they’re like the So Solid Crew a desi beats. They’d just started playin the opening track from The Lick an all the guys charged towards the dance floor. That’s when I met her proply. Or more like she met me. Straight up, started talkin. To me. An I in’t lyin, what she was sayin had got nothin to do with school or books or me helpin her with homework. She’d just come off the dance floor an was sayin she din’t like being there when all the rudeboys started jumpin round with their bottles a beer, someone nearly elbowing someone in the face every ten seco nds. She was wearin tight jeans an a shiny white V-neck top. A capital V. In fact, the V was so big that the top had to have a white strap across her cleavage so that it looked more like an upside-down A. It was hard to focus on the words coming out her mouth stead a the letters on her chest—especially other times when she was wearin one a those capital U tops or just a B lyin on its back. Even when she was wearin a closed top, Samira Ahmed was way outta most guys’ leagues. She was probly outta Hardjit’s an Amit’s leagues an she was definitely way outta my league. Trust me, I seen proof a this. In fact, I see proof every day walkin down the street. Guys who’re fitter an tonker an better dressed than me going out with ladies who in’t nearly as fit as Samira. They say all this league system shit was just invented by insecure people as an excuse for being insecure. Damn fuckin right I’m insecure. I’m in a lower league than her, innit. By just accepting this hard fact a life I gradually learnt how to talk to her without slippin into some X-rated daydream bout her jumpin me on honeymoon before we even got to the hotel. Pretty soon it weren’t just bout the way she looked an the way I wanted to spend the rest a my life lookin at her. As well as a fit face, fit body, fit hair, fit way a walkin, fit way a dressin, fit way a smilin, laughin an breathin through her fit mouth, she also had a fit personality. An I mean the word personality in a nice way. Beauty on the inside, inner fitness, that kind a stuff.

You din’t need to know Samira well to see her inner fitness cos she’d shove it in everyone’s face like it was a Wonderbra. All this ranting an raving that I’d hear in the sixth-form common room, in my dreams an in my daydreams. It weren’t the usual bitchin bout other desis or bollocks bout clothes, jewellery, make-up or film stars. Well, not exactly. I mean the last time I’d heard Samira Ahmed go off on one it actually was bout make-up. But stead a chattin bout some new shade a brown, she was going off on one bout whether it’s right for companies that make make-up an stuff to test their shit on animals. She thinks they should be allowed to, but only in the same way that the stuff is meant to be used by people. So, if a deodorant in’t meant to be sprayed in a person’s eyes, don’t spray it in a monkey’s eyes. I in’t makin all this up just to big Samira up, she honestly really is into her political shit. An I in’t meanin in a poncey, classical-music-an-carpet-slippers way. She even belongs to some group called Amnesty International, where she does someshit to do with women’s rights in Pakistan. An the only time I ever heard her bitch bout other people’s jewellery was when she went off on one bout Angolan conflict diamonds. An still no flab, no spots, no facial or underarm hair or anything.

Even when she din’t have something big to say bout something she’d, like, unload onto you with a machine gun a questions, totally violating all them standard desi-girl rules that said all you should do is smile, look pretty, not get too mohti, do what you’re told by your elders an whoever else you’re s’posed to respect an maybe learn advanced as well as basic Indian cookin. She just couldn’t help breakin all a those rules that required desi girls to check themselves all the time, to check what they say an what they do. So while Hardjit an Amit may not’ve known what Amnesty International was, never mind havin a problem with Samira Ahmed belongin to it, they still had beef with her inner fitness cos, by breakin some sets a desi-girl rules an generally being the gorgeous way she was, it became too easy for her to break other rules an slip into being the way they din’t want any desi sister to be—whether she was Muslim, Sikh or Hindu. Take how Samira joked an chatted with guys bout stuff a good desi girl really shouldn’t be jokin an chattin bout. Mrs Ware is such a cow, I overheard her say one time in the sixth-form common room, I hate her lessons. She’s always moaning about this and complaining about that. I bet she’s the sort of woman who even complains while her husband and her are having sex.

Another time Samira was askin some other guys whether they reckoned VPL was a turn-off or a turn-on, like as if she was doing undercover underwear market research for a thong company. An if a guy told her what star sign he was, she’d tell him if he was good in bed or not, even though her answer usually made the guy decide he din’t believe in astrology no more anyway. It was as if she needed guys to flirt with her, especially guys who she obviously din’t fancy an who she’d never wanna get with. Like she enjoyed being bounced around naked on the beds inside their heads. Clearly this weren’t exactly halal on her part an so it made some people call her a ho.

