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Literary Review
FICTION
Peeling the identity onion
ARTI JAIMAN
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A journalist's take on the elusive nature of identity and the pitfalls of pigeonholing people.
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At any other time, the book could have passed off as a proficient, perhaps even potent, document of Britain's racial mix. Instead, Londonstani acquires a more layered tone since it has been written and published at a time when everything and everyone is defined as pre-9/11 or post-9/11.
LINGUISTIC LANDSLIDE: Malkani's debut novel is impressive.
Londonstani, by Gautam Malkani, Fourth Estate, London, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, £11.99
WHO we are is often defined by who we aren't. I'm not a Muslim, I'm not a conservative, I'm not a nationalist, I'm not an academic, I'm not single, I'm not religious. Not this, not this... our assertions echo the philosophy of Neti Neti from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which indicates that the Atman cannot be identified with this or that particular physical thing.
The spaces between our "I'm not's" conceal who we are. Difficult to pin down, even harder to put into words, this is the self that defines our actions and worldview and how we negotiate the spaces and people around us. It is these spaces that come to life in FT journalist Gautam Malkani's debut novel Londonstani.
Crude but vibrant
Not Pakistani, not Hindustani. These are some of the negations that lead to Londonstani. From pejorative Paki to deified Desi, Malkani garners it all as he hits the street corners of Hounslow, a predominantly Asian preserve around London. Like a linguistic anthropologist, he sweeps off the first layer of the British Asian identity onion, a crude, yet vibrant, language that is a mix of slang, texting, Punjabi and bastardised gangsta rap. At any other time, the book could have passed off as a proficient, perhaps even potent, document of Britain's racial mix. Instead, Londonstani acquires a more layered tone since it has been written and published at a time when everything and everyone is defined as pre-9/11 or post-9/11, when turbaned Sikhs in California get shot because their beards "misidentify" them, a time when African Americans who've spent generations being not mainstream American, discover a whole new inclusion as "us Americans", a time when India revels in its newfound status as the flavour of the day because, well, it's not Pakistan.
Against this tapestry of assertive negations, it's insightful to see how Malkani engages with questions of identity among British Asian youths. His lead characters, Hardjit, Amit and Ravi, spend enormous time, words and fist-work on asserting that they're not Pakis, not gangsters, not batty boys, not coconuts, not Union Jack-waving Brits, and not "pehndus" like Jas, the narrator of the story, who turns the book on its head, in the last two pages.
So, who are these four young men, whose gang act moves up the value chain from routine smash-ups of white boys suspected of calling one of them "Paki" to lining their pockets with a mobile phone scam? Malkani loads his narrative with baits. Unwittingly you go along. The kids cuss and swear, beat and bash. In this male preserve, women are mummies and aunties dishing out kebabs and pakoras, raving and ranting about their precious silk bedcovers and Mrs. So and So's jewellery. All girls, are bitches, and that's when the guys are being polite, even mildly affectionate. Gora (white) girls are "ho's" and the ideal of beauty and biceps comes straight from Hindi films. A slight to one is a slight to all, and Hardjit, the neighbourhood "muscle", has to give a quick lesson in who's who. "Shudn't b callin us Pakis, u dirrty gora," snarls Hardjit, shoving his boot into the face a bleeding white boy, before launching into an expansive thesis of who can call whom what, and when. "It ain't necessary for u 2 b a Pakistani to call a Pakistani a Paki 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. And dat's da rule."
It takes 50 pages to acclimatise to this linguistic landslide. You struggle through the expletives, the arm-twisted "desi" words, mashed up with Southall English, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. Just when you think you've had enough of this verbal brilliance (and the richness of his documentation is truly impressive) and could do with the story moving along, it does.
Not an easy read
The real challenge is staying with the narrative. Londonstani is not an easy read. The expletives get tedious and tiring. The language clings in your brain long after you've put the book down. It's tempting to succumb to annoyance, to judge these 20-year-olds as misguided, troublemakers and gangsters. But it takes a plod through the entire book to realise that Malkani is reeling out a long rope with which to haul you in. And, in a literary parallel to the movie "Crash", the question that rears its ugly head is, "Am I racist?" The unpalatable truth might be, yes. Scholars like Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen have written reams on the elusive nature of identity and the pitfalls of pigeonholing people. In a delightful twist, Malkani treads a journalist's path and shows it instead of saying it.
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