

About Raza Amin

Raza Amin is a playwright and author. Born and raised in the badlands of North West London, he spent many of his formative years visiting northern Pakistan and rural Bangladesh, running with his father and mother's clans respectively. At University he studied Economics and Law and wrote his first play, "Trench Warfare," accounts of a devout Muslim general in the British army facing his first war against a Muslim land.

Raza Amin has always had an abiding fascination with urban Asian street-culture and myths emanating from the inner city boroughs. He has written extensively about the topic in various journals and in the early 90's, he spent time soaking up the vibes of London counter culture. Raza describes himself as the epicentre of gentile race 'confusion' passing itself as multi-culturism in the UK. Raza is now completing "Muthaland," a sequel to Gangsta and "Death and Dust: the Death and Strange Life of Javed Iqbal," a biography of Pakistan's most prolific serial killer.

In his travels, he has trekked through the hinterlands of Central Asia, taken a toke with tribal leaders in the unconquerable twilight world of the northern subcontinent, and witnessed firsthand the unmistakable smouldering remnants of villages destroyed in factional tribalism as old as time itself. He currently rapes and pillages the UK economy as a stockbroker in the City of London.
GENERASIAN X

GenerAsian X is adrenaline fuelled, pure pulp fiction from the ghettos, bringing the vibes and voices from Britain's rhythm nation, live and direct. GenerAsian X aims to empower the unrepresented Asian youth with a literary molotov cocktail.

GenerAsian X brings you the voices - sometimes angry, sometimes inspiring, always exceptional - from a misplaced generation evolving within a militant subculture.

The deep chasm of misunderstanding than exists between ghettoised youth and the mainstream can only give way to the language of reconciliation through comprehension - GenerAsian X will provide the articulation of the attitudes.

## Gangsta

By

Raza Amin

GenerAsian X

A GenerAsian X Book

This edition published by GenerAsian X in 2018

Copyright © 2002 by GenerAsian X Ltd (UK)

All rights reserved.

www.generasian-x.com

No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

THIS IS FICTION SPAR.

YOU GOTTA GET OUT THERE AND LOVE
CHAPTER I

AND NOW INTRODUCTING...

"Choose rhythm, choose life" or something. What's all that bullshit about. Drugs, sex, r & r seem so mundane, so boring. The goras have fucked it up - made it menial, everyday. It's just the same living in squalor, as it is to go to your over-pooffed, over-priced, hairdressing batty-boy in St John's Wood. The unshockable generation they call it. Might as well call it the unwakeable generation. Fuck that. Gangsterism is as cool as it gets. A brotherhood that looks out for you, a kind of unofficial police force where you are the chief-of-police, with your bruthas at the other end of a mobile phone. They fuck wi' you. They get a lung with more perforations then a fuckin' bag of Tetley's.

And let me tell you another thing. They say, what happens in the US cannot happen here. Believe me, it is. And for every three-piece business hoodlum, off in the morning to rape and pillage the UK economy, and foreign "interests", there are ten bruthas in the making. Learning their trade, in them inner city schools, sixth form college of technical-woodwork and other "honest" professions, in the streets and, yeh, even in the council estates. But it's not all inner city depravation and all that shit. Sure, you go far enough into East London then, man they're fighting for their lives against all that racist scum and that poverty. Them Bangla's got it bad. But who told them East London? We live in designer ghettos. Ghettos of our own creation, maybe. But when you're down there, speeding through Harlesden in your boombastic VW, it's real enough.

Yeh, the US gangsta. At the start of this century, when we was still being fucked up the arse by the East India tea company, immigrants who spoke F-A-English were landing in NY. Seeing a different jungle from the ones they had just vacated. Hard as fuck and nasty. The homies growing up in them shitholes learnt fast. Picked up knives, coshes, zip guns. You know the ones with little rubber bands. Still good enough to make a serious impression in some muthafucka's face. Then they graduated and became more sophisticated in the art of gangsterism. Real guns, with bullets that could fuck you up real bad. The awakening - prohibition, drugs, gambling, prostitution, racketeering. We are talking an illegitimate government that's really running the arse-end of that country (and who knows, the real government too). It can't happen here. Listen spar, it already has.

I'm just talking about your average street homie here. Only we got it easy. We don't graduate slowly through that zip gun shit. When the time comes, the knives, axes, chainsaws gonna be put down, and real heavy hardware's gonna move in. And believe me, it's gonna happen overnight, like those muthafuckas never know what's gonna hit them. It's just a matter of time. And it's waiting for us, just across the pond. Some places it's already happened. Those sitting in comfort in their nice warm little houses. Eating steak and kidney pies, reading the Sun newspaper, haven't sat up at night listening to the sudden crack of bullets bouncing around Stonebridge Park. You ain't been to Moss-side, Manchester, where guns'r being handed out like candy. You ain't been to Glasgow, you ain't been to the East End. Believe me brother, it's just a matter of time before they're looking through your front room window, scratching their arse with a big fuckin' Uzi. And you ain't got the luxury of size to get away from it, the way they have in the US. It's a twenty minute drive from the heart of gangstaland, Stonebridge, to the heart of nice suburban Pinner. We comin' for you brutha.

It weren't always like that. When my baba's generation arrived here, with their "yes massa grins", their Brylcreemed "birdy-num-num" uncool, their dismally sad attempts to emulate the master race in order to woo themselves a chunk of swinging-sixties pussy. All they got was fuckin' grief, "whites-only" signs on newspaper ads for homes and fuckin' chanting nazi fuck-wits outside their one-bedroom flats, terrorising their imported Marathi-rapping wives into frothing hysteria. Then our generation popped out of the by now gibbering-paranoid has-beens, took a quick look around, decided enough was enough, and made a big enough imprint in the face of the white "establishment".

First we fought back in schools. No longer was the master-race the master race speaking in some alien, superior dialect. We were swearing back at them on equal terms - fuckin' cunts, the lot of them. Our fists knocked out as many teeth as theirs did. And then, something strange happened. Small brown boys began to choose other small brown boys to chill out with, not only because of necessity, but because it was fun. Because, where as two fists would mean a trip to the dentist, four would mean a trip to the doctor, or as in the case of Terry West, a trip to the emergency unit at Northwick Park hospital, to extract the javelin pole rammed two foot up his arse. Never did walk properly again. Became a hairdresser as far as I can remember.

Jagdish, "Jagger", got a visit from the pigs, and a warning. It happens again, borstal. It happened again, and that was the last we saw of Jagger...at school anyway.... Well officially - okay, face it. When he got sent up, he was actually down our school more than he had ever been when he was officially enrolled. Fuckin', just came down for the fights...and then the tits.

Yeh, that's the second thing that happened. Whereas baba's generation worshipped gora chamri (white leather) and the very shit it trod in, to us goris weren't a peak to climb, a culmination in years of careful, romantic, embarrassment, where our Peter Seller type uncles would crawl around on hands and knees with permanent erections at the end of venom and spite of some substandard, gori dog. BELIEVE ME, IT HAPPENED. And now, they act so respectable. Pipes in their mouths. Businesses, families, and the memory of ritual humiliation. Now goris became a quick fumble behind the bike-shed. A quick "choosna" of the kebab, grabbing the bubbay. And that was it. No more mystical white powers, hidden behind that puppy fat.

Who the fuck am I, standing here on my pulpit, preaching about gangsta this or Uzi that. I'm not what they call from the hood, or even remotely from the ghetto. Ok, so you can call Pinner a ghetto of sorts. A Jewish ghetto, where you are more likely to get accosted by a mad raving rabbi as you are by a mugger in Manchester. That's the thing. I got my extracurricular education in school, college, and through a particularly touchy, excitable friend of mine, Riz - more about him in a second. You see, you don't need exclusive membership to South Central LA, the Bronx, Harlem or any of those other fine establishments. You just need the balls to be able to get out there to do it, a few connections, joy for a bit o' ganga and you gotta fail Tebbit's "cricket-test",  
K-U-N-T!

The first time, I saw any shit, was amazingly playing cricket, under the spire of some thousand-year–old church in Harrow. Mr Ricketts, 200lbs of prime British racism, watching over a bunch of scrawny twelve year olds running around avoiding being smacked in the face by a ragged piece of cork, hit all-over the planet by Kas, who I swear was ten years older than the rest of us. Only too fuckin' dumb to be in any class except ours. Two guys walked onto the pitch, didn't give a fuck about no cricket. Walked straight up to Atul, stuck his head against a tree branch and started reading him his last rites. I'd never seen bruthas like this before. Rough as fuck. Attitudes to sink a battle-ship. They didn't give a fuck about nothing, or whoever was watching.

Ricketts and the guardians of law and order in Stanburn High, Terry West and Steve Lee, head prefects, ran to restore some order, with the rest of us in tow just to watch the show. As me and the rest of us spotty shits stood there scratching our heads in amazement, an event unfolded that was to change my life forever, and become the talk of the school for a long time to come.

Ricketts had gone up to the intruders and was demanding to know what they were doing there, and that they should relent this instant or they would find themselves in some police cell, lest they allow the game of cricket to continue. One of the guys turned around and without letting go said this, and I'll never forget, "Listen, mutha-chaud, this is between me and that homie there. The fucka owe us some money. Either he pay up, or I'm gonna slit his pretty face ear to ear."

And that wasn't even the mean looking one. Just the skinny, scrawny one. But these guys looked like nothing that I had ever seen before in Harrow. They looked mean. Not playground mean. But fuck-over a London Transport ticket collector and take his money (as had happened recently in Harrow on the Hill) mean. I'd never seen anyone in authority made to look so ridiculous.

"...so fuckin' back off."

Apparently Ricketts had never seen it before, not in his country club hide-out in Hertfordshire. All he'd seen was us school shits.

"Listen, I am apprehending you, for disrupting the practice of the 1st XI of the Stanburn High School cricket team. When the police arrive, I am going to file a full report against you and your buddy. Who's that fella there?"

The mean looking one turned around, and growled, "Mike."

"Yes. And you can explain to the police what you were doing here, threatening my pupils."

Ricketts just turned around to get one of his dogs to run into the club house and call the police. He never saw what came next. None of us did. Quick as a fuckin' flash. The gangsta's hand went into Ricketts' stomach. He never saw the knife. Neither did the rest of us. As quick as it had happened the gangsta's hand went back into his jacket and they turned to walk away. They released Atul from their death-grip. "Easy brutha. We coming for you," Mike said calmly.

The gangsta, Jim – Jamal - who I got to know well later, acknowledged one of the spectators before departing. "Alright Riz, see ya later." And as casually as a brutha taking his ho for a stroll in the park, they walked away, with Mr Ricketts cupping his stomach as his cosy world came crashing down.

For the next few days, there were more pigs crawling around the school than sitting in the mud at Aldenham Country farm, which we'd once visited on a school-trip where Riz lost it with Miss Jeannie, the supply teacher. And did Riz get it. Someone ratted on him. We all knew who it was. Terry Stevens, hence his extra arsehole.

Riz got fried. Roasted on the rack. They threatened to take call his parents in. Kick him out of school, out of the country, slam his arse in prison, "aiding and abetting". But credit where credit's due. He's a hard fuck. Never squealed once. Don't know if I would have had the same tuttay to keep it all bottled in at the age of twelve. They eventually gave up. Gave him a suspension, where all he did was stay at home and watch Bruce Lee videos with the rest of us. Then he came back, with his extra respect. The homie, who hadn't ratted to the authorities. A homie who had connections. Fuck, here was a homie, whose mates had done in reality what we'd only dreamt of. Stuck one in to the establishment. From that moment on, nothing worried me. I became a mean muthafucka. Fuckin' over any school yard punk that came my way, and fuckin' over any teacher's property who fucked me off. They all knew who it was, but could never get enough DNA off the fingerprints to nail me. I remember once, Mr Phillips, the science teacher, kept us back behind school for blowing up a sink, using a Bunsen burner, a sink cover and a lighter. His brand new nice-white Mazda MX2 provided us with the perfect black-board to voice our feelings. It's amazing just how simple it is to fuck up ten-thousand G's with a ₤1.50 spray paint can. Riz even drew the Pakistani Jhunda on the top of the car so air-traffic could smile down at the patriot. Never kept us back for detention once after that.

The fighting got more serious, the body count higher, but it never lost its excitement. The pure thrill of a fight build-up. Pushing a fuck-wit against a wall. Calling his mother names that would make a slut blush, waiting for his friends to come over and see what was happening and then, as if they had inbuilt radars, the reinforcements came thundering in. The homies appearing from everywhere. The fight was on, maybe. You see, a sudden flood of overeager homies just caused most potential opponents to turn all pussy and back off. It weren't no fun punching a wet rag. It was when they were as fucked off, or as hard as us, that the fun started. There were two groups; the C-stream white-trash from their council flats - the CFT's - and the kalas - they were both hard as fuck. Then you could fight without stressing out about putting one of theirs away. They could handle a good punishing. When the fight broke out, you could be assured that it would be four or five minutes before any authorities arrived. Four or five minutes may not sound like much, but believe me it is. Imagine fists, bottles, coshes, knives, hammers flying at each other smack after smack, for five whole minutes. It only takes a single hammer blow to the head to bring down a brutha. And we're talking about five minutes of this shit. Well, things got messy.

At one point we were fighting so much, that the school authorities lost it completely. They fucking grabbed us, took us to one of the open-study areas, told us to clear out all the furniture from it. It was Thomas the head of PE, who's favourite member of staff Ricketts had been prematurely retired from his career, and Lewis, who hated all of us "black bastards" anyway. They locked us in that classroom, FOR TWO HOURS, both sides with each other, just fists and shoes, so we could settle our differences once and for all. When the doors were finally opened, no one had the energy to walk out of the room. We sat there, a pile of ripped school uniforms, blood and teeth. And you know what, it was the best time that I ever had in school.

After school, came college. Harrow Tech. Nothing like the seat of urban squalor and decay that you imagine to be a thriving gangsta-scene. A nice place, neat fields, expensive courses, good students. And there it was, going on under the lazy eyes of the dozy security guards. Gangstas posing as students marched past the guards as easily as 1-2-3. Down to hang out with their more studious homies, or at least those who didn't want to work, just yet, chirps some yung-skief, or basically find a nice warm classroom in which to sleep the day away before the night opened up for business. This is when I formalised my ties with the bruthahood. Riz was already an out and out ghunda. Spending as many nights out surfing the front line with his new found family as he was at home. I was still a gangsta cherry, a pussy, testing the waters to see if I'd swim or drown. Then it happened one day, and I didn't even see it coming.

Now you've got to understand. There ain't no real organisation for us Asian gangs, just yet. Well, not the ones North-West of London. Fuck, we're just a buncha homies hangin' out in the hood, watching the cars go by. Friends from the year fuck. So that's how the gangs grew up, friends, mates, rellies, just deciding to legitimise their ties in illegal activity. Pool their resources. In Southall, there were a few gangs, the Smokes - bunch of sikh-pughs driven by real angst. They thought the world was against them. Wembley you had a few - of the most outstanding contenders were the Billies...don't blame me, I didn't name them. Then there were the kala gangs and the Lankan gangs, but I don't give a shit about those. They never moved in my circles. And there was Mike and Jimmy's gang. They didn't even have a name, but they weren't into playing them pussy-arse games, like jumping into little colleges and bopping innocent little students. No, they were into harder 'fun'. About them a little later - have some patience star.

And Harrow....Well, Harrow just had one gang in the year of the gora-lord 1986, the Harrow Massive. And the leader of the Massive...Mushtaq...Mo. His second in command, a ghunda by the name of Kamran, or Kam, as they imaginatively called him. Kam's love interest was a sista by the name of Mina. Mina Modhia. A beautiful work of art you will never have seen, well in Harrow tech anyway. And she was playing all over the shot. Kam was strictly an evening event. During the daytime, she was always on the prowl for fresh talent. Step in one handsome, cocky sonuvabitch. That's right, she eyed me up in the canteen, she eyed me up in the library, she even eyed me up in the lift when we were only going up two floors. Her eyes checked out every bulge I had to offer, from my bulging eyes, to my Shami-kebab. So she wanted it bad. So here was my dilemma. Here was God's gift to Harrow tech, mentally sucking off my lora, and here was my back twitching with the thought of a twelve inch blade sticking out from it when Kam found out, for he was a dumb muthafucka, but had eyes all over the place looking out for him.

I went to my spiritual adviser, who happened to be Riz.

"Fuck that cunt's ho, and if he gives you trouble, I'll fuck him up the arse."

With advice like that I embarked on two weeks of raw kuta-panna. In the fields behind the college, next to the station, we rewrote the whole fuckin' Kama Sutra. Writing our own pages in the process. This all got back to Kam pretty quickly. Though she denies it, I am sure it was Mina herself who blew the whistle. I think she was sick of him, and wanted him out of the door. Now that left me in a pretty precarious position. Here was a gangsta who wanted to see me at the end of his fucking knife, and here I was with what was still technically his gal, sitting at the end of mine. Well I did what any self-respecting gangsta would do - started into him first.

I remember when he first walked into the canteen looking for me. It was full, and he didn't notice me. The canteen at Harrow tech has three exits, and all my mates on my table, bitches naturally, told me to scarper out of the side exit, which led straight to the car-park. Now I've done many things I'm not proud of, but one thing I've never done - is run. I don't give a fuck if the fuckin' army's knocking down my front door; I have never turned on my arse and run. Fuck that. I'd rather die a martyr than live a thousand years a coward - Salah-ud-din said that - Saladin, before he cut off a thousand crusading heads and fed them to the dogs. I just sat there waiting until he'd come right up to my table.

He bent over and tasted my food first, as if that would scare me. "Yo, listen brutha. I think we got a problem here. You see, I hear rumours that you been fuckin' around wi' a friend of mine...and if that true then I ain't too happy."

As he was standing there in front of me, I remember thinking to myself, you ain't nothing but a short-arse muthafucka. It was true, he was also probably the shortest gangsta I had ever seen. I had seen him once before, from my parked car at the top of Harrow-on-the-Hill, looking down the park to Greenhill college. He looked small then, but now in front of me he was smaller than a virgin's phudd. And while he was standing there at Greenhill, I had his gal's face in my lap, giving it some spit and polish. It wasn't him I was worried about, it was the others he'd bought into the canteen, who were now beginning to cover the exits and the other escape routes, as if they thought I would end up chicken and flee. What a fuckin' insult. That's what really wound me to fuck. Before Kam could grab another chip, I moved the plate away from him, picked up a chip, wiped it against my arse and stuck it in his face.

"Eat this. It's got your mamma's secret recipe."

Kam's face flushed red with anger. "Listen...."

"No, you listen," I said hesitatingly. Two more of his mates had entered, making it five. "It ain't no rumour, it's the fuckin' truth, you'd better believe it, and that ain't no friend of yours but your fuckin' woman, and yeh, she's been spinning on my dick...frequently. Say's she wants to live on it."

Kam looked around and surveyed the scene. Students had by now begun to assess the situation and were squirming around helplessly. The girlies had, by now run off to fetch the authorities. Which meant that there were at least five minutes before they arrived. Good enough for a stabbing, several stabbings, and for them to carve their initials into my head.