So there I was that afternoon in Hardjit’s house, standin in the bathroom while he shaped his goatee. Defendin Samira once more like it was my duty in life. By the time Hardjit raised his hand to give me a thapparh I figured it was OK to back down cos I’d already made my point. But still Hardjit’d come back, askin me why the fuck I was tryin to be such a hero when she weren’t even there to hear me.—Matter a fact, she probly too busy actin like a ho wid her ho friend Ritu Singh right now, innit. Cos make no mistake, bruv, she a ho. Look at her, man, she fuckin dresses like a ho, like a slut in all her slitty miniskirts.

—Yeh, blud, I seen her one time wearin a skirt dat look’d more like a belt, Amit gives it.—An wat’s wid her pussyn boots, man? As if any bloke wudn’t wanna laugh n chat n shag wid dat.

—Thing is, bruv, she don’t even need 2 dress like a ho da way she flirts, Hardjit goes, to Amit now stead a me.—Blokes ain’t exactly havin 2 think hard 2 imagine her wearin no boots, no miniskirt n no nuffink. She loves it, man, she a ho.

—No, Hardjit, she’s not, I say.—You guys’re makin me feel like fuckin Wyclef Jean sayin this again an again an again, but all this stuff you’re sayin, it don’t make her a ho. For all you know she’s still a virgin. She in’t no slut an she in’t no ho, that in’t fair, guys, an you all know it. In fact, Hardjit, you just put your finger on it just now. She’s a flirt. She’s just an attention-seeker an a flirt. You put your finger right on it.

—I bet I can put ma finger wherever I want 2 wid her. Dat’s cos she a ho.

—She’s a flirt.

—Ho.

—Flirt.

—She a slut.

—Look, I in’t backin down on this. You lot always tellin me to be more assertive an stand up for things I believe in. Well, I’m standin up for her, innit. She’s an attention-seeking flirt who likes it when guys flirt with her so she tries to encourage it, that’s all.

—Fuck u, Jas, u lairy, lippy little shit, goes Hardjit.—U don’t know wat’chyu chattin bout. Let’s jus all stick wid our own kinds n chat bout sumfink else cos I’m sick a dis shit, a’ight?

—Fine by me.

Amit’s still raging, though, so Hardjit tries to make some jokes, calm things down, by givin it,—I reckon maybe Amit’s jus piss’d cos she ain’t never flirt’d wid him, innit.

—‘Sup, bhanchod?, goes Amit.—Why you linkin up wid Jas now? Why’d I wanna flirt wid Samira anyway? Even if she was da fittest girl in da world, she still a Muslim. You think I’s gonna go out wid a Muslim n let ma dad gimme fifty thapparhs across ma face wid a brick?

—Safe, Amit. But admit it, u did try n chat her up ages ago, goes Hardjit.—Don’t deny it, bruv, cos I was dere when u was actin all smoove wid her n dat.

—Fuck you, man. Dat was years ago. I was jus practisin my technique, innit.

7

All you need to unblock a mobile fone an change its security code is the proper software on your laptop an the proper kind a data cable. But Amit’s kit, which he kept in one a them flash aluminium briefcases, also included a money counter an some small weighing scales. He was settin it all up on Hardjit’s bed when Hardjit’s mum came in the room with her tied-back silver hair an matchin silver tray full a samosas, pakoras, glasses a Coke an cups a chai. Aunty always made sure her samosas weren’t as hollow as most aunties made them, her pakoras not too oily, her chai not too masalafied an her Coke not too flat an with slices a lemon an some crushed ice made by their top-a-the-range fridge. We could’ve done without the red chilli sauce, though, an I’m positive we din’t look like we needed frilly pink paper doilies.

—Shukriya, Auntyji, we all said like cheerleaders as she placed the tray on the desk. Each a us then gives it another Shukriya as she handed us a mini-plate an then Shukriya again as she put a dollop a that red napalm in it. Gotta respect your elders, innit.

—Koi gal nahi, Hardjit’s mum replied.—You all boys must be verry hungery after college. So much studying, too too hard, I don’t know, poor beycharay.

She shook her head in that special way that only aunties can. Not up an down but not side to side either. More like a wobble, a really jiggly wobble meanin either she really meant what she was sayin or she’d got rolls a rasmalai for neck flab. All that noddin an wobbling made her light blue sari rub against itself so hard it sounded like some old-skool DJ scratchin vinyl. Suddenly, the DJ pumped his amp all the way up to ten as Aunty turned to look at all the cables, the weighing scales an money counter scattered around the laptop on the bed.

