June 2006
Londonstani ::: Guatam Malkanni ::: 4th Estate
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, a band released an album called ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’. That band was Glamourous Hooligan, and this book starts with a scene that could be inspired by that sort of braggadocio. Indeed, the cover of said album features three young men, their faces shrouded and abstracted by their sunglasses and their scarfs, in a ‘band’ photo that’s off centre by about twenty degrees. Possibly the kind of sartorial vibe given off by the protagonists of the novel, four young men called Hardjit, Ravi, Amit and Jas.
“Slamming school for a whole term – Your first collar for lifting”
(sleeve notes ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’)
Which is where Hardjit, Ravi, Amit and Jas have been, and nearly been. Save for the intervention of a well meaning teacher. The story turns on this incident and continues into an intensifying trajectory which takes in a lot.
Characters exist in an ‘adolescent’ environment, trying on different identities whilst existing in parallel universes - modulated by technologies such as mobile phones, their mother’s BMW’s, the cultural space - that are in close proximity to their parents. It’s a lot about that space, and the dynamics of the group.
Much of the novel is relayed via the interior monologue of Jas, and it is this that gives the book much of it’s gravity:
“The Bollywood hero always takes care a the underdog, you see. Only difference was that Hardjit din’t like takin no glory for stickin up for me. He din’t even like it whenever I thanked him for doing so. I reckon he was basically so freaked out by how gimpy I was that he felt he’d got to cure me. Like those people who are so homophobic that stead a beating gay guys shitless, they actually try an turn em into straight guys.”
And,
“I din’t know what sixty-nine meant, you see. I thought they were chattin bout the bus that goes down Chiswick, the one you take if you go to Brentford. I couldn’t even ask for a bloody bus ticket. Obviously I couldn’t. You can’t pull if you can’t talk, can you? Not unless you’re that Hugh fuckin Grant from that movie bout shaadis an funerals an shit. Always sayin sorry an erm and stuff. He still got his dick sucked, din’t he? It was on the news. Hugh Grant. Ponce.”
The book follows Jas as he negotiates the humiliations of adolescence, except that it ramps up a bit more towards the end. The perspective is further reinforced by the dynamic between the interior thoughts and the dialogue of the gang…..
“I know what other poncey words like homophobic an misogynist mean an I know that shit in’t right. But what am I s’posed to do bout it? If I don’t speak proply using the proper words then these guys’d say I was actin like a batty boy or a woman or a woman actin like a batty boy. One good thing though: now that I use all these proper words I’m hardly ever stuck for words. I just chuck in a bit o proper speakan I sound like I’m talkin’ proper, talkin like Hardjit. I just wish I was the Proper Word Inventor so I could pick different proper words, that’s all.”
“All those little flickers. Everyone has ‘em, no point in getting all sentimental….Be young, be foolish, but be angry, and remember that once you’ve left the Wasted Youth Club you can never go back!”
(sleeve notes ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’)
‘Don’t perish in the pit of reason with the dogs of because”
(label notes, ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’);
I watched ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Deliverance’ the same day I wrote this: they resonated with the flow of scenes within this book, and I couldn’t help but feel that maybe there’s a nascent film in here: maybe the thought’s just a compliment to the writing.
BG.
