Paki

Don't u b tellin any a us pakis dat we b pakis like our paki bredren from Pakistan
November 20, 2005

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 one of us to write them down or someshit. Then he adds an exclamation mark by kickin the white kid in the face again.

—Shudn't b callin us pakis, innit, u dutty gora.

Again, punctuation was provided with a kick, but with his left foot this time so it was more like a semi-colon.



—Call me or any a ma bredrens a paki again an I'ma mash u an ur family. In't dat da truth, pakis?

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

The three of us spoke in sync like we were performing some blonde American cheerleader routine. Hardjit Hardjit, he's our man, if he can't bruck-up goras, no one can. Ravi then delivers his standard solo routine.—Yeh blud, safe, innit.

—Hear wat my bredren b sayin, sala kuta? Come out wid dat shit from yo mouth again an I'ma knock u so hard u'll b shittin out yo mouth for real, innit, goes Hardjit again, with an eloquence and conviction that made me green with envy. (Though 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 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.)

Anyway, green or not, I in't shamed to admit I'm envious of Hardjit. Most bredren round Hounslow were jealous of his designer desiness, with his perfectly built body, his perfectly shaped facial hair an his perfectly styled garms that made it look like he went shopping with P Diddy. Me, I was jealous of 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 was fundamentally wrong to describe all desi boys as pakis. Regarding it as some kind of 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 squirmed an spluttered in a puddle on the concrete floor, lifting his head right back into the flight path of Hardjit's Air Force Ones.

—U bhanchod b callin us lot paki one more time an I swear we'll cut'chyu up, innit.

For a minute the white boy's world stops as Hardjit takes time out to straighten his silver chain, keepin his metal dog tags hangin neatly in the centre of his black Dolce & Gabbana vest, covering up the &.

—Kya dek-reyo boy? U like dis chain I got? Fuckin five-ounce white gold, innit. Call me a paki again n I whip yo ass wid it.

—Yeh blud, safe, innit, Ravi goes again, 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 as well as short. If you swapped his waxed-back hair with a £5 crewcut an gave him boiled-chicken-coloured skin he could pass for one of them lager lout football thugs, easy. The kind who say En-ger-land cos they can't pronounce the name of their own country.

The boiled-chicken-coloured boy on the floor in front of us weren't no football hooligan nor no lager lout. He wouldn't want to be one. These days, lager louts had more to fear from people like us than people like us had to fear from them, honest to God. In pinds like Hounslow an Southall, they feared us desis 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 Sikh khanda sahib symbol tattooed on his left shoulder an a Hindu om symbol tattooed on his right bicep. He probly could've fit a whole page of 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. 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 worry cos he mixes it in with milk.

The gora obviously thought that after seven punches in the chest, four in the face, eight kicks in the mouth an Hardjit's ladoo-smelling breath, his ordeal would soon be over. The boy was still tryin to keep his blood from staining the button-down collar of his chequered Ben Sherman shirt. (Where'd they get their fuckin fashion sense from? That guy from Oasis, the one with the moustache above his eyes?) Anyway, fuck his checkered shirt. As if Hardjit'd just leave it at that anyway. It was a matter of necessity. The white kid was told he shouldn't call us pakis two more times before Hardjit went on to explain the three factors behind his argument.

—How many a us bredren u count here?

—Uuuuurgh.

—Fuckin ansa me u dutty gora. Or is it dat your 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 white kid was gonna say something really stupid. Something along the lines of F-F-Fuck off perhaps. F-F-Fuckin paki would've also been inadvisable. Instead he answers Hardjit's question with a straightforward F-F-Four.

—Yeh blud, safe, goes Ravi—Gora in't seein double, innit.

—Not yet he ain't, bruv, but I ain't thru wid him yet, innit.

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 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, brit-asians, fuckin indo-brits. These days most of us 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 watched as much MTV Base an downloaded as many DMX, Rishi Rich an Juggy D tracks as they have, but I still can't attain the right level of rudeboy finesse. If I could, I wouldn't be using poncy words like attain an finesse, 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. Like they say, it's all bout what you say an how you say it. Your linguistic prowess an debating dexterity (though for God's sake don't say it that way). It's basically the sort of shit my old school teachers told my parents I lacked an which Mr Ashwood'd even made me practise by watchin ponces read the news on the BBC. Honest to God. Why'd the fuck'd anyone want to chat like that? Or even listen to someone who chatted like that? I respect Mr Ashwood for tryin to help me lose my stammer, but I'd've wasted less of his time if I'd 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 an 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 white kid's face as he screwed up his forehead.