—Hardjit, beita, vot is this mess?

—Homework, Mama, we need the laptop.

—Haa? Vot lapdog?

—Laptop. I need his laptop…Mennu CORM-PEW-TAR di zaruraht hai, Mama. For school project.

—Acha, theekh hai. But please, beita, don’t ruffle bedcover. Is made from really real, genuine silk. I got from Aunty Nirmal in Mumbai. Beita, please, why not use desk Papa got for you? Then she started clearin some space on the desk by movin Hardjit’s collection a Hugo Boss aftershaves. He actually bought his own stead a just gettin them as recycled gifts from other relatives. There was a bottle a Hugo Man, Hugo Dark Blue, Boss In Motion, Boss Bottled, the original Boss Number One, Hugo Boss Baldessarini an even a limited edition blue ball a Boss In Motion. While she’s clanging the bottles together, Hardjit says something to us in Urdu slang so that his mum can’t understand. He always said a proper rudeboy shouldn’t just know either Hindi or Panjabi to keep shit secret from goras but also a little Urdu slang to keep shit secret from mums an dads. I’m still workin on my Panjabi, though I reckon I already know more than most coconuts do.

—See, there, see more space, Aunty goes.—Now, why not put laptop here? And, beita, phone me downstairs if you bache are still hungery after. I have plenty more pakoras in freezer.

An with that, Aunty left the room before we could say Shukriya again, scratch-scratch-scratchin all the way downstairs back to her important guest. She’d carefully shut Hardjit’s door behind her as if she knew we’d got more things to lay out on the bed that she din’t want to see. Twenty more things to be precise. Twenty more creases in the silk bedcover. From inside his bedroom, Hardjit’s door looked a lot less attractive. He’d stuck the Kareena Kapoor poster on the outside a the door cos his mum normly made him leave it open. Now that the door was closed, the view a Kareena had been replaced by a leather jacket an a pair a stripy pyjama bottoms hangin on a stick-on plastic peg that was shaped like Mickey Mouse’s nose. Some num-chuckers were wrapped around the door handle an the Adidas tracksuit top that normly hung over them to stop them rattling had slipped off into that dusty bit a carpet you get behind doors. Along his wall was a Bollywood princess hall a fame. Aishwarya, Raveena, Sushmita, Kareena again, Shilpa, Aishwarya again, an Rani. They were all there. Well, tiny little headshots a them anyway. He’d saved most a the wall space for a full-body shot a Arnold Schwarzenegger wearin just a headband an kachha as Conan the Barbarian an his poster a Bruce Lee’s bare torso from The Big Boss.

That afternoon, though, the fit Bollywood faces on the walls were nowhere near as gorgeous as the twenty fit fones laid out on the bed. Side by side like Ferraris an Maseratis in the car park a your dreams. There was a Nokia 6610 in there, a Motorola V300, a Sony Ericsson T630, a Nokia 8310 an also a couple a Samsung E700s. Serious merchandise for them days, even for a G like Davinder. Amit got to work on the fones, unblocking them an makin them untraceable. Pluggin them into his laptop like he was some film star deactivating a bomb. Red, blue, green? Just make up your fuckin mind an cut a fuckin wire. That left the rest a us sittin around, Hardjit flipping between MTV Base and the B4U desi music channel. I think bout maybe playin on Hardjit’s PlayStation2, but pluggin it into his flat-screen bedroom TV would mean I’d have to disconnect either the DVD player, video player, Sky Plus box or the Scart socket that lets him pump his TV through his hi-fi speakers. Fuck that. I in’t lyin, it was like Dixons in his bedroom. He’d even sorted himself out with an Apple iMac an a little fridge for his bodybuilding protein shakes. The only reason he needed to go downstairs was to use the hob, washing machine or microwave an even then only if his mum was sick. Matter a fact, all a us lot were pretty sorted in our bedrooms if you counted the Xbox Amit shared with his older brother Arun an which he’d probly get to keep when Arun got married later this year. Ravi’s set-up was pretty much the same as Hardjit’s an I had my cable TV an Nintendo GameCube. For some a us, the TV an DVD came before the PC an games console, for others it was the other way round. Either way, it started with havin your own fone.