I could see the veins on Kam's head now beginning to throb like a bass-machine, licking out them beats. "Listen, I don't know what trip you're, muthafucka, but you ain't going to see no tomorrow. I'm gonna carve up that pretty little face of yours, and not even your ammi not gonna cry for you."

So I stabbed him with the college fork, which still had chips stuck to it. Popped him one in the neck. I mean his sentence didn't even make any sense. The fuckin' fork was so blunt I had to stab him again, until I succeeded in bursting through his apple, straight into his windpipe - a Kam-kebab. His hand went up to the fork as he attempted to pull out the fork, chips, ketchup and all.

I jumped up and left Kam-kebab behind. I mean one gansta, easy enough. Two...well, we were talking about the Massive, that was still possible, but four...I had to even the odds. I headed for the one down the far end of the canteen. He was on his own. I could seriously fuck him over, before the others reached me. I picked up another fork from a screeching student on the way and accelerated towards him, realising almost too late that the gansta had a knife in his hand that could kurbani a camel. My piddly fork wouldn't even reach him. I picked up a tray-full of food, and just as I got to him threw it on his face. Now I know the tea burnt his face, because when his face reappeared he was clutching his eyes, moaning. A good solid Reebok in his nuts and he was down for the count. Good - now that left three. Kam had managed to pluck the fork out from his Adam's apple and was now trying to stop a stream of blood. He was also crying like a pussy.

The others meanwhile approached me from all directions, and I knew that this was the last time I would look so pretty. But just at that moment, Riz arrived, with the fuckin' cavalry, bugles blazing and all. I don't know how it happened but they were all there. Two truck loads of Willesden boys, with nothing better but a little stabbing to do. They intercepted all the homies like cruise missiles. Just as they grabbed the gangstas and jammed them to the floor for some boot polishing, the fuckin' police began to arrive outside as the authorities finally moved in, five minutes to the second, and began to lock the doors.

"Quick, out the back," Jim shouted to us. We ran through the canteen kitchen, past screaming students and horny dinner ladies - who'd never seen anything so fuckin' manly - and out the staff entrance. We ran to two big white vans. Riz, Jim and some others piled into one van, while the rest of us piled into the other. The van lurched and screeched out of the car park as if the driver was just learning about clutch control just then, as well as simultaneously trying to take off a light aircraft.

"Oy, fuckin' watch it. It's my fuckin' uncle's meat van. He's gonna go fuckin' apeshit if he sees a scratch on it." It was Mike, the mean muthafucka, who'd once used Atul as a punchbag.

The driving didn't improve, the road just got straighter. And that is when I realised, that apart from Mike, I hadn't seen any of the other guys before. They were sitting there - I counted ten - messing around as if nothing had happened.

"Alright there, little brutha." Mike smiled as he handed me something burning in a Rizla. I shook my head. "G'waan, it's a bita ganga, direct from the NWFP." I shook my head and looked out of the front. A police car rushed by, sirens ablaze, and they all burst out laughing. "They is always lookin' for us," Mike said triumphantly. "They never gonna get us. We is just the good ol' Dukes of Hazard, you know. You ever seen it - boss Hogg, Roscoe P. Coltrane, Kletus, khia, khia." It was the worst Dukes of Hazard impersonation I'd ever heard.

"Looks like we plucked your Paki ass out of the fire at just the right time, innit little brutha. You woulda been drinkin' through a little straw by now." Mike grinned.

"Not before I'd sent one or two of theirs to another fuckin' hole."

"No, not denying that. I saw your fingerprints over that muthafucka Kam. You should have popped it in his eyeball. Plucked it out like a chicken's egg."

I sat up. "Why did you come to help me?"

"Well there weren't no-one else out there who was about to give you a hand. Nah, wait...I thought I saw a dinner lady reaching for an AK47...besides little Rizzy told us you was in trouble, we was in the hood, decided to check it out. Kam's had it coming a long time. Always badmouthing us off. You see, just because us Willesden lot don't check out your turf, he thinks it's all cool. You know - calling us a bunch of pussies and all that shit. You know that's disrespect." He leant closer as if he wanted to tell me something, "You know we've got two of them in there."

I turned to look at the other van, in front of us. Nothing was visible, but only just now and then would it swerve sharply, giving oncoming cars a sweet Jesus of a heart attack. I assumed the driver was related to ours.

Mike slapped me hard on the face, "Besides we just the good old boys. Yessiree, we just the good ol' boys." He got up and shuffled to the front of the van, before climbing into the passenger seat, singing the worst rendition of the TV hit theme tune yet.

This was the first time I'd had to think about taking Kam down. What did I feel? Well, there was that popping, crinkly noise as the fork entered his throat. The satisfaction in knowing I'd got him before he'd got me. And if I must admit it, I did feel a touch of remorse. Remorse for his umma, that she would have to face such a fuck-wit in hospital day after day now.

A few miles away from Willesden, the front van parked up a quiet street for a second. The back door swung open and two objects, previously the Massive boys, were booted out onto the road, red and smacked in, and oozing shit from every hole. Jamal bent over and showed us his arse before slamming the doors and the vans sped off again. We followed, with Mike singing, "The good old boys", badly, at the top of his voice.

With a fateful introduction like that, what could I do but repay in kind. And that is the day when I became an outlaw, with my own private band of privateers always at the other end of a mobile phone, forever to turn up miraculously whenever I was upto my arse in some shit.
CHAPTER II

CRICKET

Cricket is a religion. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Bitches, what the fuck do they know about it. Just like them subjugated gora-fucks they call their boyfriends, house-broken like dogs, whimpering and howling. It's shameful. While Sharon and Tracy do the fuck around with two big kala lunds, what are their boyfriends doing? Sitting at home wazzing off over Razzle. Oh, shame. Their man is like their cricket. Good, ordered, subjugated (that's a word my baba taught me \- don't let them white cunts subjugate you, Imran, he said, while thrashing me with a bloody bailun - almost broke my fuckin' arm because I'd answered my mother back - fuckin' deserved it for not giving mata enough respect - even though she ain't my real mum). That ain't cricket, that's pussy-eating. We're talking cricket Paki style. With fuckin' tuttay. None of your "oh I says" or "by your leaves". We're talking the new boys, Wasim, Waqar, even Imran's still got a bit of that old apna josh in him. Though he gotta lay off that white puss, or he gonna be eating out of their hands soon, grabbin' his copy of Raz' every time they say, "down boy". We're talking fuckin' Sharjah 1986, the Australasia Cup Final, Pakistan vs India, Muslims vs Hindus (don't let them tell you otherwise). This is fuckin' war mate - in his final over, it's the last ball remaining. They've got three runs to make. Just give us a four. Miandad looks around - 110 not out. Good, they're going for outer field cover. They don't wanna fuck this up, or they're gonna get crucified in the street of Bombay. No Bollywood ho's sucking them off tonight. The Indian takes a run up. Just about hits the crease. Bowls. IT'S SHORT!!! Miandad swings down. His bat smacks the ball with a knock that resounds all the way to Quetta and back. IT'S A SIX!!!!!!!!!! IT'S A BEAUTIFUL, FUCKABLE SIX!!! The sound reverberates around the fuckin' planet. The crowd go fuckin' ape-shit. The Muslims jump on the field. The Hindus run for cover. Pakistan has won the Australasia cup!!! Javed Miandad, the most naturally gifted player in cricket - ever - tactical, improviser, warrior carves his name in the heart of every Paki alive. It's a fuckin' celebration. One nation triumphs. The other one sticks its head up its own arse. Paki's everywhere around the planet run out of their house screaming and shouting from California to Karachi. Now that's cricket.

The day we won the Sharjah cup. The homies and me piled into Mike's uncle's meat van and ploughed to Southall. The streets were jam-packed. But there were as many Sikhs, Hindus as well as everyone else. This was one day we wanted to spend in real upna company. So we hit Green Road. Opened up the windows, played Dil-Dil Pakistan, waved the Jhunda, until the fuckin' pigs moved in. As usual, the subjugated white male took it out on us. But we didn't give a fuck. They could have Green Street. That day we had the world.

Now don't think that we are racist or nothing.... Well we are. All people are. And anyone who isn't is a fuckin' liar. Everyone sees colour, though some hide it better than others. We had all assortments of religions and castes in our outfit. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, two kalas, John Evans and Joseph Mbela. Mbela the Kaila we used to call him. Languages, we had fuckin' Punjabi, Urdu, Pushtu, Hindi, Kokni (God knows where the fuck that's from) and I swear one guy who spoke pure fuckin' Martian. We were joined by a need to spread crime and a bit of disorder in our designer ghetto. The one thing that divided us then, and always will, was cricket. On big match day all the Paki's ploughed into one house, Hindus, Sikhs and your miscellaneous in the other. John and Mbela the Kaila, checked in with us. They wanted to be with the winning side. And when we won, we ripped the living fuck out of the others, till they got all fuckin' pissed off and refused to see us for a whole fuckin' month.

Now, my first memory is standing there, I don't know - a fuckin' three year old, on my birthday, with a cricket bat in my hand, smacking my elder brother all over the shot - fours, sixes - one of the only times we could do anything with each other without trying to tear each other's hair out. You see he was from my baba's first wife. She's still back in Pakistan, Shardi, a small village in Muzaffarabad with the Indus on one side, the valleys and hills of Gilgit above it, the frontier with Azad Kashmir next to it, you know, the bit that ain't being fucked over like Bosnia. His second wife he married without telling the first one, was Mehmooda - my ammi. Died when I was eight. After that it was Diana, his third, and current, wife. Says she's a Muslim now. Who am I to question? No, the point is that cricket was in my blood from the moment I was a foetus. My mother, carrying me, went to see the Pak-England test at Lord's in 1967 when Pakistan again shat all over England - Hanif Mohammed (the rock) scoring an incredible 167 (don't forget he's also the guy who had the highest first class score of 499 for thirty years until Lara broke it).

And now I, Imran Ali-Khan, was going to go to the World Cup series about to commence in a few weeks. Except for two things. The match was in Australia, the arse-end of the world. And I didn't have any tickets. Never say never. Riz's uncle Saif had got himself a ticket and was going out on the 21st March. Was going to put his fruit import/export business on hold and fly out to spend six months with friends in Australia. Sending his wife back to the village in Punjab for the duration. Damn right. She wouldn't appreciate it anyway. We went round to see his uncle. He had just packed and was ready to roll.

"Oh forgot my fuckin' rubbers." First thing he said to me, I swear. "What those Australian bitches won't do for a solid Punjabi lund. Listen, you been with a white woman ain't you, Imran?"

I shook my head. "No only apni. A kuri called Mina."

"Mina oh meri Mina. Us nai kya peena?"

"No, uncle, she don't swallow. She's a good apni. Only give little sucki sucki."

"Well, those Aussie bitches do more than sucki sucki. They take it up butti."

Saif was the 'saifest' adult around. He knew what you were thinking. At that moment Riz walked in and Uncle Saif changed the subject.

"Listen don't let this little cunt out of your sight," Uncle Saif said, "he looking for an opportunity while his wise uncle away. His daddy don't do nothing to keep him under control."

"Ah, don't stress uncle, we gonna make sure, he go to school like a good boy."

"Good. You don't want him to be like daddy. Dumb harami, ain't even got no O' Levels. Only good enough to work in fuckin' corner shop."

Saif finished his packing. We packed his shit in the van and took him to Heathrow. All the way he was telling us about his village in Multan. "You know, we don't even got no fuckin' electricity out on the coldest nights. You get air coming down from the Karakorum. But we don't give fuck. We pahari-kai-log. Mountain men. You know. We was running around the mountain in lunghis giving the light brigade a fright. Every time one of theirs was off to have a shit in the bushes, he would never come back." We watched the BA take off from the roof of the Queen's Terminal - piece of shit. Nuttin' like Jinnah Terminal in Karachi.

As his plane disappeared, Riz lit one of his unfiltered seett-hen. "Lucky cunt! He'll be sitting in the World Cup, somewhere fuckin' warm. While we're stuck out here, freezing our fuckin' arses out in this shit. You know, star, we weren't made for this shit. Our skin's the wrong colour. Our food, sports, all that shit's saying get the fuck out of this country. Get the fuck somewhere warmer. Give me the money, and I'd be back in Pak in a fuckin' sec."

It was the first time he'd actually said anything so fuckin' deep. What he said was what we ALL felt. The reception given to us by the establishment was like, put your suitcases there, pick up a shovel there and go and build that fuckin' railroad. We built their railroads. We built their fuckin' factories. Gave them their empire, their fuckin' crown jewels, that the ugly-ass queen now looks too fuckin' bored even to wear so they sit locked up at the Tower (the Koh-I-Nur - in case you are wondering, ripped off the head of our royal family, go look it up) and yet they ain't even gonna call us British. We'll always be, "Oh, you're Asian", "Oi, Paki", "Where're you from...no, I know you're British, but where are you REALLY from...your fuckin' parents I mean". And that's why we fail fuckin' Tebbit's fuckin' "Cricket Test". That's a joke. Don't ever call us British, but we gotta support a team that's third rate anyway...who's it got? Botham, the racist cunt, and his fat racist batty-boys, the South Africans, the Afrikaners, who'll become English in a second, because they play cricket or run better than any of you cunts and share the same fuckin' skin block...remember Zola Budd. Even the damn Yankee cowboys're better. Them damn rednecks have got a million times more to lose from the Asian invasion. But you get the damn Asians there and they're into Bruce fuckin' Springsteen and talking like they're goras. You know why - they're accepted as Americans. But you grow up in a hood, in the UK, where YOU A PAKI, then YOU GONNA SUPPORT PAKISTAN and not the Dallas Cowboys. Until Tebbit comes around me mum's for a Sunday roast, he can keep his team of losers. But footie. Okay, that's a different thing - fuckin' Liverpool rule. You know why, because they like the Pakistani cricket side. When they're shit, they're really shit, but when they're in the mood they can rise above all the other jokers on the block, as if they got something to prove.

Man, the moment Saif left, Riz was a changed man. He got real mean. Picking fights with sixth formers and school shits in St Ann's shopping centre the moment they looked at him. Whereas before, he would have left them with just a few warning slaps. He went all the way. Decked them. Made them looked real silly. The Massive approached him once, two of them, and just mentioned the Mina incident, and he wiped the floor with their arses. Sent their skulls clacking down the stairs at Harrow Met. We were at a party down Chalkhill Farm estate and three ambitious kalas walked in and started muggin' everyone. I mean, fine, mug them in the street but not at a fuckin' party where you are outnumbered a hundred to one. But sometimes the tawas try something a little different. Well, they came up to Riz and demanded that he take off his religious ring. He turns to them and says "You want this ring?"

The kala was trying his bad-ass routine, "Yo, brother, you didn't hear me, you want a fuckin' hand?"

Riz just said, "Here, have it." The Kala saw it coming but could only stare open mouthed as the ring wiped out his nasal structure. I didn't wait. I decked the other one. The third one just split.

"Fuckin' cunts," Riz was screaming, "they know we are all in this together. How dare they fuckin' mug us, man. It's us - the Paki, the Kala, the Indian, against them." I saw Riz pick out a large piece of nose meat that was stuck in his ring. That's when I knew something was wrong. He weren't enjoying all that ruckin' no more.

Two weeks later, we got caught out in a serious fuckin' rumble. Three of us going past Harrow Weald college on a double-decker. Eight fuckin' fairy-boys got on. Fuckin' students from the college. Good, educational examples to the rest of us. They were doing their usual shit, trying to act hard, with their fairy boy antics. One of them had fireworks and he started setting them off in the bus, and everyone else legged it downstairs. Riz got up and simply went over and smacked the cunt in the mouth. Instead of showing respect the others laid into him. We were on top of them in seconds. Beating them with everything we had.

Mike had a fuckin' cricket bat in his hand, which he was using to bop them all down, one by one, but the more you bopped down, the more they jumped on us. Finally Mike picked up the bat, and swung it down on top of some Bangla shit's head like an axe. He fell, man. Fuckin' hit his head on the way down. We hadn't even blinked and the bus was swarming with pigs. The driver had stopped the bus outside the yard in Wealdstone and ratted. Mike split. They fuckin' took us down. We got the fuckin' shit kicked out of us at the yard. We were standing in the lift, and Riz was calling the pigs "white, mutha-fuckin' cunts" who needed those pointy hats because generations of fuckin' their sisters had given them ugly-ass slanty heads. They stopped the lift and beat him to a second of his life, always avoiding his face because they're smart muthafuckas. Fuckin' beat him till I thought every bone he had was lying snapped in two, and then they just chucked us out the back of the yard, at midnight, when no one was watching.

Tell you the truth, I thought we weren't going to make it out alive. It was the first time I was banged up in there, ever. I'd been caught up in a lot of shit. The ruck at the Hammersmith Palais. Yeah, that was the work of the Willesden posse. The stabbing at the Neasden mela, that was us. A series of attacks on those bouncers outside all those Oxford Circus clubs. Deserved it too, those disrespecting bastards. Only reason why we didn't put them in a ditch was because we believe in God, and that's his job. But doesn't God have different rules for killing animals? I don't know. Well, I was there. But we never got banged up. No matter who I decked. Who I gang-banged with. What connections I made and ran with, I never got banged up, until now. And I don't care how brave you think you are. When you are stuck in there, for the first time, with a howling fuck like Riz, and coppers who've had a really bad night with their subjugating pussy and want to take it out on you. Well I gotta tell you, I started crying. There in the holding cell, in front of Riz, while he just stared on, angrier than I've ever seen him. Lucky Riz had the sense to swallow the ganga stash he was carrying, while they were trying to take us all in, otherwise we wouldn't be walking out. I'm sure the ganga made him braver, despite all the fuckin' bruises. And that's why they finally let us out, without charges. Because they knew they'd gone too far.

There was nuttin' broken that couldn't be fixed, except a faint high-pitched noise, like a mucchar, that I hear sometimes at night if I'm sleeping at the wrong angle. We got a cab back to Mina's - well we couldn't go to Riz's house or mine - we'd get the shit thrashed out of us for looking so fucked up. Mina was now living on her own, in Kenton, just near Travellers, the Guggu's shag-nest – yeah, parents - if your little Bhavna says she's going out to Travellers Rest, she's gonna be getting a little stiffy up her that night from Nitin, your nice little nephew doing accounts at Hendon college.

Riz was still cursing the bull, as he was picking at his wounds. "Oi, Riz, what's eating you man?" I asked.

"Nuttin' a pound of nitro-glycerine wouldn't sort."

"Nah man, you know where I'm comin' from. You been breakin' all these tuttay man. You really pissed about something, and you gotta tell someone before you go friggin' mental."

"Oi, laters." Riz told me, "that cab-drivin' cunt's given me the once over."

