Londonstani. Gautam Malkani

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      —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.

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