I decide to start checkin out the luvvy-duvvy text messages an any other shit stored on the handsets before they got erased. Sometimes you’d find nuff dirrty texts but mostly it’d be stuff like ‘Thnx 4 yr msg’ or ‘I luv u 2 babe xx’. A couple a weeks back I remember readin one that said ‘Susy, reprt 2 my office 2 hv knickers removd’, but today’s fones all had pretty tame texts. Ravi’s sittin beside me, muckin around with one a the new Samsung E700s. It was a fone he already knew well cos he’d got his own E700 by legally upgrading his old Nokia 6310 a few weeks back. Ravi’d got three handsets in total, his others being a Nokia 8310 an a Nokia 7210. All three handsets worked on the same network, but his dad only paid the bill for one a them, the one he seemed to use the most. After the first a the E700s was unblocked, wiped clean an given a new identity, he decided it’d be a very hilariously funny thing to do to hide pornographic pictures in one a the fone’s data folders. He made sure they weren’t too well hidden, though, so that one day they’d pop up an surprise the fone’s new owner or, even better, the new owner’s new girlfriend. I guess he sent the pictures from his own E700 to the unblocked one. If he’d just kept his trap shut bout it, it might’ve been worth all his effort. But no, he had to boast bout it. To me, to Amit an, yes the fuckin thick-as-shit khota, even to Hardjit.

—Bhanchod, Amit goes, laughin an givin Ravi a high-five when he saw the porn he’d hidden in the fone.—We shud stick some whorehouse’s fone numba in there as well, store it like a business card. I started laughin too, even though I hadn’t actually seen it. Mostly I just wanted to help Hardjit see the funny side stead a developing his usual allergic reaction to Ravi’s pervertedness. Then, as if answering my plea, Hardjit started laughin too. A big Bollywood laughter moment this. Ha ha. Hah hah haha. Hah hahahaha. An just like all them Bollywood laughs, it turned out to be just another classic Hardjit front. Make your foe feel comfortable before makin them uncomfortable, just for effect or someshit.—Show me da fuckin fone, Ravi, or I break yo fuckin face.

—Sorry, Hardj, I closed da folders now, innit. It’s jus some pictures, blud. Jus for jokes, man.

—Well den, let’s jus open da fuckin folders n let’s jus laugh at da jokes, innit.

From their wrestling on Hardjit’s floor, it weren’t clear which a them actually opened up the pictures. But once they’d been opened one thing was clear. Like a bearded Muslim deciding it’d be a good idea to run up to Tony Blair an innocently ask for his autograph, Ravi’d reckoned it’d be a good idea to use pictures a not just any old porn star, but Miss Vagindia herself. A bearded Muslim wearin combat trousers an a camouflage jacket, barging past the security guards.—Excuse me, Mr Blair, Prime Minister? My name is Osama Hussein. Can please I have your autograph? Just please give me moment, I get pen from my pocket inside jacket.

Ravi’s head just missed the edge a the bed an when he chucked the fone at Hardjit it just missed his face. Even louder than the sound a the fone smashin against the wall was Aunty’s footsteps coming up the stairs.—Vot is this? Vot is this? she screamed. Man, did she have the rage or what.—Vot is going on? You all boys know I have guest in the house. Why all this tamasha?

—Sorry, Mama, I just got carried away playin around, Hardjit said.

—Carried? By whom?

—Carried away.

—Huh? Vot are you talking, Harjit? Who in whole world can carry you?

—No, not carry me, Mama…Oh forget it, Mama. It was nothin, I promise. We’ll be quiet now.

—Forget? I make you bache pakoras and samosas and you embarrass me in front of my guest with this, this…ruffian behaviour. Is this the way I bring you up? Like fighter-cock badmarsh ruffian? And already I tell you, no toys on bed.

Aunty started clearin up the glasses and plates, massaging her spine as she bent over, sayin things like Hai hai an Give me strength. Then she started givin it her usual shit, askin what had gone wrong in the world that young bache like us showed such a lack of respect for their elders.

—Ravi, Jas, your mamas will be ashamed of you if they know what you do in my house. All the time playing the fool in my house. Always. Play the fool. Good, good, verry good. Fail your exams, live on the street. Verry good.

She was doing that wobbly thing with her neck again, her sari makin the scratchin sound as she then pointed her guns, bazookas an thermonuclear missiles at Amit.

—And you! You too, Amit, vot I should tell your mama, huh? That you come to my house, eat my fresh-fried pakoras and act like council estate ruffian from the street?

—Aunty, I din’t do nothin. Those two were fightin. I was just sittin here.

—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

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.