It was true, the driver was staring at us like he thought we'd do him in or something. Nah. Weren't our style, not like them pussy college-boy muggers who thought they were hard doing over someone doing their honest shit. Nah, if we were gonna bang on someone's head, I'd make sure it was one of those corporate fucks in their fuckin' three-piece suits, fuckin' over the third world. Fuckin' over the fatherland, with their CIA shit. You know I've heard about all this destabilising shit. I ain't no dumb muthafucka. None of us third world people are. The wisest people I know are from the gao. They see the truth for what it is. Not your CNN hyped bullshit. Send over your invisible troops. Give some dumb muthafucka with a grudge heaps of money arms, and he goes all legit. Becomes a politician. Fucks over the country. Now those are the criminals. We are honest street boys. You don't fuck wi' us. We don't give a damn if you're a batty boy.

The cabbie, as it happens, turned out to be from Peshawar. Got married recently, came over and got the first job he could with Zed-cabs in Rayners Lane. That's why he didn't bomb it the moment he saw us waiting for him in the alley next to the Tesco's in Wealdstone. We couldn't have made it to the end of the street, let alone Kenton, even though it's only a fuckin' mile or so. Didn't talk to us, until we was paying our money.

"Nahi, suno. Tu apna bunda hai. To apna paisa rakh."

No matter what, he didn't take our money. "Mai Peshawari. Tera upna watan-gi. Tujhe kissee nai fuck-kya. Mai tum sai paisa nahee."

Man, what could we say. He was a sona bunda. All of a sudden, the pig pen didn't seem so painful. We gave our respects and he sped off. Mina opened the door and looked at us as if we was from another planet. Riz went in and slouched on her sofa, while she ran to get some newspapers.

"Sit on this. You're gonna fuck over my new sofa." Ever the compassionate bitch.

Riz was still bleeding from a cut to his forehead, which weren't stopping, not from the police station, but the fight. He'd lost gallons, and it didn't seem to be showing signs of slowing down. It was all down his front and jeans. He didn't seem to give a shit.

"You got some food Mina, I'm fuckin' hungry."

Mina looked at him, as if he'd walked in on her mother and father fuckin'. "Oi, listen you bitch, I'm hungry."

"You gonna talk to me like that, you can get the fuck out here. I don't give a fuck if you die of what, you fuckin' loser. Jay told me what happened between you and him last week at St Ann's. I shouldn't even be talking to you."

"Alright, I'm fucking out of here. Thanks for nuttin' you fuckin' ho."

I put my hand in his way, "Mina, listen we need your help. We just got turned over by the bull and need a place to crash. Just for tonight. Can't go to his place or mine, we're gonna get fucked so bad that we'd wish we were down the yard again. You gotta put us up."

Mina looked at both of us. I knew what she was thinking. I hadn't kept in touch with her for weeks. I'd just suddenly disappeared from college as we were looking for Jay and his friends. And now I turn up here.

"Listen Kam's coming around tonight, he wants to tell me something. Even if I wanted to I couldn't."

"Great, I'm ready for a ruck." Riz said. Mina went and opened the door. I pushed it free from her hands and closed it again. Though Riz was saying it, we were in no condition to fight no-one. I knew it and so did he.

"Mina, you gotta help us out. Just for one night. Man, I didn't think about going anywhere else but here."

"What about your homies? Don't they have a place?"

"Shit, the guys we know, they got families, or they live too far - Brentford, Stepney, Kilburn. Mbela's the only one, and he's out with his associates on a "business-trip". This is the only place we could come to."

Mina looked at us for a second, I knew what she was thinking but I also knew what she was going to do. She's a soni bandi when it comes down to it. And she came through for us, not a moment too soon. I could see Riz ready to walk out of there, and if he'd done that, he wouldn't have lasted the night. He's too proud, the dumb fuck, to even go to hospital which was round the corner. But the four-hour accident and emergency wait at Northwick Park would probably have done him in. All we needed was a place to crash.

"Okay you'se guys better clean up and rest up. I'll try and cancel Kam - didn't want him around here anyway - screwing up my fuckin' life once more. I've just got things going. I'm working at Peter and Jones, the estate agent, trainee secretary, and doing them cheapo adult continued education courses at Greenhill. You know I'm sorting things out. If I can't get through to him, you lie low upstairs, I don't want no shit tonight."

Riz was about to say something but for once he kept his motorised gob shut.

"I'll get you something to eat," she said.

"None of that kem-che, Guggu veggie shit." Riz told her. "My bakra eats that shit in Punjab, and he don't look too happy. I want some real meat, no fuckin' swine though."

"Anything you say, Riz. What do you want Imran? Sheer Mal and Kurma, Mutton Pilau?"

"Listen, just give me anything you're giving Riz.... As long as it's none of that vegetarian shit!"

She came through for us that night. Not only did she feed and look after us that night, she let us stay for three days in her place. Leaving enough food for us when she went out to work and college. Not bad for a gal.

That night as we lay upstairs in her spare room, I knew I had to find out from Riz what was eating him, before he ended up under a police van. I could hear Mina downstairs telling Kam to get the fuck out of her life. Kam was blubbing like a big baby. Any impulse I had to go downstairs was stopped by the fact that I couldn't get out of the sofa bed if I tried. Riz was lying on top of a sleeping bag and looked just as tired.

Mina slammed a few doors, but I could still hear them arguing. Kam was one of the big mistakes of Mina's life. Big, brown and dumb. God knows how the fuck she ended up with him, but she did. When you're a school gal, I guess your taste needs a bit of fine tuning. Anyway, she'd gone out with him for five years. I think the first three years she was really in love with him. Then she grew some brains. Decided that he was a wanka and told him to shove it. He threatened suicide. Cried like a girlie puss for days on end. Gave her all kinds of psychological bullshit until she agreed and ended up going out with him for another two years. But she'd lost any respect that she had for him. And when that happens...well let me just say, that day she was giving my lora a mouthwash, she knew Kam was standing less than thirty feet away at the bottom of the hill and never for a second did she stop. It was also the only time she swallowed.

Mina had a tough fuckin' time from all sides. From her psychotic boyfriend, to her baba trying to bugger her when she was four, to her mum's suicide attempts. Can you blame her for moving out? Her parents were in Streatham somewhere. They were still looking for her. Her brothers were out with their posse, trying to pick up leads, but Mina's a smart gal. She knows how to disappear. And once she'd decided, she packed her bags, got Kam to drive her out one night when the parent were out at some dandya, and came up to Harrow. She lived with Kam, but couldn't do fuck, so obsessed he was with her. The number of people he's stabbed in order to keep her interested, the jealous fuck. And for some reason, she stayed. It makes me good to think that I had something to do with the fact that she told him to fuck off. It was only after she started hanging out with me that she got the courage to tell him to get lost. I gave her the backup and respect necessary for her to do that. There weren't nuttin' he could do without, or even with his posse unless they wanted to fuck around with the Harlseden boys. And Kam's problem wasn't considered important enough to risk all their lives for. So he kinda faded from the picture, apart from some occasional desperate attempts - like tonight. Pleading on his sobbing subjugated knees. At least Mina was sorting her life out. And believe me this kind of story ain't a rare thing, in middle class Indian families neither. I've heard of this kinda story so many times, you'd be shocked. But everyone's got a fucked up story to tell. What was Riz's?

"Listen spar," he told me as he grabbed and lit up my pack of Marlboro's, "ever since uncle Saif left, I've been looking at things, and it ain't right, man. This whole fuckin' life's so fucked up, I know there's better out there. Look at 'em people out in Peshawar, Multan, NWFP. Man, them is our bruthas, our brethren. Man, they's living the life that we should be. Not in this fuckin' white country. Like bruthas. That's where we belong."

"Listen bro, it ain't no fairy tale in the homeland. They're fightin' each other out there too. Only over there, you got the law of the jungle."

Riz picked at the big apple sized red and blue bruise on his neck. "But those are our bruthas. I can forgive a brutha for fuckin' with me. I can't forgive the gora bastards for this. Not after they fucked our parents, our race, our pride. Shit, this thing's killing me."

That made sense. "So why you taking it out on all them poor innocents? They ain't done nuttin' to you. It's the system that's done this."

"Yeh, but I fuck up enough people, I'm still fuckin' wi' the system."

Again that made sense.

"I just wanna do my time and head back home. You know back there, you know what's right and what's wrong. Who's on your side and who ain't. Over here, you don't know who's coming for you and who's on your side. Even them damn Asians here, you can't fuckin' trust completely. At least if you're in your fuckin' gao, you know they're gonna back you up one hundred percent. And the bull, even they're gonna be safe, because out there, it's the law of the gun, pure and simple and the lawmakers holding that gun, are gonna be your uncles. Fuck man, I hate this living. Listen spar, when they play cricket, I want the whole country to cheer when the Paki's hit the next six. Not just fuckin' Green Street."

He turned over and lit another ciggie. "Man, I'm getting out of this shit, the moment I can walk again."

And at that moment I knew what was really fuckin' up Riz's head. It was this - at this moment, he just wanted to be down under, watching the fuckin' cricket.
CHAPTER III

RUCKIN'

From the moment we left Mina's, we knew something was wrong. We called in at John Evans, and his gal, some Romanian bitch called Svetlana or something, told me that he was out. She hadn't seen him for two days. We had no joy at Mike's pad, or Kimmie or Moni's. Only Gaggy was in. Sitting in his uncle's off-license in Kilburn. Pissed on his own stock, as usual, listening to Apna Sangeet as loud as possible. He took us round the back, telling the little Lankan boy, Jimmy to keep an eye on the store. Tried to give us some booze, but I don't touch that shit, and Riz, well he's thinkin' about it.

"Man, there's some heavy shit coming down," Gaggy told us. "You know a few days back you'se saw some action on the 186 from Stanmore to Harrow? Well, some Bangla's brains got scrambled in the process. His bruthas, or cousins are out looking for you'se, they're with some heavy posse from the East End, Aldgate."

"Aldgate, where the fuck's that? Isn't that wanker land?"

"Yeah they got banks out there. The BCCI HQs out there too," Riz told me. "But you go further out, Aldgate East, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Stepney East, that's where you get the high-rises where they hang out. How many after us?"

Gaggy laughed. "You sizing up the opposition. Don't stress, the boys are already doing your job for you. Jimmy's out there scouting. His uncle owns the Lahori in Aldgate, his boys should know what's happening. Mbela's talking to the Kala posse down Stonebridge way and me, well I'm still checking that nice little phuddi who works in that Sunway Video shop. She's coming up this afternoon when her fuckin' brother takes over the shop - better bring the latest Madhuri flick or she can fuck off."

"Sounds like it's getting real heavy." I agreed.

Riz picked up the Asian babes that belonged to Gaggy's uncle and flicked through it.

"Don't worry Immy boy, the bruthas got it covered. Besides, if it gets too heavy, we'll just have to beat the fuck out of you, ourselves." He swallowed down some more of his uncle's profits. "I hear them Bangla cunts ain't too bad themselves. You heard about that stabbing in Kings Cross last year. That gora-fuck. It was one of them Bangla's. And that gora fuck weren't a nobody. He was from the East-sides – the ones that carve their pretty little signatures on little brown people's foreheads. A bit like your holy sign, innit."

"What, a fuckin' Jain," Riz said, "I ain't no Hindu. I'm a musli."

"Yeh, it's all the fuckin' same to me. You bend in one direction or the other. Me, I've got one religion and it's this." He grabbed his dick.

"Yeh, fuckin' bullshit," I told him, "I ain't met a pug yet who weren't serious about his religion."

"Yeh, you can shove religion up your arse. My only religion's me, and fuckin' rucking."

"Amen to that," Riz said. "Man, I'm so fuckin' pissed off, them fuckin' Bangla's deserve a fuckin' slap."

"Yeh, they fuckin' around wi' you."

"Nah, because Jimmy's fucked off down there to Lahori, and I bet he's having a fuckin' wicked meal. Fuck it, I'm going down."

"Nah, nah, that's fucked bro. They see your arse even within spitting distance of East End, and they are gonna fuckin' turn you into keema."

"Are you saying I'm scared of those fuckin' pussies? Man, I'm serious. Them Bangla's need to be taught a fuckin' lesson. We ain't had a chance to teach them the meaning of fuckin' off from our country without even a thank-you. Best thing that's happened to Pakistan, this partition of Bangladesh. Come on, let's go man, I'm fucking hungry - I fancy a Batera Nan with a big fucking gallon of Lassi. What do you say?"

Gaggy picked something out of his arse and sniffed it. His hygiene needed a bit of fine-tuning. "Homies, you're on your fuckin' own. I would love to come and watch them stick your heads under a train, but I'm looking my best and Roshni's coming around at three, give me very good sucki- sucki." He finished his bottle of Southern Comfort and walked into the back to get something.

I had a few moments to talk Riz out of it.

"Riz, I know what you're thinking, but forget it. We're stepping into their turf after having bopped one of them. Now I ain't fuckin' pussy or nothing, but this could have some serious repercussions on whether we carry on breathing or not."

Riz looked at me and then back at the magazine. "Yeh, this one's got a nice pink fluffy fanny. Fuckin' ho. Wouldn't let the diseased bitch near my lund, fuckin' fall off the moment she laid eyes on it."

"Gaggy would," I said. I knew we were going to the East End.

"Well Gaggy's a dirty cunt. Just like his uncle. Once he finishes wi' Roshni, uncle's gonna take over."

"Nah, my uncle's already done her." Gaggy said as he walked back with a sixteen inch blade in his hand. "This is my uncle's talwar. He bought it in Amritsar, ready to fuck up the Indian army."

"Yeh where's your fuckin' Kalistan now?"

"Just wait, muthafucka. We was giving this Ghandi cunt a second chance. If he fucked up, he was joining his ummi - but those fuckin' Lankans did our job for us. Just take this talwar, you're gonna need it where you're going. If anything, they can use it to dig your hole."

"Yeh. What do you want me to bring you back?" Riz said, hiding the blade under his jacket. "A bit a' shammi, a bit of chapli."

"I don't want anything from you musli's, you probably shit in it."

"You couldn't tell the difference," Riz got up and gave me the mag, "here's your Mina ho, fuckin' centre-fold too."

I took a quick look at it. It was a safe bitch. Big, brown bubbas. Dirty, wrinkled nipples sticking out like door-knobs and a dirty big chut. This ho had been fuckin' since she was ten. I looked close. To tell you the truth it looked a bit like Mina.

We drove John's car back to Wembley high street, left it at his sister's and grabbed the Met going down to Aldgate. The fuckin' ticket guard's a cousin of Mike's so he never asks us for a ticket, but loves to catch them corporate fucks. Even if they've got a ticket, Reg'll fuck them over. That's teaching 'em respect. And they'll fuckin' bow down to him, because they think he's a safe guy. He talks hard, but he's a fair man at heart. And he hates the corporate cunts with a fuckin' vengeance. I even caught him making a corporate ho cry, because she couldn't find her ticket. "But I see you everyday. I'm forgetful. You know this happened before too." He didn't, he reminded her. He got her fuckin' suspended from the Met, a fine and a criminal record. He ain't no nice guy. Working for the Underground, you've got to be a qualified CUNT. I mean not just a muthafucka, gand-chaud with attitude, but you've actually got to take A-levels and a fuckin' degree in CUNTHOOD.

Like I said, I would never do over no taxi-guy, no street vendor, no old woman. They just innocents. But these fucks. Well for every one you're doing away, you're doing society a fuckin' favour. You don't do one away, and he goes on to make a hundred lives a misery A DAY. How many is that in a month, in a year? I've got a personal score to settle with them cunts. Because last year they caught my baba. Three of them, the usual three, who get the train from Baker Street to Harrow. Two fat women and a bloke. They fined him a fuckin' grand. All because he had left his season pass at home. They didn't even bother to phone up Pinner station where his records were held, to find out whether he was legit. No, you're travelling without a ticket, you go down. Didn't even have the decency to respect the fact that he was bringing my sister (well half-sister) Sam back from Morefields eye hospital. She's got a fuckin' cataract. Which is why today, when we saw two ticket inspectors walking towards us from the other carriage, whereas normally we would have swapped carriages at a station - they don't want a fuckin' fight so they just watch you go by, you are an agreed loss of profit, all they want is the innocents with the babies - we just stayed in the line of fire. It was us or them.

The train stopped for ages in the tunnel between Baker Street and Portland Street. We thought they would walk through immediately, seeing that the train was completely empty and we were the only ones occupying the final two carriages. But they stayed there for a while. Probably talking about the latest edition of Razzle. Just as the train started to move again, they burst through the door and walked up to us. Figured that if there was any trouble, they would have arrived safely at the station and would be able to radio in for help. With a day down the cells, I wasn't in any rush for a repeat performance. The first fuck came up to Riz and stood with his legs apart as if he had a big lora and asked for his ticket.

"I ama sorry. No speaka English." Riz said. "I - u - say -foryn cunt."

He turned to me. "Could you explain to this gentleman that he needs to produce a valid ticket for the journey?" I just shrugged and stared at my trainers.

"Then I'm going to have to take you off the train at the station, and quiz you further. Please follow me at the next stop."

Now this is all bullshit. Reg's told us before. Them fucks got less power than a three-day-old phuddi. They give you all this shit, "Stop, search and apprehend". It's bollocks. If you don't want to fight them, (and if not, why not) you can walk away, and there ain't a sweet fuck he can do. But, you gotta take them out, as I said, you're making it better for the rest of the world - isn't that the fuckin' shit that Jackson's always going on about - make the world a better place. Well, this is one of those days, when we did our bit.

They were getting their big-boy writing pads out, as if they was Starsky and Hutch - going to make a citizens arrest - then the train stopped again. Just outside Portland Street station. Oh what a shame. The guard with the fuckin' balls gave me a disrespecting stare as he tried to feel braver. We hadn't told him to go fuck himself and that, for him, was a victory in itself. He started smiling, and I knew this would really fuck Riz off. Yeh, act hard, fine. But smile, and you're laying down a challenge for Riz to ram all your teeth down your throat.

He looked around as if someone was watching and then spoke to us: "Yeh, if you noa speaka English. Then you a fuckin' liar, you blacka bastard. You know, you are a blacka bastard." If we'd been rednecks, we'd be writing down long complaints. We had a better complaint procedure in mind. He opened his big gob again, "We are going to fuckin' get those tickets out of you, you lying black bastards and then we're getting the police to take you down the nicker. Best way to get rid of all you bastards. Lock you up and then fuckin' kick you out of the country." He smiled again. Suddenly I remembered Riz was carrying that ceremonial talwar. So did he. I saw a look on his face I didn't like. He was smiling too.

"No, I ama Telling you kind gentulmans, I donta be having a ticket," he said "mind your language" style. "But I ama tell you, you are a pussy and dog-face."