—It ain't necessary for u 2 b a Pakistani to call a Pakistani a paki, Hardjit explained—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. You can't call 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 too. We b honorary pakis an 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 em 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, it occurred to me then that if Niggaz With Attitude followed the usual rules of 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, 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 of rudeboy-esque panache.

—It ain't like he gonna write it down, Hardjit goes to me.—Da gora ain't no fuckin neo-Nazi graffiti artist. Dis ain't no fuckin English lesson.

So I shut the fuck up an let Hardjit sum up.

—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 of this shit was just academic of course. Firstly, Hardjit's thesis, though it was what Mr Ashwood'd call internally coherent, failed to recognise the universality of 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 bleeding in little bursts, thick gobfuls droppin onto the concrete floor. It made me feel like pukin up the samosas an Coke we got at the college canteen at breaktime. The blood trickled differently down his chin than down his cheeks. A closer look showed me that was cos he'd got this really short goatie beard that I hadn't noticed before. What's the point in havin a goatie if it's so blonde no one can even notice 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 blonde, it was too curly or too bum fluffy or just too gimpily-shaped. One time he said that they looked like batty boys when they had 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 of Hounslow, better than Hardjit's even. Thin heavy lines of 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 of us now looked like he'd shaved himself with a chainsaw.

Hardjit started askin the gora something else, but I din't hear what. During the short silence I'd tuned into the creaking of the mini goalposts that Hardjit'd hung his Schott bomber jacket round. You could tell from the creaking that they'd rusted an were meant to be used inside the school sports hall rather than here opposite the dustbin an traffic cone that made up the other goal.

—Ansa me you dutty gora, Hardjit goes, before kneeling down an punchin him in the mouth so that his tongue an lower lip exploded again. Even if the white kid could say something stead of just gurgling an spluttering blood, he was wise enough not to. It's taken him just twenty minutes of gettin the shit kicked outta him an a lecture on the correct use of the word paki to realise that when Hardjit's busy beatin you up, it's best to just let him get on with it.

—Dat's right, the three a us go in cheerleader 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 brown 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 of the school's teachers'd try to look out the classroom windows or walk into the playground to pick up litter. We'd banked on them being in lessons cos, trust me, these days all the teachers in the school had always got a lesson to teach all day long. None of those free periods for markin people's homework no more. We knew this not just cos we hung round their sixth-form common room now an then, but also cos up till last June we were sixth-formers ourselves. We all fuckin failed, of course, despite our parents' praying an payin for private maths tuition. An so now we were down the road at the Hounslow Thameside College of Higher Education, retakin our fuckin A-levels at the age of fuckin 19 when we should've been at King's College or that London School of Economics or one of the other desi unis with nice halls of 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 of the gora. To make up for my shitness I decided to offer the following, carefully crafted comment.

—Yeh bredren, knock his fuckin teeth out. Bruck his fuckin face. Kill his fuckin… 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 of sayin kill the pig, like the kids do in that film Lord of 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 getting yo'self mashed up. I'll bruck yo fuckin face an it'll serve u right. Shudn't b callin us pakis, innit.

There weren't much face left to "bruck," of course. I crouched down to take a closer look at the gora's mouth. I also wanted to check out the whites of his eyes. Wanted to know that if he had to have his mouth stitched up by doctors or someshit then he'd have the good sense not to stitch the rest of us up as well. Me at least, anyway. His face was such a fuckin mess though I couldn't hardly even see his eyes. No way Hardjit could've done that damage with his bare fists. I weren't sure whether he'd used his keys or his kara. One time, when he sparked Imran I think, Hardjit slid his kara down from his wrist over his fingers an used it like some bad-ass knuckle-duster. Even though he was one of those Sardarjis who doesn't even wear a turban, Hardjit always wore a kara 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 ever 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 in the evening rinsed him big time for being a budmarsh delinquent ruffian who'd abused his religion an his culture. Then again, Imran'd called it a bangle so served him right.

My fledgling rudeboy reputation re-deemed, 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 of them chana dahl 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 of what-the-fuck? If his mouth weren't mashed up he'd probly be screamin denials an protesting his innocence. Hardjit'd have ignored him anyway so that he could deliver his second an third favourite lines,—U cussin ma mum? An the less vernacular, —U b disrespectin ma mother?

The rest of us knew where all of 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, da gora din't cuss no one's mum.

—Yeh Amit, yeh he fuckin did.

—No, blud, come now, we done good here, let's just allow it.

— Allow him to dis my mother? Wat's wrong widchyu? U turnin into a batty boy wid all a dis let's-make-peace-an-drink-spunk-lassi shit?

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

—Da fuckin gora cuss'd da colour a my skin. He call'd me a fuckin paki. An my mama's got the same colour skin as me, innit.

