Londonstani. Gautam Malkani

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