Before dog-face could do anything, Riz jumped out of his seat and kicked the inspector so hard in his bollocks I thought they'd fly out of his mouth and hit the roof. The guard screamed like a bitch and hit the ground like a lump of shit. Riz grabbed the other guard and smacked his face against those bars you use to balance yourself when the train is full. When the guard's face drew back, he'd lost so many teeth that I could see his fuckin' tonsils. Riz smacked his face against the glass and released it. The smiley cunt fell to the ground too, leaving a mess on the window. It took Tyson an average of four to five minutes per knockout in his first few major fights: Tyson vs. Trevor Berbick, September 22, Las Vegas aged 20, KO in 5 minutes 21 seconds - crowned the youngest WBC world champion, ever. Tyson vs. Tony Tubbs, March 20 Tokyo, KO in 5 minutes 13 seconds. Tyson vs. Michael Spinks, June '88 Atlantic City, KO in 91 deadly seconds – Riz had done it in fifteen. Riz drew up two fingers to the security camera, which was probably empty as usual – 'We prosecute those who attack our staff'. Well, this is the third attack I was involved with, and I've still got a cup of chai waiting for the cops who'll come and arrest me. When we turned to leave, we found that the doors had already closed and the train was leaving Portland Street. No one had got on the carriage. It was 3:30 and not rush hour yet. But the cunts would be getting on at Kings Cross, two stops down. We had to make sure the guards didn't get up till then. Suddenly Riz fell back against the door, as the first guard, who he'd played footie with, had fuckin' decked him. Probably didn't have any tutts. He was one of those East End hard types. You know the Saturday night football racist yob-pub cunts. You had to admire those bastards for standing up to the shit they were put through match after match against the fuckin' pigs and against each other. This guy was ready for some fresh punishment, the dumb fuck. He kicked Riz again in the shins, but Riz was already up and missed most of the blow. The inspector's mate was also getting up. So these were hard fucks. I didn't even think about it as I dived in and laid him out. You don't even think about jumpin' in no more. You're just used to that feeling. You aren't even thinking, and you are, if you know what I mean - I don't know if it's instinct or what, but you know what to hit, like those Nintendo games. There ain't no feeling like fighting – it's like fuckin' sex or ganga or something. An adrenaline buzz, when you don't give a fuck. But you gotta be ready to take it as well as give it. You ain't gonna win no fight unless you've had the shit kicked out of you too. And believe me, before I started fucking others over, I got fuckin' beat so hard that I would crawl home like a baby - and get more licks at home for losing. But it don't scare you after a while. If you jump in and you're scared of getting your little pussy hurt, then don't fight. I don't give a fuck if they fuckin' kick me in the face, as long as I fuckin' beat them at the end. And a secret to winning a fight (between you and me), never fight fair. All that 'touche' shit don't work in the real world. If they are beating you with fists, bop them on the head with a hammer. If they got knives, stick an axe in their back. There ain't no such thing as a fair fight.

I stuck my knee in the inspector's face and felt his remaining teeth sink into my jeans, as he made a loud "whuumph" noise. Yet he got up again, the dumb fuck. Behind him, I could see Riz's hand doing some damage to the guard's stomach. He must have taken the talwar out and was finishing off the guard. I could see the cunt I was dealing with, still wasn't completely out, even though he had his face screwed up. His nose looked broken and was covered with blood. Damn it must have hurt. He moved towards me again, and I bopped him in the nose with my free hand, as I held on to the metal bar to keep from falling over. This time he fell, and he didn't get up. If he had any sense left, he was going to stay down. Riz's dance partner also gave up and hit the dirt. Though he didn't look as pretty as mine did. "You haven't fuckin' popped him, have you?" I asked Riz.

The train stopped at Euston Square and we got off. Again no one got on, except a Chinky about five or six carriages down. I quickly looked at Riz and myself, but only our hands were covered in blood, and not our own this time. I looked at my leg and there was a tear in my jeans where the cunt had tried to take a bite of my ghutna. We'd seen enough rucks on the train to know the procedure. Fuck, that's where you meet most of the people during the day, and that's where you ruck the most. A few years back, it was just anyone who stared you out. We would pile on them, give 'em a version of Met-line Kabaddi. Later on, we became more selective. Fuckin' cocky little punks, we'd would only pick on gangs of gora toughs who thought they was hard. Two years back, Naz, one of my Harrow mates got fucked over by a bunch of goras near North Harrow met. They didn't know we was on the next carriage. They got off at North Harrow, and so did we. Took one fuckin' look at Naz and we descended down on them. There were three of them and eighteen of us. You can imagine the mess we made. We just surrounded them and mashed em. Mike's brother Sammy, Samnesh's so fat - eats them chicken burgers like they was Smarties - he caught up with the fight a bit later. He couldn't get past the wall we'd made. So he jumped up on someone's shoulder and starting bopping them down from the top.

Then there was the time we got jumped on by some tawas, coming back from Notting-Hill Carnival on the District line. Outnumbered ten to one. They fucked us over but we carried on fighting like warriors, you know, didn't fold like them fuckin' inspectors. There were screaming mothers and kids everywhere. The carriage was full of tourists and blood. What a story they must have had to tell back home. "Say, we saw some Paki's having the shit kicked outta them today, honey." We fuckin' fought back till we hit Edgware Road, when the tawas decided to exit. The last guy who left, said we were fuckin' safe and gave us downright respect.

We left Euston Square station and decided to complete the trip by bus. There'd be too many fuckin' pigs in the system now, especially if Riz had popped the inspector. "Riz, did you pop the fuckin' inspector?" I asked him again, and Riz opened up his jacket a bit. The blade was still in its sheath, unbloodied. "I ain't no fuckin' psychopath," he said. "Man, if I'd taken out this blade, he'd be 'underground'. That's God's job."

That settled that. We checked into UCL, just round the corner from the station, to check out Laila, an Iranian bitch that Riz had been sorting for the past few weeks after meeting her in the Palais. We couldn't find her, it's a big fuckin' place. I couldn't believe how much space they'd wasted just on library books. We checked out the computer lab, the technical building and the library in SOAS, fuckin' posh cunts even had a whole section devoted to subcontinental history. If I had time, I would have sat down and read a few books - really! I taxed a book on Jinnah anyway, and walked out with it lodged under my jacket. Them dozy fucks didn't even suspect a thing, even though it was the biggest book in the library, even when I passed it behind that security gate to Riz.

"Hey what a safe hood, man." I told Riz. "I might even consider enrolling myself on one of them honours programmes on 'Stani history."

"The only way you is gonna get to this place is with a fuckin' mop in your hand, muthafucka. Who gives a fuck, we still jhuk their women. I want myself a nice rich, Iranian educated bitch who I can settle wid. She do the earning, I roll the ganga."

"Dream on, muthafucka. Hey, it's getting late - we gotta make tracks for Aldgate, homes before we miss Jimmy."

I could see us walking out of East London with a big tutta-sized bullet hole at the back of our overgrown heads. We jumped on a number fuck-knows-what and headed for Kings Cross where we changed for Aldgate. Never did see that Laila bitch but from what I've heard, she was a fuckin' stunna. How Riz got her... fuck only knows, the fuckin' animal. But truth be told, you should see Riz out with the gals, he's a charmer. A bit rough round the edges, but a fuckin' charmer. If they don't give a fuck, nor does he, but if they're good to him, he's a fuckin' gentleman, unlike the other homies. You know hard as fuck in the presence of other men, but give them some pussy and they go all girlie and shy - oh except for Shak - about him a bit later.

Mike was the fuckin' worst - fuckin' stuttering up a frothy rim the moment a bitch looked his way. The girls at Harrow tech thought he was a genuine cripple. But believe me he profited. Got enough sympathy shags out of it.

I wasn't kidding about checking onto some course at SOAS. Sometimes it seemed like absolution, a complete break from all that fuckin' around. The others never gave two-shits about their future. Which was why I was gobsmacked when Riz actually 'fessed to me that he wanted to get out of this country.

Though he never said it, I always got the feeling all that gang-banging shit really got to him. Not that he was ever going to back off from it. All them rucks depressed him. He was the only one out of all of us who took it so seriously. Anyone cussed him, he took it to heart. I knew the inspector was lucky to be breathing unassisted, because normally that was the kind of thing that would have brought out the meanest muthafucka in Riz.

He lit up some ganga outside Kings Cross station and puffed it angrily. "Man, I'm getting the fuck out of this country before it kills me. I want to be watching that cricket."

We got on the 63 or whatever it was and went and sat upstairs. "You know how many years I been knocking them cunts down.... Since Stanburn star - I was knockin' down them kalas, goras, the whole fuckin' UN..., and still they come back for more. You'd think they enjoy polishing my Joota?"

"Man, I seen you gang-banging since middle-school. I remember when Hester smacked you in, in PE. You was a dumb muthafucka then and you a dumb muthafucka now. If you don't like this shit, then get the fuck out. No one's forcing you to take the talwar and wander down to the Bangla's back-yard."

"Oi, Imran, you know one thing, star. I ain't ever backed out of nuttin'."

"Yeh, but who says you're backing out? You're going into this wi' your fuckin' eyes open."

"Nah man, I'm being forced into this fuckin' shit."

He never told me what he meant by that. At that moment the bus stopped outside Aldgate East station and the lights went out. We got out with all the passengers and immediately I spotted all the council flats, a few miles away, hundreds of them, looming large. That's where the Bangladeshis were at their strongest. We'd just entered their territory.

I don't know why, I hid the Jinnah book again under my jacket and we headed the wrong way towards Leadenhall Street. Lahori's meant to be nearby on Commercial Road. Every few yards, Riz would stop and ask directions and every few yards some pussy would give him different directions. We ended up going past these old factories - more like fuckin' sweatshops - where the first generation had set up their shit. And it still looked like it was in the fuckin' sixties. Blankets going for 5p, a hundred mossay for 10p. Man, this was the business to be in. Fuck import and export. All we had to do was to buy them here and import them over to the other side of town. Sell them in Harrow for ten times the fuckin' price.

We walked past Tandoori this, and Salmonella that. Never go to a fuckin' tandoori restaurant if it's got a tablecloth and a waiter, unless you want to eat ten week old 'gora' shit. That ain't real curry, it's like the shit they spoon fed you at school. Since when did curry have raisins and coconuts? I remember telling the dinner ladies that they were fuckin' cunts if they thought that that was how curry was made. You go to where the natives are. If you walk past a Paki caf'' full of Paks, that's where you go in. The natives know where the sona is and they know where the shit is. It's the same as Chinese restaurants. Only go in where it's full of natives, like the Far East in Soho. Looks like shit, but tastes like a fresh fuckin' phuddi.

Lahori is the best of the best. And Lahori in Aldgate...it's like Ambala in fuckin' Euston Square, it's like them Crown jewels in the tower of London. As authentic as you can get, Pakistan-style without actually paying for a ticket and catching a flight over to the Fatherland. Jimmy was sitting there, the lazy fuck, talking to his uncle. He was surprised to see us.

"Oh, you're fuckin' zinda," he said. "I thought you were gonna roll up in a fuckin' coffin. That phuddi Mina's good for you man."

"How did you know where we was hiding out?" I asked.

"Hey man, I got my contacts."

"That's a dirty rundi you got on your hands there," Jimmy said with a fuckin' dirty laugh. "Fuckin' runndi."

"Yeh, I saw pictures of her phuddi," Riz agreed, "in Asian Babes round Gaggy's. Nice and loose."

Jimmy grabbed my pack of Rizlas. "First of all Gaggy's a dirty fuck - he choosin' Roshni today?"

"Yeh, he was gonna sort her, out the back of his shop while Lankan Jimmy kept watch."

"Has he told you, she's carrying his baby...or his uncle's baby...they don't know."

Riz almost spat his gum out and choked on it simultaneously. "Get the fuck out of here, maan! Aww brutha, that's...fuckin' diseased, that is."

"Secondly, he's told me about the photos. Is it f'real?"

Even Jimmy had heard - Gaggy was the fuckin' Sunrise Radio of gossip. "No," I told the boys, "it only looked like her. This girl in the picture had bigger tits. I've seen Mina's, bro, her nipples ain't so dark neither."

"It's Mina, spar." Riz told me. "Fuckin' admit it, you was chauding a ho."

"She ain't no ho - She's just... misundastood."

"She shows her phudd, she's a ho," Jimmy said. His uncle walked up and Jimmy introduced us. "This is Riz, and that ugly cunt's Imran."

"Ah, so these are Riz and Imran. So you two took out Ruknuddin's son."

"You told him!?!" Riz said.

"Ah, you two are in deep shit," Jimmy's uncle continued, "the Bangladeshi folk take that kind of stuff very seriously. They've learnt to defend themselves after all the racism out here in the East-End. They're not in this for laughs."

"Yeh, nor are we," Riz told him. "Bring them on, and I'll give them something to talk about."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, they'll find you, whether you like it or not."

"So what are we going to do?"

"If I were you, I would run and hide in a small havela in kotri." Jimmy's uncle said as he strolled off.

In reply to Riz's sudden nervous flinch, Jimmy shook his head. "Aw don't worry man, he's joking. He knows we don't run and hide. I've been talking to one of the waiters here, Khan, and he's told me that they are all out looking for you. They normally hang out here in Lahori, but they ain't been seen for the past three days, ever since the attack happened." He leant closer. "Listen spar, them guys are fuckin' serious. They're bringing guns in and all that shit."

"Awww, who gives a fuck. Bring 'em all down. I'll shove those guns up their fuckin' arses and pull the trigger," Riz said, pissed off.

"I don't give a fuck neither. But I ain't blind. When an army preparing itself, I'm gonna be sure I'm ready. I ain't having no one putting a hole in me, Bangla or no Bangla."

Jimmy's uncle came back with three waiters. "Okay, put it here." In the waiter's hands were trays full of the best food I've eaten in fuckin' years - three mixed grills, the lamb kebabs were fuckin' amazing. Batera Karahi, and the best fuckin' Nihari I've ever tasted. He's also bought over tonnes of naans, Pilau-rice and my favourite, sweet sweet Lassi, tasting like it was milked fresh from a Himalayan virgin's phuddi.

As we stuffed ourselves, he kept the food flowing until we had to protest and get him to stop.

"If you boys are going to die, you might as well eat right for the last time," he said.

I got out the Jinnah book and gave it to Jimmy's uncle. He seemed like the type of person who would actually read it and not just look at the pictures, feeling patriotic and shit and then put it up on some shelf. I felt alright that I'd given it to him. I can't imagine anyone in my family reading it, except for my eldest half-brother, but he'd be fuckin' lucky if I gave it to him, gora worshipping K-U-N-T.

We finished off with Pistachio Kulfi and Kashmiri chai, which he only made as a special for us. I felt like a fuckin' king. Even Riz had a smile on his face and was playing with a baby girl from the next table. The Bangladeshi woman smiled at us as the baby played in Riz's hands. At that moment, if we could have turned back the clock and not hit that Bangladeshi boy on the bus, we might have. But here was two solid believers of kismat, and we was lining up with front row seats to have the biggest fuckin' rumble in the jungle, gangland UK had ever seen.
CHAPTER IV

RHYTHMS

When you live down Willesden, your designer ghetto, there's only two ways to get out of the fuckin' mire, if you're a young bastard wi' time on your hands. One solution, you inhale, and the other is to listen your mind free. Gangsta beats, brutha. Rhythm's the life-blood of the youth movement in the ghetto. You live by it, you learn by it and you fuckin' die by it. I don't mean the Stock-Aitken variety of pussy-sounds, but "rhythmical philosophy". Shit that says something about why you are what you are. And fuckin' believe me, if you ain't from the ghetto, you will never fuckin' relate to it. No matter how 'down' you are wi' the hood. You may understand the reasoning, but you will never get the feelings.

I don't profess to know what it is to grow up in that shit - I mean I was born and raised in friggin' leafy North-west London. My neighbours were fuckin' Duran Duran and Elton John, not NWA and Public Enemy.

That's why you can tell fuckers like Vanilla Ice, they just pretenders, like me. Nice comfortable middle-class families like ours. Fuckin' brothers who go to fuckin' law school, like Asim, my half-dead crack-head dope-fiend half-brother, who don't end up inside for three for armed robbery and GBH on a NatWest, like Jimmy's. We like fuckin' tourists, allowed in when the sun up. When it go down, boy you best be running inside.

Feroz Khan, AKA MC FKI, AKA 'F'. Fuckin' homie with a bad-arse attitude and a beat-box at his yard's been licking out them beats ever since high-school. Jacked in his fuckin' classes for good in the second year and the police and faculty couldn't be arsed to get him back. It was "economically un-viable to allow Mr Khan back into the educational system" - he just fucked up the school property every time he went in. So he stayed home and both sides were happy. A pure Punjabi, from a village outside Jhelum, his parents had moved to Hackney twenty-five years ago. After ten years here, his parents fucked off back home leaving him and his brother in a pad they'd bought in Harlseden with their uncle. The uncle disappeared in mysterious fuckin' circumstances, leaving the two to fend for themselves - F was nine, his bro' fourteen, and that too in Harlseden! They didn't just survive, they thrived. When his baba came back last year to visit, Shahid, his brother, had more money in the bank than his fuckin' baba, who was a fuckin' big-time goat farmer back in the Punjab. You name it, Shak could supply it. He had connections going as far back as Afghanistan and South America, a fuckin' E-type and another pad in Tooting, just near the tube. If you went high enough any supply chain in North London, Shak and his associates, Kiran Shah and Andy Ganupta would be there.

F wasn't his brother. Shak was big, brash, with fuckin' balls that hung all the way to the ground. All the bitches down his yard were hot on his trail. Any Indian do, and I mean ANY, from the fuckin' Asian sex-shows in Hounslow and Southall pubs all the way to Asian TV all out swanky do's at the Hilton - he was there. One day I was down their yard, waiting to go to the Garage for a Punjabi gig, when he gets a call out of the blue, and he was off to a private party. He never told me who, but F told me; It was a certain Bollywood sleazebag director, who he'd met previously at a charity fashion show at Wembley Arena. The sad fucker had a whole floor booked at the Hilton, paid for every spare ho going in the West End that night. Shak was invited to provide the "atmosphere". But the best part of the story...the fuckin' director, was a fuckin' batty boy too, swang both ways - and guess who he tried it on with, Shak, after sampling a bit too much smack! Fuckin' unbelievable!!! F told me that Shak held the guy out of the window upside down for five minutes threatening to let go - finally the pussy promised to hand over the keys to his Bollywood yard. Can you imagine that, his whole fucking pad. No more little boys for him from that day on. Even now there's a sad fucker in Bombay who knows how close he was being to becoming a permanent London landmark.

Meanwhile for F, his fuckin' excitement of the day was getting his toast burnt when making breakfast. If you turned up at their yard before the sun set, then you were too early. He'd only get up when Eastenders started. He'd take the neighbour's pooch for a shit, and then get back to his bedroom studio. You see, music was his life. He had every last funk-fusion-rap track released in the last five years. He knew every beat from Public Enemy, to Fun^Da^Mental to Aretha Franklin. Give him any mix and loop, and he'd tell you which groove the sample was lifted from, where the original artist recorded it, and where he/she/they took their last shit. He started rapping, using a simple beat-box and twin deck for sampling and scratching, and built his studio up from there. He borrowed money from his brother and his spars and made more than enough to pay them back, with white labels which he went and pushed himself at every indie record stand in London. He even entered the Rap-charts at Westwood at number three with "F*?! wi' it".