Point made, none of us dared argue, an Hardjit'd managed to find a reason to kick the white kid in the face again, an again, an again, this time punctuating the battering with words like,

—U fuckin gora, u cuss'd my mum.

He also liked to introduce variations on this basic theme, such as,

—U cuss'd my sister an 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 Bangalore…

There weren't no stoppin him now. He was so fast with his moves that the white kid hardly had time to scream before the next impact of Hardjit's foot, fist or elbow. Most people couldn't deliver such a rapid-fire beating without lookin a little bit psycho an messin up their hair. Hardjit kept everything smoove. So smoove I tried to tune into something else. The business meeting we'd got later that afternoon, the creaky goalposts, the empty crisp packets under the bare trees, the white kid's blood-stained library books. Anything but the sound of thuds against the gora's body an his head against the concrete floor. But the whole thing'd got a kind a rhythm bout it that you couldn't just block out. Obviously the white kid is ruining this rhythm by screamin in pain. It also goes without sayin that he is cryin. Howlin like a little baby girl, in fact. There'd be no savin his Ben Sherman shirt now an the poor sap's face would take weeks to heal. One of his teeth flew out onto the ground by my feet an I noticed it only had one root stead of two, indicating either decay or fracture. I got lots of cousins you see, an when you got lots of cousins you usually got a dentist in the family. The tooth was tailed by even more blood, which was neither dissimilar in colour nor texture to the blood oozin from his lips an tongue an from the fleshy bit under his right eyebrow. The tooth's bloody tail points my eyes back to the gora again. His blood was gushing down his front like a river, settling in little pools in the creases in his shirt before overflowing again onto the concrete. The playground was sloped an so the blood then made its way down to a drain bout four metres away from me, passin through a rain puddle on the way. Actually, it weren't so much a puddle but more a dark, shadowy patch of concrete where a puddle must've been earlier that day. The patch probly wouldn't dry out to the same shade of grey as the rest of the concrete for a while yet, but by then it wouldn't matter anyway cos it'd be stained with the white kid's blood.

—Yeh man, safe, knock him out, innit, shouted Ravi, shaking his right hand in the air as if Ganguly had just scored six runs. Ravi din't need puddles, creaky goalposts, crisp packets or books.

Stead of knockin the white kid out, Hardjit straightened himself up, took his Rolex 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 of 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 learning them if he didn't use them in the street or in the playground at least. His martial art of the moment was kalari pyat, which in case you don't know was one of 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. Hardjit'd told me that the Greek army of Alexander, that guy from the film with Colin Farrell in it, took their martial arts to India an pretty soon the desi brothers'd invented kalari pyat. Chinese an Tibetan kung fu came later. People tend to forget this cos the British banned kalari pyat when they took over India. But now Hardjit'd found out about it he wouldn't let nobody forget.

He reminded the white kid never to call anyone a paki again before we all headed across the playground to the gate where Ravi'd purposely parked the Beemer on the zig-zag line. We were stridin slowly of course, so as not to look batty. With the gora gone quiet at last 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 only 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 realised there was hardly any chance any of the teachers would've spotted us through a classroom window. Even those that were clean were covered up in masking tape because they'd been broken by cricket balls. The result of special desi spin bowling probly.

Nobody said jack shit to anyone 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 of us got to the Beemer, Ravi remembered he'd left Hardjit's Schott bomber jacket wrapped round the goalposts in the playground.

—You fuckin gimp, was all Hardjit said. He weren't even referring to me for a change but still I volunteered to go get Hardjit's jacket, even though it required a spectacularly gimpy 50-metre trot to the other side of the playground. Not exactly my greatest idea given that I'd just spent the last twelve months trying to upgrade myself from my former state of dickless gimpiness.

As I got nearer the goalposts, I watched the white kid slowly get back onto his feet an wipe some of the blood from his face with his shirt. You hardly ever saw a brown-on-white beating these days, not round these pinds anyway. It was when all those beatings 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 of Sikhs, Muslims an Hindus, so the brown-on-browns tended to just be one-on-ones stead a thirty desis fighting 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 Kahn he's got lined up for tomorrow. Even those who didn't know bout it yet would be foned or texted tonight by someone who did. Honest to God, we could've sold tickets. Words like long-awaited an eagerly-anticipated were being used.

The white kid was now leaning on the goalposts, 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, coughing.—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 saying 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 in the last year? the gora says before havin another coughing an splutterin fit.

—You've become like one a 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.

Damn right.

I turned away, picked up the jacket 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. He'd just had the word "Desi" sewn onto the back of it. He'd thought about having "Paki" sewn on but his mum'd never let him wear it an, anyway, nobody round here ever used that word.