Londonstani. Gautam Malkani
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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?