And believe me, he'd lived through the whole fuckin' ghetto experience, first hand. This weren't no pretender. Through Andy Ganupta, Andy G (his brother's associate, a fuckin' talented DJ), he found a voice, Dj'ing for B3, the mobile pirate station, they'd set up at the back of a converted delivery truck which they drove around North London. Man, oh man, how the bull wanted that out of action - NWA, "Fuck the Police" was their anthem, their call-sign. They started with it, signed out with it. Even played it when they got stopped for speeding, even though the fuzz never knew it was the B3 base-station - the audience heard the whole incident on the air as the copper searched through the glove compartments for 'incriminating evidence', but never once turned to look at the back of the van, where they would have found three startled DJs, three thousand gangsta-grooves and an entire, illegal pirate radio station!

When Riz and me turned up at their yard, they were already preparing for a gig at Hammersmith Palais.

"Hey you'se going to a Punjabi gig, and you'se ain't even invited us along, eh bro?" asked Riz, as F struggled to stash his vinyls in a carry bag.

"Listen star, I ain't in this inviting game. You wanna come, you fuckin' come." And that was it. We fucked off to Hammersmith Palais to the largest Punjabi Bhangra party this side of India - the Safri Boys, Alaap, Sangeeta and even Apna Sangeet were on. F was sampling sounds for the show and providing incidental sounds for the pauses.

Now I don't know what the others thought about Bhangra music. You either like it or fuckin' hate it. For me, it's both. It's like anything. When it comes out, it's fresh, desperate and hungry. It wants to prove itself. A bit like walking into a new school and proving you're fuckin' superman. But then it gets accepted into the mainstream, taken over by hungry corporation cunts and has the life sucked out of it, like 2-Unlimited or some other sad shit. It happened to Break-dancing, it happened to Electro and I can see Bhangra going down the same stinking hole. Listen star, at one time, even soul music was a fuckin' statement from the ghettos. J Brown, the Temptations, the OJs, even Chuck Berry and his rock and roll, they was all making a statement for their times. F was making his.

He got on to the fuckin' stage and whipped two-and-a-half thousand bogling, bhangraing cunts into a frenzy. He licked 'em beats with a fresh sound that would make you think this was his first time. The crowd fuckin' loved him. Every night after his gigs, the pussy would be running like hot and cold water. We all benefited through his hobby. Tonight was no exception. We took three bitches from Manchester - Lena, Mithu and Tina round the back, where the Safri boys were getting ready to get on stage. I'd been backstage so many times that the artists knew me, not by name, but knew my face.

Tina, the ho that had hooked up with me giggled like a little girlie as Bobby from Chak-de came up and hugged me. "Oi, Immy, how the fuck are you? Are you with this guy?" he asked Tina who giggled again. "This is one solid dude. So how you keeping?"

"Safe. Just came down with my spars."

"Yeh, MC F Khan. One talented guy. He's going to go fuckin' far. I've told my agent about him."

If there was one thing you could say about the Bhangra crews was that they were a safe bunch of homies. There was none of that jealous "star-syndrome". They were ALL equal when they were there. They were there to have a fuckin' laugh, and stir the crowd.

"Man, tonight it's charged," Bobby said, "I can feel the electricity. Imran hang out for the end. We're going to bring down the house - then we're going to Birmingham, our label's holding a fuckin' launch party - we're going to be up till fuckin' Tuesday."

I went to the hospitality suite at the back of the club with giggling Tina, and caught up with the homies. Riz was already mashed in a dark corner, his bitch was sucking him off and F was busy talking to Andy G. All the homies were there, Jimmy, Mike, Joseph Mbela the Kaila and there was Shak, standing there with a fuckin' stunner. Leila was a model for Libas, a half-caste bitch, who only hung around with Bollywood royalty and here she was at the end of Shak's arm.

"Oi, Imran I see you're still in one piece." Shak shouted out. "Though if I know them Bangla's it ain't going to be for long." Bad news travels fast.

"Don't stress, they're arming themselves, I've got connections that can get you a rocket launcher used against the Russians in Afghanistan."

Now he was talking. As Shak turned to talk to another associate, Tina tugged at my dick...well my arm, and whispered in my ear. I couldn't hear a fuckin' thing, the music was so loud, but I understood what she was saying.

Shak turned back to me, "Oi, I hear your woman's a ho. Centre-spread in Asian Babes."

"Yeh, and Gaggy's woman's a fuckin' mama!" I said. I headed to the back of the Palais with the ho who was so horny, you should have seen her, I swear she was leaving a trail behind. We got to one of the fire exits that was labelled by some sad gora cunt, "the G-Spot". No one ever came there and you were left for so long, that you could find where the little bastard actually was located if you so wished, friggin' perversions them goray have. As she jacked me off with her hands, I sucked her big tits, and felt hair in my mouth. I fuckin' jumped back and stared. She had fuckin' hairy nipples. Now you gotta know, some Asian gals are fuckin' hairy all over. If there's one thing I can't stand is a girl who doesn't shave her fuckin' armpits and phuddi. And now here was a bitch with hairy tits. There was actually a ring of tight curls around her nipples, which I swear was covered with dandruff. And I swear she was all that. I let her jack me off and then I led her back to the party and told her I'd be back in a while. Not fuckin' likely.

Mike was in the corner, having scored with Mithu. Shaking his head like a friggin' cripple though she didn't seem to give a fuck. In the light, she seemed a damn sight tighter than the ho I'd chosen. I left them alone though. Mike's a sad fuck who deserved a little jiggy.

Riz and Leila had finished whatever they were doing and were sitting so laid back on the sofa, they were horizontal. Definitely under the influence. They'd been joined by Gaggy, but I went up to them - they were all just lying there half asleep, with goofy smiles stuck on their faces.

"You're pissed." I said.

"Fuck off Imran, I'm chirpsing this bitch." Leila carried on smiling like a goofy bitch. Riz wasn't pissed, he'd just dropped some shit and was trippin'. I got on my knee next to his ear.

"Listen Riz, Shak can provide some pieces if we need any. The fuckin' boys are behind us one hundred percent."

Riz opened his eyes and stared at the lights. "That's news to you?!? I've already spoken to the homies. They're ready to take the fight back to their turf. They've been contacting other crews for a bit of assistance...Mbela's got the kalas down the Street coming down, and Mikes spoken to the Billies and the Bradford boys. This fuckin' shit is going to get fuckin' awesome, fuckin' fireworks bro."

I took a spliff out of Riz's hand and dragged. This was becoming the ruck of the century. And that was all through rumour only. You see that's the backup you have, when you got a crew behind you. And that's why I started running with them homies. They were my fuckin' police force looking out for me.

"Shame Saif weren't here man, he's got connections all the way throughout the Bangladeshi community and through to what you can almost call Pakistani royalty. He provides the fruit for their fuckin' restaurants."

"There you go again about your fuckin' uncle. Riz, I fuckin' swear you gotta get out there before I end up fuckin' knifing your arse." I looked at Gaggy. "This sad cunt's been crying ever since his uncle went down under to check out the cricket."

Gaggy woke up, "Your uncle went to the cup?! What a fuckin' safe move star, respect."

Riz kept his eyes closed. "That's what I've been telling him homie. Now tell him to fuck off, I'm fuckin' depressed as it is."

Gaggy leant over and winked at me, "Don't stress, my Uncles going too, I'll sort it out for you'se."

"Who, Roshni's daddy at the offie'!"

"Oi, bro, keep it quiet man, she's fuckin' cut up about it. Fuckin' trying to get it aborted but the bitch don't listen to me."

"I burst out laughing, You're the fuckin' father. YOU are the fuckin' abu! Oh shit man! You're the fuckin' one responsible. You dumb fuck!"

"Easy man...tell you the truth, I don't know."

Fuck, that was too much. I held my stomach, I was in so much pain. The fuckin' joke was that we thought that Gaggy, out of all of us had the coolest disposition. That he was the only one who could fuckin' ride out something like this, because normally he didn't give a fuck. And now it had happened to him!

The music ended and Bobby walked off-stage, with his technical crew. He was being hounded by a corporate bitch from Asian TV, ramming her microphone into his face, showing disrespect. I mean give him some space, the bro had been on for twenty-five minutes. The bitch was Sandra, token white fuck at the TV station. Many a time we'd cussed her silly for pretending to be down with the culture. Again, you don't learn it, you're born with it. It's like that muthafucka gora, who'd learnt Hindi, just to sing Indian film songs. What a fuckin' joke. Every show, every celebration, they'd drag his arse out and cry, "Oh Rick, sing us Jholle key peeche kya hai," or some shit. Sandra said something to the mota cameraman, and he ran forward, almost tripping. She was trying to look in charge, but was looking this small, with the little or no research she must have done. Asian TV, going out to Europe, India and the fuckin' yanks, and still couldn't get no decent ads. My favourite was Basmati rice, three minutes, ten fuck ups and a stuttering dumb-fuck of an actor trying to mime out some shit old tune. Asian TV, what a fuckin' joke. To qualify for a place at the station, you didn't need no fuckin' degree in TV, if you had O' Levels you were overqualified. I mean, there weren't one of us who couldn't have done it better. If your uncle was presenter-lighting-tea boy, you were in. The camera man was a fuckin' plumber before this, for fucks sake. The wanker tripped again, as he tried to set up a shot near us, smelt of pure meths.

I knew what Bobby was doing. Gaggy jumped and got out in time. I don't think Riz saw it coming.

"Sandra, I'd like you to meet my crew, and homies, that's Imran, Riz and I don't think I know your name?"

Leila giggled, "My names Sharon, I'm from Liverpool," she said, "and I think it's fuckin' awesome out here. Respect to my crew in Manch...er...Liverpool"

Sandra looked at us as if we were a line of dirty phuddis, hung out to try. Bobby pulled me up. "This is my main man, my lyrical inspiration. He also an essential part of my crew." I could see Bobby was enjoying giving it a big one to this bitch.

"We both helped found the Asian Rap Corporation. Its influences come from everything we've experienced, from the Indian film sounds, to English pop all the way to hard-core Punjabi anthems. We're trying to express all this in one solid sonic unification."

Nice one Bal. Sandra didn't know what the fuck to say next. She weren't down with nothing. "So Imran, you're central to Bobby's philosophy about the way he develops his Bayhangara sounds." I fuckin' swear she said bay-hang-ara. The rest of the question, I hadn't a fuckin' clue.

"I think that Bobby is a fuckin' inspiration to all the Asian youth out there. All the way from the ho's to the homies, they respect his stand." No way this interview was going out. I just wanted to see if Sandra was even fuckin' listening. "You know when Michael Jackson's management approached my main man, to try and thief his rhythms, he told them to fuck off to where he'd sent Madonna's management. This fucker ain't for sale. Respect to all the homeboys, all the posse's who're looking out for us. And to the Bangla-boys. We are getting ready for you. RESPECT."

I don't know if that victory sign was too much, but if it made it onto the screen, which I seriously doubted, this was us, accepting the challenge, on world-wide TV. Them nice TV sandwiches had no idea of what was going down on the street-scene. The moment they'd bought their DMs and 501s, fuckin' Nikes and Tacchinis was in. They say that it's the corporation that lead the street-styles, but that's fuckin' bullshit. All they do is reflect the movement. At the end of the chain you get the nice school, college shits, who are the corporation's real consumers. By the time this has happened, the street's moved on, and you get a faint reflection of what it really was.

Sarah fucked off, and Bobby hugged me. "You're safe bro. That fuckin' bitch don't ever leave me alone." Bobby didn't swear often. "Sucking corporate lund, that phuddi's ambitious."

"Well she ain't bringing any of her diseases here." You see what I mean, about those born into it and pretenders. At least, I had more integrity, because I was looking out for them and not myself.

That was it, my few minutes of fame. It weren't for me, that was Shak's scene. Always sticking his head under them lights. It was only a matter of time before he had his own show on A TV. Fuck, he could have it now, if he turned the screws on some producers. Spar, he had a lead role in Bollywood if he wanted it. Word was that he'd even jhukked some Bollywood ho. I know it weren't Madhuri and it weren't Asha Bhosle, but apart from that it could be anyone. That's the way the industry worked, everyone jhukking everyone. You want a job, you jhuk me. You want a good review, you jhuk me. Sandra, you want a show, chus this. The music industry had fuck more integrity than that. Could you imagine upna Nusrat Fateh acting with such disrespect, or any of the bro's gathered here. I'd met one of those Quwalli types, back in a mela in '91, Aziz Miah, looked like a fuckin' short red dwarf, with Mhendi on his head, teeth fucked up by a decade of tumbacoo ka paan. Talked like a fuckin' gremlin, eyes so tightly shut, on whatever he was on, but what a fuckin' guy. Sang like he was starting a revolution, the tabla guy burnt himself out before this dude was done. I give all my respect to them quwals. It's the purest form of Paki art, as much the Fatherland as the green and white crescent. Man, but I hope Nusrat Fateh don't become mainstream. You got sad gora cunts knocking his door down, and even fuckin' Hollywood looking his way. He'll fuckin' die before he sells out.

Sandra was having her little gori knickers charmed off by Shak, who was giving it a large one for the cameras. The only interview they were going to use, I swear.

He was telling her about the history of the Bhangra movement, how it was moving into the mainstream. How it was moving off the streets into Bollywood. And once Bollywood were through, you'd get Hollywood moving in on the act. It was almost as if it was scripted, the smooth fucker. Made it look like he'd started the movement. Who knows, he was probably there at the first Bhangra event ever, giving out his interviews.

Feroz had gone back to rip up some more tunes on the dance-floor. The back-stage scene was getting stale, as Shak was sucking up all the atmosphere. We needed some fresh air.

We went back to the club-floor, where the Safri boys were about to take their place, and caught the tail end of MC Khans stint. He joined us towards the side, where the VIP lounge bar is. Fuckin' awesome moves tonight, homes. Even the ho's were getting jiggy. Shame Andy G couldn't make it. He was jamming it up with the baddest brother in town at Crystal Palace – Brutha-MC.... Like fuck he's the baddest! I remember a gig we checked out, when Brutha, F and three others were headlining, down Brixton way. The Brixton massive couldn't wait to let it be known how much they thought Brutha was a pussy. When his set was over, his manager went back out and tried to jack up some support. You want more Brutha?! Not ONE person made a noise. When Brutha walked out, you could hear a machar fart. But do he give a fuck, like fuck he does. He now big property, even had his song played in a major Hollywood comedy. Owned by the corporations just like Motown. He's the smartest brutha of us all.

F called me to the window overlooking the club-floor. "Check out those ho's and bitches. Man they're fuckin' getting it on tonight. See that honey in the red?" I followed his finger. "She been giving me the eye all night."

"Where's Lena?"

"Man, fuck Lena, that phuddi in red's what I want. Soni bandi."

"So what, 'line mara tujne'."

"Gave her more than fuckin' line, told her to join me here in a few minutes. She from Bangla."

"What! Nah man, She fuckin' nice."

The kuri joined us, on her own - leaving her posse behind. It was easy to work out why. Bangla's are protective of their women. Like everyone else. I ain't ever been out with a sista from the Fatherland. They ain't for me, too corrupt. The homies don't like to think that anyone else is touching what's theirs. But we're all the fuckin' same. Man, if I see a desi bandi hooking up with a Hindu - homie or not - it fuckin' pisses me off. It's the same as a Hindu gal getting shanked by a Sikh. Yeh, I know we're all fuckin' hypocrites, we don't complain if it's an ujnabi sitting on our lunds, or any bandi for that matter.

"I'm Ameena," she said to me. And she was fuckin' safe. Beautiful blow-job lips, solid tits and, the bit that fuckin' got me, sharp green eyes. Any desi with green eyes is like the fuckin' crown jewels and they fuckin' know it. This sista knew it, and used it. Man, if I was her brother I wouldn't let her out of my sight. Especially not into the hands of a harami like FKI. "I loved what you did out there. I'm a singer too, you've gotta tell me how you became so massive." Smart bitch.

That was it. F was hooked up solid for the night. I looked out over the dance floor, and I could see all the bruthas and sistas dancing it up on the dance floor. You could smell the blow all the way up to here. Everywhere they were lighting up their seeth-hey.

"I'm from the East-End, Stepney way," I could hear her saying.

There were crews from fuckin' Birmingham, Man-chester, Bradford, Blackburn, Glasgow (I scoped some of the Shield's Boys) down there. Man, if music ain't a unifying force I don't know what is. I mean for fuck's sake, there was even the Bangla posse, standing near the front.

"How many of you here are from the East London Posse here tonight? My respects go out to you," says Balwinder Safri. Half the club starting roaring. We was lining up for a fuckin' civil war.
CHAPTER V

LAW AND DISORDER

If it was a civil war they wanted, we was ready for them. By tomorrow, the names, faces and addresses of each and every one of them Bangla cunts would be imprinted on our gun-sights. I knew that some of the Willesden crew was already massing the troops, we'd have at least a hundred foot-soldiers on standby - every operator, every drug dealer, every DJ, every "good old boy" from Edgware to Ealing was dusting down their blades, firearms, Ninja stars and Molotov cocktails to cook themselves an East of India  
B-B-Q. If we was willing, MC F was laying out some vinyl grooves and recording us a Bangla-bashing anthem.

Mike's uncle's meat van swerved erratically as we headed back down to the ghetto. "Homie, I ain't saying it again, get that thing out of my fuckin' face," Mike said, his usual erratic self, though this night something was eating away at him and he seemed twitchier than usual.

Gaggy's big fingers punched the buttons on a sixteen thousand pound Sony Betamax broadcast quality video camera which had accidentally fallen into his possession. The A-TV cameraman had left it lying behind the bar in the VIP stand when he'd gone in for a slash. He hadn't counted on Gaggy's greed.

"Come on brutha. You got any messages for the  
bay-han-gra massive out there?" Gaggy grinned.

A little red light popped up on the top of the camera and Mike, realising that he was on-air, relaxed a bit and grabbed an article rude-boy posture. "Man, this message goes out to all the Tarrant county massive - Boss Hogg, Roscoe P Coltrane - the good ol' boys is out lookin' for ya, muthafuckas!...Now get that thing out of my muthafuckin' face, blood-clot!"

Gaggy pressed rewind and reviewed the tape with satisfaction, cradling the camera like a kutti. If he could have, he would have fucked it there and then.

"You're looking more and more like Salman Khan everyday, sweetie!" Gaggy said. "Before you know it, this bastard will be too good for us, sitting pretty in Bollywood." Gaggy smiled.

You see, Gaggy loved easy money. The easier, the better (though if it was worthwhile, he was willing to run a few alarms and police road-blocks just for the sake of palming a handsome profit).

In his fucked-up code, this camera was another bonus - his entire profit and loss margin in a single night. And he'd done the right thing - walked out with it when it became a victim of someone else's confidence, Gaggy's triumph. In his hands, the camera had now entered London's alternative market place - the made to order, cut price, max-profit economy.

In this market place, if you was willing to wait, we could get you almost anything to order from your twenty-four inch TV sets all the way to your Guccis, Rolex's and BMXs (which kind of delivered themselves to you - just bop the little cunt as he pedalled it past you). Newer products which were building up in popularity included the home computers, and of course every thieving little school-shit's favourite, the car stereo. You wanted to wait, fuck, we'd even bring a fuckin' 747 to your door step. There was nothing we weren't willing to take.

Riz and me were fuckin' car thieves since the Stanburn days when we used to roam Southall, Wembley and Pinner at night, trying every rusty lock on every rusty Datsun, Honda or Toyota. Car stereos? There was so much variety on show, you had to be fuckin' choosy. You'd think the general population had woken up to the fact that "likki" bastards like us were stalking the front lines, poking their itchy fingers into anything that wasn't tied down with a twelve foot chain. But day after day we caught them dozing with their crown jewels on display. And did we take - brutha, it would be a crime not to.

There was a three month period where I was averaging five stereos a night; your Sonys, Pioneers, Alpines, Blaupunkts, JVCs, Clarions - just tell me the make and model and I'd have it on your doorstep in three days. I'd become so brash, that there were occasions, if I had a deadline, where I'd tax the stereo while the poor fucker was still in his car, knife him in the head - strictly business only, you've got to understand. I was the only brother in high school with a five-o'clock shadow first thing in the morning.

We found shit that you wouldn't want your hoochie mama getting her hands on.

But when it came down to it, we was just the delivery boys. Little Indians scarpering down the high street with your possessions hoisted high above our greedy heads. We was delivering to those individuals on the next rung of the ladder, the business men - your kaley in the Beamers, Gaggy and old man Freddy Singh, who owned the Video and Paan shop on Ealing road. Evil looking cunt, with tumbacu-paan constantly swirling round his stained lips. One hand constantly scratching his dick while the other rested on his brow-beaten bitch sitting at the counter fronting his shifty deals, shitting her bricks every-time he hollered out her name. "Dimple! You kutti ki bacchi!"

Them video guys could shift a fuckin' lorry load of stereos in half an hour. I'd say two thirds of their business, if not all, was illegit. It's the nature of the industry. Half the Indian films you get on video with Salman and Akshay prancing around like batty biscuits on the peaks and slopes of Agra, are pirates. And it's no secret that even Bollywood itself is sitting in the pocket of the Indian Mafia. So what do you expect? These little video and paan bastards down Ealing Road (originally from Kenya and Uganda, where laws are bought and sold like tu-ruppee whores) are just another link in this happy little crime chain. They're more than willing to bend over and screw a few laws. And that's what Gaggy and Freddy were - not criminals, just business-men in the 'alternative' market economy that keeps the wheels of the legitimate western concerns turning.

This summer, if rumours were to be believed, Shak and some of boys were planning a mini summer crime-wave of their own in the city - and it involved big names which meant either trafficking, laundering, loan-sharking or extortion. The rumours were rife. They weren't business men like Gaggy, but fucking politicians. It was no secret that they was growing fast and linking up with what Shak had once called "legitimate crime", - the stratosphere of Indian organised crime.

"Legitimates", as Shak once told me, was the top rung of the ladder. The mainstream occupied by dealers who were household names. Bad arse muthafuckas who carried governments in their pockets, called on Bollywood film stars, politicians and national Cricket sides to attend their weddings, birthdays, Garbars, what have you. Legitimates could pick up a mobile and get the entire Indo-Pak government galloping to their aid, backing them up with third-world firepower and men - we're talking the Nitin Amanyas of this world - a cunt who carries his own fuckin' world-wide corporation in a briefcase. You've seen a copy of Stardust magazine, you've seen his ugly face.

But you ain't going to see a suburban sewer-rat getting involved. For no matter what my associations were with the gangstas, I still stunk of the fuckin' burbs. Pinner was written all over my gand, so I hadn't earned their full trust and wasn't invited to play with the beasts after sunset. If I was going to see any action this summer, it was going to be at ground level as a runner or a fucking foot-soldier. But who knows if I proved myself what might be. And I wanted in. Once crime and theft are in your blood, you might as well say goodbye to your nine to five bullshit forever. The way an honest citizen feels guilty the moment he steps over the 30 mph speed limit, a gangsta feels guilty giving up what he doesn't have to, not taking what has been carelessly left behind - working to pay your bills ceases to be a viable life option. When puss-belly full, rat batty stink.

If rumours are to be believed, Shak and John Evans had carried out a few 'hits' for Amanya a few years back, knocking off a few conflicting interests in Asian media setups he wanted to consolidate into his universe. Doing hits, that weren't me - not just yet any-fucking-way.

It was 12:00 midnight. Gaggy and Mike were causing a bit of a jam down Ealing Road, as they experimented with the new camera. Pulling some kuris in baba's Merc 300E convertible, Gaggy was giving it his Asian TV cameraman, the smooth bastard. But the bitch behind the steering wheel was having none of it. She was your typical UCL kutti, sophisticated and smart. But you saw these bitches when they was thirteen-fourteen in Roxbourne park after sunset, offering to suck our lullas for a can of coke, looking to get raped.

A tailback was backing up all the way down to the A40, when I jumped out and checked in with a few of the young blood, up to no good round the side of Chicken Cottage, refuelling on the most happening bar-b-q ribs this side of Lahore. Now you don't waste an opportunity like this for a spot of recruitment.

Moni T was sitting on the wall outside, moulding a ball of pure Pakistani red-seal. Still looked like a fuckin' boy, no older than thirteen, with a gold Pakistan ring in his left ear, wearing a Kangol beret, his attitude straight out of Compton. He was surrounded by Dave and Farhat Hussain from West Harlesden, Izz, Kash, Safe and Takky. On the front lines, these were some of the most feared and respected of the up-and-coming young blood, rapidly setting up their own illegit concerns - primarily circulating halwa round the local Indian night-spots - Acton Warner Village, Harrow St Ann's and Leicester Square - protection, racketeering, stabbing and grabbing. A PTA nightmare, Moni T had been cut from Brompton High for stabbing an educator who was trying to fill his head with maths and other unnecessary shit, interfering with his playground empire. He'd set up a proto-gang, the UK BCs while he was awaiting judgement for the stabbing. In the meanwhile, he was on special counselling, with a young, recently qualified social working kutti, who he was banging. And what he a fucking patriot. Munawar Tarar would do just about anything to preserve the honour of the fatherland. Just recently he'd led the charge at the Pak-India charity match, Manchester, when some Indians decided to roast the Pakistani flag. More recently he'd been picked up for tagging Wembley High Street with the Paki Jhunda at the start of the World Cup. And Moni T was ready to do anything for a brutha. It was a matter of honour. The moment I mentioned the fight, he was ready to rumble:

"Just name the time and the place Imran, and you know we's gonna be there." He sipped on his Kingfisher eagerly. "Bro, we'll bring the fuckin' cavalry down from all the schools and colleges of the Borough and have a Bangla barbeque, carve the chand-sitara on their phuddis, man." His grin revealed a ruby encrusted incisor. Compared to him I felt like a bama.

He gave me a quick rundown of events down gangland, stabbings, grabbings, rapes and rumbles. "Something big's happened down East End," he said. Didn't I know it. "No, even bigger bro than what you got cooking. No one's saying nuttin'. But these things have a way of filtering down the grapevine. I'll keep my eyes and ears peeled."

"Cheers mate. I'm going into get some kebabey, you interested."

"Nah, I'm fucking inflated. Look at me, I'm turning into a fat bastard," he said pulling out a round mound, "just like Gaggy bhai. How's that kutta doin?"

"Well he ain't inside. So I guess he's doin' well. Listen, tell me, have you heard anything about this Bangla thing through your contacts, mate?"

Moni shook his head and turned to the other bandits, "You hear anything about the Bangla thing?"

There were blanks all around. So this thing hadn't ballooned out of proportion yet - filtered down to street lore. So I walked away with a smile, a BBQ meal-deal (only ₤2.95) and an army. We were guaranteed at least fifty to sixty extra foot-soldiers on d-day, and we hadn't even confirmed John and Shak's connections.

The lemons back in the van were arguing over some telephone numbers. The kuttis had fucked off back to their husbands at some Garbar in Wealdstone. But they was eager as fuck to participate in any gang-bang we had going. Gaggy's camera was lying in the back now, with a pile of pornos.

Riz picked up the camera and reviewed the Palais shots. "Safe bro. Check out the quality. What you thinking of doing with this?"

"Nuttin'," Gaggy said with a mouthful of ribs, "the shit is fuckin' history, come tomorrow. It's so fuckin' hot, pigs are going to roast it up my gand. I know a cunt down Peckham who's into this shit - makes Indian Shaadi videos \- calls himself Satyajit. He'll pawn it for at least five Gs."

"You fuckin' budd. Use this shit man, think of it as an investment. I mean, you got rare broadcast quality shit in your hands. Fuckin' keep it and you'll make fuck load more money. I'll tell ya, if I had something like that, I'm making me some fuckin' pornos!"

Gaggy's eyes lit up like dollar signs. He was always looking for that one golden opportunity. That one lucky break. That one fucking call that would elevate him to public enemy number one.

"I mean pull that bitch of yours, Roshni, out of her video store. She spreads her legs. Your uncle sticks his lulla in between her sweetie, and you send off the finished product to Freddy Singh," Riz told him. "You'll make a fuckin' mill."

I could see that the dirty fucker was interested. This was an untapped market. The Indian porn scene was waking up to the nineties and there was a fucking killing to be made. Asians were 'discovering' their sexuality. 'Asian Babes' fresh off the press - of course the elders were marching up and down yelling "community pride" and then they're in the pakhana, with a copy of Rupinder special and some Coconut tayl. Asian Babes was a sell-out sensation.

Then there's the Indian call girls taking up residence by the pussy-load, in them one bedroom flats you see above high-street takeaways in Hounslow, Wembley, Greenford and Southall, though Hounslow had been around for some time. Pinki \- we knew about her some years back, but she was exclusively performing tricks for international corporate cunts flying in and out of Heathrow. A fuckin' legend in my high-school - Gaggy's ex.

The biggest stir was caused by two Tamil-talking sisters, Sharmila and Urmila, who Shak introduced into the exotic entertainment market. Performing 'exotic moves' in all Asian businessmen's clubs, like the Palm Club in Greenford and Roasters in Harrow. They was charging fifty quid 'a head', including dinner, dirty dancing - then 'anything goes' all-night sessions, including audience participation – "Curried Cunts" as they was unofficially known - sold out solid, for three months.

And who can forget 'Bombay Roll', the event in subcontinental race relations - your council-flat trash gora dipping his stick up an Indian shit-pipe. That was what kept bugging me about them pictures in Gaggy's back room. I mean the bubbay were younger and undeveloped, but put a bit of meat on the girl and who knows.

It was 12:40. Most homies clock in for duty around that time. Friday night's always busy for a career criminal - selling your shit, sorting out your connections, rubbing out opposition. But tonight the homies were subdued. Something was up. We cruised around the slums a bit, blazed a few round the back of Wembley stadium, getting high on the shit we'd acquired at the Palais, before Mike and Gaggy dropped us off at Riz's yard and made tracks for Willesden - Gaggy no doubt planning to kidnap Roshni from her room and make her jiggle for the Sony. Mike was hooking up with us later on after he'd checked the messages on his ansaphone.

We piled into Jimmy's motor, a Ford Granada death-trap (about that a bit later) and spluttered down to Shahi Nan Kebab, just off Wembley High Street, to a feast of kings. A dozen Roly-Polys each, a tonne of Lamb Saalan and the holy of holies, a stack of fresh Parathas. The owner, a brutha fattened in the foothills of Sialkot knew us and knocked out a few freebies in our honour.

Wembley High Street was dead, even on a Friday night, but Shahi Nan was buzzing with gangstas. At that time of night your law-abiding citizens are tucked away while the Cowboys and Indians run rampant. We'd sighted a few Bangla's off Empire Way straggling back from the Bollywood concert down Wembley Arena, but our beef was with the East London mob, not the harmless North-west variety. All the homies were buzzing, talking shit. John leafed through his Rizla, snapped one clear, then started rolling a fresh joint. Jimmy seemed on edge, and kept peering out of the window.

"Jimmy, what's the fuckin' deal, mothafucka?" John's long black fingers began to mould the ganga, "You know you 'n Mike been acting fuckin' stressed all fuckin' night. Just chill out now, right."

If Jimmy was listening, it didn't show in his reply. "Kala, I ain't planning on getting busted over no drugs violation, so stop rolling that junk in here." Now that sounded odd coming from the dope-master general, baron to some of your more prestigious educational institutions in downtown London including LSE, SOAS and Kings.

John Evans gave Jimmy a stare that didn't mean anything till the morning after. "Chill homie. It's just the boys 'n the hood and old Iqbal here. And me and the old man go way back, man - we're talking early seventies, ain't that right bro? And he don't mind if we light up the odd one in the establishment, do you Boss?"

The man wiping his tawas and pateelas behind the counter grinned "yes, massa" without half a fucking clue what John Evans was on about.

Two prime-time Wembley bobbies, Steve and Benny walked past Shahi-Nan, eyeing us like we was hunnies. John lit the joint and blew a big plume of skunk from his nose glaring at the bull, planning evil.

It wasn't serious. Steve and Benny were cops on the take. Until I'd hooked up with the Willesden boys, this was just something I'd heard about on Starsky and Hutch. But these cops were real and down with the hood. Business partners of John and Shak. An unholy alliance of God and the devil. These bastards wouldn't fuck us around unless we was raiding the Queen of England's phuddi.

Even in this day and age, bent cops siding with immigrants (in the UK) is a fuckin' miracle - one of the few advantages of being born in the hood. Less than two hundred at the last count, so I hear. Okay, so East End whiteys always had "diplomatic immunity" - chances are the copper was sorting his sister anyway (consequently you ever seen a gora convicted for race-crime? It's a disgrace). But for a copper to sell his soul to the brown man - now that's something special.

If this was the Peshawar or Lahore, Steve and Benny would have been in on it, taking a toke of the ganga peace-pipe, but a gangsta knows that somewhere in that fuckin' DNA, they still got cop. And they could be right moody cunts - one second calling us by our first names, passing on information like the fuckin' CIA - opportunities in petty crime; residential and commercial burglary hotspots, ram-raiding opportunities, the recycling of confiscated contraband. All on a healthy profit-share scheme of course. Then without warning, they'd turn rat on you the moment they thought the ranks was going to rumble their little scheme - just to save their fuckin' white arses. It was a relationship from hell. And in my time I've seen many a brutha go down through a misplaced sense of confidence (loyalty even) in their partners in law and disorder.

I grabbed the joint from John and took a drag. Immediately it jump-started my brain, as if I was sucking on helium. John had stirred in some pure sensimilia into the seethen, not just the watered down crap he dished out in his business transactions. My eyes lit up like headlights as a chunk of seekh kebab rushed down the wrong tube. I began to choke on the kebab and could feel my fuckin' lungs filling up with the chilli sauce, and believe me that shit's a fuckin' ball-blazer in the first place. I managed to wash it down with some Sunshine mango juice in between gasps.

Don't get me wrong, I've always had a healthy association with narcotics. I was swilling cannabis juice since the school days, but it never ruled my actions. If it's there, I'll share, otherwise I ain't desperate. And believe me, I've tried it all, even shit your fuckin' chemistry professors ain't ever heard of; sulph, gold-seal, squidgy black, rock, MDMA, junk - all except crack-cocaine and ice.

Most of the homies use kaya ritualistically - it's like brushing your teeth. John Evans was rolling speedballs in the seventies for his mama's hostess parties back in Chalkhill, even before he'd set a toe in high school. And we'd all tried the occasional blow, smack or heroin year in, year out, but the moment it takes over your life, begins to fuck with your perspective, the rest of the crew would kick you to the kerb - happened to Rupon Sethi, happened to Brian Thomas, a kala, part of the crew back during them body-popping days. Brian's speciality was B&E; he could lift an entire five bed mansion in close to three hundred seconds. He hooked onto crack-cocaine, turned hardcore and shifted overnight from a homie you could trust your life on, to a bastard you wouldn't leave a disease with. You couldn't turn your back on him during the final days. He quickly moved into violent burglary and car jackings down the A40 where the A406 meet. Being with him was bringing us all down, so he fucked off and became a sole trader. The last I heard, was his arse was serving five for burglary and aggravated assault (whatever that means).

Steve and Benny were back, bending over Jimmy's car, a 1980 Ford Granada shit-shovel, special edition. It seemed like the boys were sniffing around for a little bonus. Jimmy was on the fuckin' edge, sweating shit-bricks. John stuck a joint in his mouth just to shut him up.

It was a miracle that his Granada was still moving. The engine growled over thirty. The gearbox was fucked. Sparks were fused to the engine - it would have cost more than the car itself to drill them out. The wipers were fucked, so were the rear and front indicators, so no one knew when he was turning left. No seat-belts, no rear view mirror, no MOT, no road tax (Jimmy couldn't renew it without MOT - Patel from Queensbury, his normal mechanic had copped it and no one worth their license was passing this pig-magnet). Other notables included your wind-screen washers, the rear brake lamp, the rear view mirror, the sunroof electrics, the chassis, the shocks, and not least the brakes (fucked...totally). I remember, when the rest of us was on our jacks, we had to scam a ride down to a do, down Brighton way - we ended up using the fuckin' clutch and handbrake to pull the vehicle to a standstill - that was over two years ago, and he hadn't done nothing to the car since. But what stood out like a sore thumb was the headlights, which had been shot out by an air-rifle, courtesy of Shak before he'd taken it up as a hobby - shooting at passing vehicles from a bypass above the A40. On the positive side, we had the sound-system: pure fuel injected, blood-clotting THX. It was fucking lucky the pigs were on our side.

John ignored the action on the street outside and moved closer. "Okay listen, them Eastenders want trouble, give them this." Inside his LA-Raiders bomber jacket, we noticed the unmistakable handle of a shiny new hand-gun - the ultimate in gangsta fashion accessories - mard ka zewar, as they call it in downtown D I Khan, where you're packing before you're out of diaper, "man's jewellery". He pulled it out and pushed it behind his plate.

"This is Misters Smith and Wesson. Your 640 Stainless 357 Magnum 2 with your standard quarter inch barrel. The same shit sits in Eastwood's holster. Did some trading round Chalkhill the night before. I provided Terry, the handler, with some electronics and he was about to reimburse me monetarily, when I spotted this beaut in his display cabinet."

I had to admit, it was a piece of art. Carved handle, cylinder and slide command hammer, metaloy hard chrome. But the spechie weren't what Dirty Harry used when he fucked over the Enforcers - that was a 45. I didn't have the heart to tell the sad kallu. Fuckin' impressive nonetheless. Riz looked happy.

"So you pumped out a few rounds yet?"

"Haven't had the chance, star. Been so occupied with other 'operations', it's been sitting under the car-seat for the last twenty-four hours. Planning to let off a few round the back of Stonebridge Park, if you're interested."

"Do you need to ask," Riz told him, "maybe we'll get lucky, slug a pig or two. Like them cunts outside." He glanced at the tullay who were scratching off some paint under Jimmy's bonnet.

"Fuck - you know what's interesting is that Terry gave it to me so easily. He's a tight cunt when it comes down to it. And I only had to ask. That's how common these bitches are now. Fuck, you got boys from Wembley running down the street, sporting converted replicas - then you know what's coming."

I could tell from here that the serial number had been lovingly filed down. John, being the smart fucker he is, must have had its history checked before handling it, because it don't take much to match the bullet to the bastard. So you had to be sure that whoever sold it to you, didn't pump a fuckin' nun full of lead before passing the piece to you - that would put an inconvenient dent in your life of crime. But you get the all-clear and your piece is kosher, then you got a license to print money - and believe me the Gangsta's were keen to get their fingers into the guns and ammo pie, especially the Punjabis. Shak and his associates were working on tightening up their connections with downtown Peshawar.

John tucked the gun safely away under his belt and sat up straight as the pigs began to walk towards the restaurant. They'd done their check and were coming over with an offer we couldn't refuse.

"Okay boys, you seen nuttin', you know nuttin'," Jimmy said, fingering some pay-off money.

Benny walked in first, wearing the scars of an arrest that went wrong (his left eye only closed half way) when a local dealer known as Herbie (after his love for VW jewellery), accidentally choked on his own cargo while being brought into protective custody. Benny still got his arse commended for bravery and simultaneously eradicated one of the less accommodating rival members of the local supply chain.

"Who owns a rusty Red and Silver Granada, registration GAN 95A?" He didn't acknowledge us - like I said, moody cunts. It was Pay Day.

At moments like this there's jack that seven Pak's and one tawa can do, so simultaneously, we turned out Jimmy.

"Teri ma ki phudd!" Jimmy shrieked, before address-ing Benny politely, "Just remembered - it's mine. Is there anything wrong, officer?"

"Yes sir, can you accompany us to your vehicle - we have a few matters to discuss."

"Teri gand phatti!" Riz said as Jimmy swallowed his pride and prepared to negotiate his get-out-of-jail fee.

John Evans re-lit the ganga. "I told him that car was going to get him noticed - prime-time gangsta like him, gotta keep your nose clean and shiny, so not to pick up attention like a muthafucka. Fuck him. We're discussing team tactics." He leant in so close that I could smell his sta-sof-fro. I noticed that he was keeping a good eye on the proceedings outside. "Okay, listen homies, that East-End thing. Don't worry about nuttin', it's something I'm handling alright. Tomorrow I'm belling some of my connections down Tottenham and Wood Green. Them crews owe me a couple. Plus Shak's got credit with boys back home. His connections check out solid all the way back to the Asian triangle. Your Bangla's want a rumble, we'll give them a fucking war."

I was convinced. If there's anything these gang-bangers have taught me is how much backups out there in times of crisis. Riz was unconvinced. "Bro, it takes time. Time to mobilise, get in numbers, roll in ammo. And them darkies are already out there, looking out for us."

"Easy homes. You got immunity for now. Ain't no one stepping into no hood to get at you, you can be assured of that. And how the fuck do you expect them to locate you out in them sticks. All you'se got to do is to keep your heads down for now."

Not true. Any gangsta with half a working brain-cell, could locate you in half a day. And Pinner - where the fuck is that? We was once out looking for two Lankan cunts once, who fucked Riz's baba's car. Riz had been banging one of their kuris - a fresh European bitch residing down Hammersmith, behind the Palais. You've seen the type - au-pairing through the summer, learning some speaka-de English down Ealing, nailed by the dozen by Bar-Madrid Paki's.

When the Lankan found out that Riz had been tunnelling down the same hole, he came over to have words with my man and spotted a nice metallic green B Reg Honda Accord, parked just outside where his bitch was lodging. Instead of growing the balls to confront my man - Riz would have turned him over quicker than a hot paratha - he threw a brick through the windscreen. It took us just six hours to find him - including a lunch break at Khan's in Bayswater (some lamb passandas and kulcha naan). First his work place, a BP garage in Putney (fuckin' predictable) told us where he normally hung out after work. The bar-bitch at his local, the Lounge in Barnes, told us where his best friend lived. His best friend, who didn't know what the fuck was what, told us which rock to find the Lankan under, and finally the Lankan's landlady, a rubbery old Indian bitch named Sweetie, told us that she'd seen him about five minutes earlier leaving over the back fence and pegging it down the street with his flatmate. We found him at 8:15 pm exactly, I even remember the day - Friday October 20th, 1989 - I know because Pakistan beat India. He was hiding in the shadows of a bus-stop three streets down, dark eyes and teeth peering out in fear, waiting for a number 75.

We left him where we found him - even stabbed his mate for holding his hand.

Of course, if the Bangla's did make it anywhere within a hundred metres of my pad, I was going to take it very personally and body bag the bastards. It ain't gangsta etiquette to get no family involved and I am willing to spend the rest of my days in the fuckin' slammer for baba and Sam.

We spotted Jimmy beaming a big ugly smile in our direction, he'd cut a deal with the law that would keep him sweet. He nodded at us then broke out some smokes which he proffered the officers who suddenly backed off.

"Oh fuck." Riz said. "Check this out. Oh man, the dumb fuck."

Jimmy dropped the smokes and plucked them up from the tarmac again. The speng were tensing up. Jimmy's cockiness was about to remove his immunity. Cockiness -the one thing guaranteed to fuck the fuzz off. In pig-talk, it's unreliability. But Jimmy's luck was with him, he did a few fancy moves and flew in through the front door a few minutes later with a fuckin' cape flapping behind his arse. Steve and Benny walked off without acknowledging us (like we were sewer rats), planning a few more Friday-night shake-downs.

"You is a lucky sonuvabitch." John said shaking his head, "A high-fiving, jive-talking, lucky fucking sonuvabitch! You don't deserve your fuckin' civil liberties."

Jimmy sat down with a big Clark Kent grin and counted out his change on the table. "What's eating you? Just because I was released without charge," he said as he piled the bucks into a neat pile. "Two hundred - Two-fifty bucks. And it's all here. All they wanted was info."

John steeled up a bit. Something was up but the dumb Pak shrugged it off. "Relax. No problems homie. I didn't tell em nuttin' they didn't already know. A little bullshit about last Friday night, round the back of Jacquelines, what happened with us and Steve the bouncer. But don't forget, we're talking about Steve and Benno." Suddenly he smiled, "Fuck man, all I told 'em was that we was 'the good old boys....'"

Proof, if any was needed, that law and order is dead down Wembley High Street. Jimmy wasn't serving life for his singing. In retrospect, John seemed eager to leave after that, so we evened the bill which came to over eighty quid. But the owner gave us a few more discounts over what he'd already given us and we ended up paying less than fifty.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

"Itnay dino kai baad - why you no come no more?" He asked in broken Punj-lish.

We tipped him enough for a fuckin' year of speaka-de English at Ealing College. You get Iqbal, not intimidated, not lookin' down on us, not getting all tight with his cutlery the moment we walked in like we was common thieves - unlike them posh cunts in Bombay Bazaar, Green Park. The moment we enter their establishment, their arse-holes pucker up like a spring - suddenly their shit smells better than ours. Consequently, we spent the rest of the night on the run as Jimmy managed to set the tablecloth on fire - by mistake.

It's a desi thing.

The brother who owns Shahi-Nan hails from Sialkot, like me, the cab driver from that night in Wealdstone, Multani. Unpolluted, unprejudiced, fearless and dignified. We stepped out of the restaurant ten foot tall. Ready to take on Bangladesh. While leaving Shahi Nan, an apni gave me a big smile. Didn't I say I was pretty?

We stepped into the Wembley night air. Three cars were parked outside, a Merc 300 SEL, a Jag XJS and a piece of shit. John slid out his Magnum and took aim at the Granada. "Me thinks me can take the other light out from this way, man."

Jimmy stuck his head under the gun sight. "Don't you dare, you fuckin' kunta kinte. That's my pride and joy - it's my Jhuk-mobile."

The gal would have to be blind, deaf and dumb with no sense of smell either to get shafted in that thing, or a goree. We were three steps away from the car when I saw three kalas dart past the top of the street. The Olympics weren't on, so I knew something wasn't right. From one end I spotted Mike's van coming down, from the other...

Before I opened my fucking mouth the whole fuckin' street exploded with lights and noise as, what must have been, every fuckin' pig, in the Wembley Park area that night, jumped us.

Three, count 'em, THREE riot vans blocked the top end near Wembley high street. Jimmy was still scratching his arse in shock even as the other side of the street began to fill up with pigs. Mike, the poor bastard didn't even have time to reverse out. They'd even bought out a helicopter in our honour. It buzzed past blinding us with its searchlights. At least twenty cars jammed the road, blocking every escape route. There was cunts shouting at us through their megaphones, telling us to get our dark arses down to the ground, put our hands up, and bend over ready to get shafted. Iqbal was standing at the door of the restaurant, staring helplessly. Some old bitch walking past with her doggie was having a cardiac arrest. And despite that, despite the surprise and every fucking pig they could bring down to play surprise, John Evans still got away. I saw him twice in the confusion. Once when he was calmly scaling a front stoop to a flat, then the next when he jumped over the roof of Shahi-Nan to a shop next to it, and over the side into the alley that runs behind the shops. I have never seen anyone, let alone John move so fuckin' fast - till that day.

The 'copter went off after John, but we knew he was free when it came back minutes later. The cunts had lost him. Now what about us. The pigs had jumped out of their cars and approached us slowly with guns pointing. Do you remember that scene in Butch Cassidy, where they get fucked by the Spanish army? That was us. I'd never been at the wrong end of a pig's gun, and they looked edgy. I got edgy, remembering Wealdstone. Some nervous fucker just had to trip on his trigger and one good-looking Paki corpse. All that shit outside Jimmy's car had been decoy work. They were sizing us up all the time.

As soon as they grabbed us, we got knocked around a bit. Jimmy got some mace in his face, all I can remember is getting winded by a baton. They pushed us, like a bunch of cunts against the arrest vans, searched us, cuffed us and bundled us in. I could see that they were looking for something. Some had gone back into Shahi Nan, no doubt to give the brother some grief, and a bunch of them were ripping into Jimmy's car. Till that week I'd avoided salt with the bull. Now this was twice in one week. What the fuck had happened to my luck. By this time more vans had turned up, and we were separated, one to a van. What incredible fucking crime we must have committed to get such luxury treatment. All I could think of was that the Bangla had expired. If that was the case, then this would the end of my story, because spar, I would now be doing push-ups in fucking Pentonville. The four pigs in my van didn't look like conversing too much, and I knew that at this time of night they get fuckin' mean, as if no one can see what happens at night. Jimmy was getting smacked up in his van, I could see the van rocking from here. I was hoping that Riz, the dumb fuck, had learnt his lesson from the other night. It was just round the corner to Wembley yard, it would have been quicker on my jacks, but it took the fuckin' pigs half an hour just to clear up their own fuckin' traffic jam and get us there.

The only person who talked to me through the entire process, was the copper who took my details and my prints. Name, Address, previous convictions, Tebbit's cricket-test. There was no one else to be seen. I was told I could make a call, and decided not to give baba a call and have him come round and pound my head in. I called Mina instead, but got through to an ansaphone, and hung up. I was given a three by three cell with a fifty-year-old kala, who called himself Jean Baptiste, and was seriously out of his head on some shit I've never heard of. He talked and talked all night. Telling me about fuckin' voodoo, shit he'd pulled, telling me how he'd been in the court of Papa-doc Duvalier, his personal witch doctor. How he'd learnt the art of Vodun and chopped up some whore ritualistically with a meat-cleaver last night in his flat in Dollis Hill, and dumped her head in Gladstone Park behind some bushes. I turned my back on the cunt and fell asleep. I knew tomorrow wasn't going to be much of a party, and we still had to get out and organise that ruck.
CHAPTER VI

KURIS

It was about 10:30 am. Released without charge. The magnanimous cunts even wished us a good day - the only way that was happening was if a copper's head was crushed under the wheels of a ten tonne lorry. I walked out like I'd been fucked up the arse. The other zombies were already out there in Barham Park right opposite the station. Workmen were setting up the fair. Prime check territory if you ain't with your folks. Every fuckin' year, the old man would drag us out here or fuckin' Pinner or the other fairs in Harrow and Brent, including Kingsbury. Why? Because it was British, it was cultured. Shit, even the old man had a strain of subjugation in him.

Riz and the other sprung apes were making the most of the sunshine, rolling up the largest seethen this side of Bob Marley. How the fuck did they arrange the maal within half a fucking hour of release? Simple. The fuzz hadn't checked our pockets and this was John's supply from last night.

"Them dozy chuts are fucking blind. In the real world, I'm doing a good three to five stretch." Riz said intoxicated, "You know I spent the entire fuckin' night rolling and lighting up, sharing them with some honky muthafucka in for joy-riding. Boy racer! My rep took a fuckin' dive when it came time to telling him why I was there. I couldn't say "I don't fuckin' know", so I tell him I popped a white muthafucka looked just like him! Stared him out like Eddie Murphy. Bhen-chaud ki gand phutt gayi!"

"And when I was out of Rizlas, around 4:30, I jumped his muthafuckin' arse. Kept me fuckin' occupied for hours. When they let me out, the poor wanker looked like a phuddi'd blown up in his face. 'He's run into a wall officer!' I said." Riz's knuckles were bloated through the beating he'd given the gora. Good for his morale and some early training for the ruck. He was sporting one or two shiners on his face too - refreshers for the ones from the Harrow beating - prime police brutality. But who the fuck your red-neck in judge's clothing gonna believe - your average racist in a suit or the Lahori Rodney King?

Of course when you're out of the joint, you don't give a fuck about no beating. You're just happy to have escaped the wheels of the system - which is why Riz weren't grieving as usual about the Cricket World Cup - for now.

I grabbed a blue pill, and pocketed one from one of the homies who'd also been released - Atul, ugly balding guggu, from Harrow on Hill. Riz and him had disagreements some time back, when he suspected Riz was banging his sister (completely true), but could never prove it. His family were fucking dodgy accountant millionaires, making millions money-laundering through India (including some media and sports stars and more). They had offices all over the UK, West Midlands, Sheffield, Glasgow, but his arse was tighter than a tramp's, so the pill was a victory. No idea what the pill was going to do, but anything's better than a headache.

"So where's Jimmy?" I asked. I knew something weren't right.

"Homie, if you weren't such a dumb fuck, I'd fucking stab you." Riz said in his usual laid-back manner, "All that shit from last night, what the fuck do you think that was about? Target practice? He's in there!" he pointed at Alcatraz.

"What? What's the brother doing in there?"

"Getting a fuckin' tan. What do you think. From what I hear, it's the next ten to fifteen."

It was probably the pill, but I had one of them fucking premonitions your paan-chewing daadi has every time she goes into a trance. I knew this was nothing to do with the Bangla's, no way the police were going to get a 'copter out for the community. But it was big and dumb.

"How dumb?" I asked.

"Armed robbery." Riz said shaking his head. "Them dozy chuuts did in a security van in Mile End two days ago." (the day we was looking for them). "Thirty Gs." Thirty thousand pounds,...that's 2.5 million rupees in real currency; we are talking a fort in Peshawar, armed guards and a fucking harem.

And the bruthas had got away with it. It turns out that for two whole days, they ran around the fuckin' streets with the fuckin' paisa stashed away at Jimmy's sister's down Hindes Road, Harrow. You know what the mampi bitch does - she goes and borrows nine hundred from the stash, after they expressly tell her not to go near it. She grabs a few "sehlis" and cruises down to Wembley to buy herself the most expensive Shalwar suit this side of Bombay. Paid for in crisp, new sequential ₤20 notes, courtesy of Securicor. The nosey bitch always had a problem sticking her oar in where it wasn't invited - in India she would have been a politician. The dumb fucks back at Scotland Yard could read this one with their fingers up their gands so they laid a trap. We sat and digested Roly Polys while they got ready to fuck us over. Benny and Steve had been decoys. They'd reverted to real-cop and used our trust to keep us there.

Riz shook his head, regretting the waste. "Man we've got to shop them cop muthafuckas. It's a fuckin' shame. If I had that cash, I'd have a cheap fucking whore from Heera Mundi chewin' my tuttay at this moment. Fuck, it'd be the whole fucking market down there."

Prime Paki thinking. Move fast. Nick and trip. Unlike your dim-witted brother up North choosing life, choosing to go down the pub and big it up. But when you got Jimmy at the helm of an operation...

But then again - "It weren't all Jimmy wasn't it?"

He looked at me as if I'd gone stupid. "Jimmy couldn't plan his way into an open chuut!" Riz replied. "Think again homie. This was Securicor."

Riz had a point, Jimmy was your brawn, a pure human pile-driver. Securicor was beyond his league. I did a quick body count, scanned the MIA. There was Jimmy, John  
and....

"Mike? Shit!"

"Mike was the getaway driver. Jimmy and John held up the fuckin' van." Riz said, "That's three! Fuckin' disgusting that - how they all got trapped." He puffed some more contemplatively. "It's amazing how co-operative the coppers were this morning once I told them the Eastenders were planning a riot."

Shit! Three prime crew members, half way to brotherhood, out for ten to fifteen if convicted - somehow didn't seem real. And we'd lost backup for fight night. Fighting men with contacts. The only consolation -Jimmy was now closer to his brother. I was getting that fucked-by-the-system feeling. Plus that shit Atul had poured down my veins had begun to break-dance around my synapses.

"Respect where respect's due," Riz told me, "they were planning to check out the World Cup."

"So what happened?"

"That's the fuckin' joke, homie. They ain't there because Jimmy delayed it. Just because he was sorting it with Leila, the bitch from Manchester. He had tickets for this Saturday, Asian Superstars with Madhuri, Salman and the other Bollywood wankers at the Arena."

Typical. A bitch enters the equation and your world fucks up, your stars go out of alignment, it's the one fucking truth of the Universe. In this case two bitches, and you're out for ten to fifteen.

Mbela entered the park, holding his Ericcson to his head - conference call to Columbia or some other drug capital - looking like Jah Rastefari himself. Six foot eight browning with dreads down to his arse, a line of gold teeth that could bite through metal. Imagine you were the thief who broke into his yard, few years back. Down comes Mbela, his umma (a big, black Nigerian mama), his two brothers, Lucias and Ian, both massive body builders, and not forgetting his baap who organises pitbull events round the back of Wembley. About half an hour later, the thief jumped into the arms of the arresting police officers who knocked on the door to the sound of a solid beating.

"Jah man, I heard you got raided last night?" Mbela said, keying in more numbers into his mobile.

"Damn right we did. Fucked by the system once again." Riz replied. "Didn't fuckin' see you there."

Mbela checked around, the smart fuck he is. "They got Jimmy and Mike, right? Mile End?" he guessed.

"Yeh, armed robbery. How did you know?"

"I know, man. It was fuckin' Securicor, 1:30, Mile End. It was coming out of the city with about thirty-nine Gs on its way to the Bank of England. Dumb fucking move. I told them!"

"You knew bro?" Riz asked. "Why didn't you say nuttin'?"

Mbela looked back at the yard. Mike and Jimmy were getting processed for the courts twenty feet under in the basement holding cells. "I was the fuckin' getaway driver," he said.

Riz sat up. "You backed out!"

Mbela didn't have to say nothing. No-one gives his word then backs out at the last minute. At this moment Mike and Jimmy were getting ready to service half the she-male population of Pentonville. I'd only spent two nights in the pen, and that was as close to the system as I'm ever going to be. We found it was because of this cunt, Mbela was guaranteed a blade between the ribs.

Mbela knew what was in our heads and shook his head, "Spar, I ain't no rat. I back my blood up two hundred percent. Ask anyone. You know I see an opportunity, I take it. But this was fuckin' wrong from the top, I wus telling them - security vans, broad daylight, no plan, no escape route - the fuckin' pigs thrive on this shit. You can smell their fuckin' hard-ons a mile away. I keep warning them to keep their dumb fingers out of this one. It was too ambitious. And now look what's happened."

He knew what he was saying. They weren't getting out. Fifteen years in hell. Living like animals with animals. And when they do finally release you, you ain't the same. You've been institutionalised, brutalised, homogenised - like high school. I've seen it with Mike's dad, I've seen it with my eldest cousin - he got twenty-five bringing in habshi halwa down the golden route, back in the sixties. Driving down from Pak, through Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Europe. Got fucked over in Dover. Got out in '89, hanged himself in '91. Believe me, that ain't no justice - just a politician's handle to subjugate the lower classes. Chop off a fuckin' hand, birch the bastards, but prison's sordid. That's when it really hit me and all the others. Riz looked like he wanted to cry. I knew that the rest of the day was going to be messy - pity the poor Greenhill college cunt who gets in our way.

Mbela hit the redial on the Ericcson. "I can't get hold of John Evans. I've checked every single one of his hideouts. No response from his ho, his family, even the mother of his boy down Tottenham got no idea where he at. My man is lying real low." There was a slight possibility that John Evans had been caught but not processed by the pigs yet. But there was no point in waiting. We weren't going to find out anything in Barham park

"I can't believe that cunt!" Riz whispered. "standing here so righteously." He jumped up, ready to administer some Greenhill therapy, and I tailed him - the thought of two homies in the joint was bad enough without Riz being slammed up also for grinding down some worthless school-shit. Besides, I was glad to get out of there. Wembley Park's grim enough without having to face them Zombies. Riz had a plan, but he was holding it closer to his chest than a pair of 36DDs.

On the 182 to Harrow, we sat behind a couple of young kuris off to college. The bitches were already giving us sucki-sucki before we'd even sat down. One turned around and shamelessly smiled at us, "You're Gaggy's mate aren't you - Imran?"

Whatever happened to sharam and the duppattas back in those 1950s' Bollywood films? Girls barely old enough to suck lulla were making moves on us.

They introduced themselves to our dicks. "I'm Priti", "and I'm Soraya", they giggled.

They were both about seventeen, Greenhill kuris who lived at the posh end of Wembley, Sudbury Town, off to a maths lesson in Greenhill. But maths don't compare to two superfly gangstas and their rock-steady lullas.

Priti's dirty brown nipples were pointing at me, sticking out of her shirt. "We hate maths," she said, "We're only going because it's the only way Soraya's brother lets her out of the house." You had better be a fuckin' corpse not to notice the invitation. Soraya was on the game too. She was wearing blue contacts - on an Asian bitch that's as good as a pair of open legs. Priti, as it turns out, was related to Gaggy distantly. Her dad worked as a jeweller and had just sold some electrical equipment to Gaggy she told us, especially colour printers and other shit. We had no idea what the fuck Gaggy was up to.

We arranged to meet them after their lessons at about 2:00 in St Ann's restaurant on the first floor. Riz didn't have to say anything to me. I knew in no uncertain terms that we were taking care of the kuris behind the thousand-year-old Harrow-on-the-Hill cemetery and church, where you could do unimaginable jhukking for hours and no-one would ever walk past. Plus you get bored you had views to make you cum - Watford in one direction and London in the other. If this didn't cheer Riz up, he could go and blow a hole in his fuckin' head. I would have dumped the sonuva-kuti a long time ago but where would I go? Plus we had some work to do first.

Riz's plan became apparent the moment we headed down College Road, back to Wealdstone, arse-end of Harrow. I mean what is there in Wealdstone, apart from Lahori, DSS, Civic Centre library (dirty, dirty kuris), and John Sullivans, the fuckin' weirdest grocery shopping experience ever? At the front you get all the fruit, bread and healthy crap, in a back room that used to be a toilet, he's set up this porn thing - mags for fags and army shit, like knives and cross-bows - fucked up many a rival. But you know the freak well enough, and he'll provide you with all the guns and ammo you need - ex-army, extra-deadly. Riz weren't pinning his life on what John Evans or Shak were saying, he was organising his own insurance policy right now.

Before we took two steps, we got intercepted outside the Debenhams by Salman, one of the Stanmore college sandwiches. We supplied the dope-fiend with occasional backup when he fucked up with dealers or other students harder than him which was almost every week like clockwork, especially by about Thursday, when he'd had enough time to piss almost everyone off in college. In return for protection, he got us into college, hooked us up with ho infested parties and into Harrow Leisure centre, for a spot of pool on Wednesdays when Harrow Tech was normally dead.

He was on the run again today, hiding out in Greenhill where his squeeze did French and Business.

"Who is it today?" Riz asked.

"Kam." Riz looked at me. "That brutha got it in for me man. Just because he say, I owe him some bucks."

Now I ain't Kam's biggest fan, but chances were that it was Salman who'd pulled a prime skank. Still I'd rather see my blade sticking out of Kam's backside, so we took Salman's word for it.

"Salman, I ain't sayin' you don't deserve it, because you do. You're a skankin' muthafucka who's going to go too far and end up in a ditch, but you're also a lucky muthafucka, because at this particular moment, I'm in a fairly generous frame of mind, and when that happens good things happen to those who deserve it. And you are the one who deserves it aren't you?"

Salman didn't understand my question. His eyes were dilated, his forehead covered with sweat, he was rapping at a hundred words a second. Whatever he was on wasn't helping. "Cool, cool, cool man. Kam's blowing down Kenton later on today. He told me to meet him there with the bucks.... But now - Listen bruthas, I owe you my life. Anything I can do for you, anything. Parties, ho's, you name it!"

We smiled. Salman would also occasionally, very occasionally, hook us up with some 'exotic maal', just for a bit of variety. He looked poor today, but Riz tried it on anyway.

"Tsssk, easy guy," Salman said focussing in with his fake South Bronx accent, "What do I look like? Fuckin' huggy bear. I ain't into that shit, y'all."

"And I ain't into stabbing your arse with a chisel boy," Riz said, "so don't make me fuckin' do this and cough up."

A threat or two later, he'd produced some harmless looking strips from his pocket, which I recognised immediately, courtesy of some dodgy cunts I knew way back when, in high school - Tony Green and Andy Whitfield, the only Goray I didn't try and stick my blade into. Dopeheads with enough knowledge of drugs to get them an honorary PhD - if they weren't behind bars. One got done for cheque-book fraud, and the other - yeh you guessed it - dealing, outside our old school, returning the favour to the establishment. It took Riz a kick up the backside to latch on to exactly what Salman was offering us. We were both acid-virgins, and Riz shat a big brown brick before agreeing to try it. Well, when you've heard a hundred different stories from a hundred different bastards, half of them talking out of their arse, you believe them all, until you've tried it.

We grabbed the tabs and pulled up on Harrow-on-the-Hill, leaving Salman breathing for now. We'd visit John Sullivans later. The college and cars looked like fucking matchboxes. It was a fuckin' amazing day...if you weren't banged up!

We took out a light and had a drag of blow each, in honour of the bro's who weren't with us any longer. We finished off Riz's stash before taking the tabs. I took one and Riz, feeling brave, dropped the other two. He carried on puffing some B&Hs, while the acid began to take effect. It took a little time before the cars on the road below started doing the loop the loops around the sun, and the hill started jumping like a big fucking camel. But then for four hours, we sat there buzzing on the hill and believe it or not, all them hours Mina accompanied my thoughts.

When the buzz died down, Riz was chasing some Gayton High schoolers down the hill, brandishing a twelve inch blade, shouting "Ya dissin me? I'll fuckin' bowl you out of the fuckin' cup!" I grabbed Riz and pulled him back to the shopping centre. It was 1:00 and the kuris were already there, waiting like obedient puppies, sharing a milkshake. Asian bandis were all the rage. Goris you could do in nursery, but the Asians were just coming on-line. For centuries they've been stuck behind their saris, and now they're out of the kitchens, and boy, are they hungry, going through some kind of sexual revolution. But really, who gives a toss. All I care about is the fact that you could get bitches as solid as Priti and Soraya and jump them the day you found them.

And they'll run through the same routine; "you're only my second, the first lasted three years but it didn't work out. He wanted to marry me, but his family...." EVERY BITCH I ever met - same story.

Bull-fuckin'-shit!

Asian gals who've accepted one lora, ain't gonna stop at two or three. I could write a fuckin' thesis on the subject. You don't believe me, review the evidence:

CASE 1

Ashit from North Harrow, a gal I met round about the time I was getting to know the bad boys. She gave me her cherry routine, just arrived from Uganda (parents got deported by uncle Idi). A big Zulu bone through her nose, no friends, no speaka-de English, bullshit, bullshit.... She chewed my lulla on our third meeting. I didn't even know her name when she grabbed my tutts, on that big wheel that goes up and down at Wembley Mela. When I banged her, her phuddi was looser than a wet chuppatti. And she was only thirteen. A few years later, she got sent up for dumping her dead baby in a wheelie bin after one of your Sun-newspaper home-brewed abortion cases.

CASE 2

Sharmila at Willesden college. Some homies occasionally hang out at the college when the weather's bad. Sharmila's in one of their classes - fiesty bitch. The day she had her hymen stretched, it was by three salivating gangstas including my mate Takky, round her apartment in Wealdstone when ammi and abbu were visiting the Taj Mahal.

CASE 3

The worst - This is what Indian nightmares are made of. Tina used to chill with us before getting married. Safe style booty-gal. We went down to Manchester to watch a Pakistan-India charity match (which incidentally Pakistan was winning until the riot). It's three in the morning, we're on the M6, heading back to London and Tina gets wet after watching the Pakistani boys, Wasim and Waqar. Well. what would any self-respecting home boys do? We did her one by one in a lay-bye with all the lorries screaming past blowing their horns. The sad bit is, she was due to fly out to Hyderabad to get arrange marriaged a week later. She brings him back, and we meet up a few weeks later at Jaquelines. Her husband's a typical Lahori Norman Wisdom, a certifiable cherry on their wedding ki raat. And the way he was holding her, with pride, while she introduced him to us one by one, the dirty kutti. And the humiliating piss we took behind the banda's back - no fuckin' respect. Eight months later, she delivered a smart looking son-of-a-bitch, with them Ali-Khan warrior eyes. I swore at that moment that if I ever married a ho, take a bullet to my head.

CASE 4

Not that it's any of your business, but Mina was the easiest pull I've ever had. Soni bandi, but I banged her in the club, half an hour after I met her and I wasn't even the first that night. And that's when I realised two things:

1) Anything a bitch says before you bang her is a fuckin' lie. Everything she says after that is generally the truth. Bitches are weird.

2) Everything a homie says to a bitch is a fuckin' lie, ALWAYS. Before, during and after a jhuk. Even that bullshit they say, just when the lassi's flowing, I love you and all that embarrassing shit – it's bullshit!!! You're only saying it because your dick's made your mind weak - it takes about twenty seconds before you recover and regret.

Sometimes a gangsta go and do fucked up things. Here are these two fresh kuris, ripe for the taking, and I go and call up Mina's yard, half-knowing she was at work at the Estate Agents. As I fed the coins into the BT, something was bugging me, besides the acid. Fuckin' sensible thoughts that I regularly ignore. I couldn't believe it when she answered. She was taking half a day to sort out some crap in the house and I told her I was coming over. I went and grabbed my darkers from Riz. Priti and Soraya gave me a dirty stare as I made my move, three made it awkward, but not impossible. The grindsman already had his hand working down Soraya's front, and wasn't ready to take it out. So I decided to leave my man for a while knowing he wasn't going to cause much damage with his flies down. I didn't tell Riz that he was sitting three tables away from the Bangla's who were on the bus that day.

John Sullivans' only a fifteen minute walk. Taking a slight detour I decided to put in an order for some of the SAS's finest, but when I got there my streak of bad luck struck me again. He'd been closed down. There was even an eviction notice from the cunts at the council - it was that Bengali hex again - mash their brains in, seven years of bad luck. I needed some joy.

I hit Mina's about 1:30. The workmen were leaving and she was standing there in her track suit, bubbay sticking out a mile. Her neighbour, Mr Patel the no good dirty sonuvabitch retired accountant, was standing there watering his weeds, undressing her with his thick NHS X-ray specs.

He seemed upset to see me arrive. These hypocritical old cunts get all indignant when young upni girls grow the balls to live on their own, but the moment the family's down some Garbar, they're round your house with a fuckin' stiffy in their pockets, trying to grab a handful of action, assuming you're vulnerable and you won't tell anyone. He didn't know Mina. The only reason why Patel didn't have a blade sticking out of his liver already was that Mina wanted him breathing.

But he was going to get it sooner or later. He was already giving it one of them "dirty musli, messing around with our girls" stares as I walked up the garden path, "What's wrong with my vegetarian dosa?" he was thinking, ugly bald cunt.

There was workman shit everywhere in her pad. They'd just fixed a leak in her roof and she was cleaning up. But I could tell she wasn't in any mood to work, the way she kept picking up the same bucket and moving it back and forth, so we checked out her back yard.

She bought out some coke (she didn't drink because I was there). We sat on some chairs, and started playin'. I was getting a little jiggy with her bubbay, so she lifted up her top for me to see them. They were bigger than I remembered, none of that hairy shit, like that bitch Tina from that night. This gal was clean and shaven all over, almost like a Pak. My hand went wandering over her other shaven areas. All of a sudden, Patel came out the back, the bald cunt, pretending to have some work to do in the back yard, but Mina didn't try and hide her tits. I carried on sucking them, licking them round the dark edges, when suddenly she shouts out:

"Oi mate, you gotta problem?"

I looked up, thinking for a second she was talking to me, not tending to her aeriolae properly but she was looking over to Patel's house. The cunt had quickly turned his back and was looking down at his lawn mower, but a few seconds later a bald head came up again.

I was up like a shot and almost jumped over the fuckin' fence in the first leap. Patel ran back and took a defensive posture by grabbing a spade and bringing it up like a girl holding a hockey stick. I took my blade out, ran it along the fence.

"Yeh that's right you weedy cunt, finally met your match. Come here so I can stab you, you bald faggot - now!" Patel bricked himself, as the colour drained from his pale face. "C'mon now, I'll fuckin' slit you from ear to ear."

I could see he was looking for a way out - without coming out too much pussy, but I wasn't going let him have it that easy. He needed a good lesson whipped into him. These dirty Asian cunts are all the same. They fuck over their wives and kids, beat the shit out of them, molest their daughters. But someone like me points a fuckin' knife at them, they leave a trail of shit behind. No tuttay at all.

Suddenly, just for a second, it looked like my man actually grew some balls. He stood up straight and glared at me, "Don't you talk like that to me, you Pakistani ghunda or I'll call the police," he was shouting across the fence, with the neighbourhood dogs barking.

I just got angrier. "Call the police you dumb prick. Nothing they can do, I'm already a fugitive (I lied). I'm comin' over to fuckin' stab you now, just wait a second while I open the side gate. And when your fuckin' sons get home, I'll fucking do them in too, you fuckin' chuppati eating khem-cho cunts."

Mina reminded me from behind to watch my mouth.

Patel nodded in agreement. "Your kind don't intimidate me. You just got potty mouth."

"POTTY MOUTH!!! You fuckin' come here and I'll give you a fuckin' Columbian neck-tie, you fuckin' potty-head!" I don't know if he understood what the fuck that meant, but his tuttay disappeared as quick as they had appeared, right up his arse as he dropped his spade and ran in. Ten seconds and out for the count.

Mina was up and beginning to head back inside her pad. I helped her take her chairs in, pretending to regret the whole khem-cho incident. She placed the chair down in the lounge and stared at me. "Home boy, if you aks me, Patel's had it coming for some time. That fucking pest best be leaving me alone now, or I'm talking to Auntie. Thanks Imran, I owe you one."

I felt twenty feet tall, if only all women were like that. Understanding that whatever we did, we did it for the right reason. "Oi, Mina, just say it and I'll cut his legs off."

Mina grabbed my nuts and kissed my mouth. We jhukked for the rest of the afternoon in the spare room upstairs because her own bed was full of shit after the leak. It was a fucking amazing experience as I pounded her phuddi out - not least that my system was pumped up with all the shit from Barham park and Harrow Hill. My dick was harder than a bulletproof vest. I ain't no teg-a-reg, but that trip just kept going and going, like a fuckin' duracell lighting up your sixth sense. If you ain't ever done it with acid, I fuckin' recommend it. But don't try and stick your head off the edge of the bed or it'll look like you're jhukking at the peak of a fucking canyon.

At about six, she cleaned up and fixed some food, a curry of sorts, though not necessarily better than a Paki one, but it would do. Bhindi-ka-salan, pitta naan, dahey barey and chai. Just the thing, after some LSD and an afternoon's jhuk. And when I was at my weakest and most exposed, she pulled a prime bitch trick, just what every bitch has done since the start of time. She swapped personalities and played her trump card. "So where's the others? Your fucking chipkus?"

Reclining back on the goa-takya, it took a second for me to understand her line of questioning. "Hey, that's my homies you're jammin' about, woman."

"If your fuckin' homies were so fuckin' homely, you wouldn't turn up at my gate every three days with your eyeball hanging out of its socket, your face cut up like a dog."

"They ain't got nuttin' to do with my decisions. I make them on my own."

"Do you? That night when you was with that harami Riz, you fuckin' almost died, if I hadn't backed down."

"Listen Mina, don't play me, bitch. I told you I back up my blood one hundred percent I don't back out like certain other bastards with weaker resolve might do." I thought back to Mbela.

"Listen to you. You sound so fuckin' pathetic, thinking you've got some wonderful patriotic philosophy. Imran, just grow up and look around. There ain't no one but you here. The other bastards ain't really backin' nuttin', they're just gonna get you anywhere but killed."

That was it. What do you say when a bitch has fed you and bedded you? Nuttin'. I got up to leave. Stuck my lulli behind my tracksuit bottom, grabbed my trainers.

"Imran, don't be a harami like your motherfuckin' friends. Sit down and eat."

I grabbed a seat again, glad that I could finish the dahi barey chaat for now. I'd walk out on her when my stomach was happy. To fill the time, I told her about the arrests the night earlier. She listened to me like any bitch does - with an opinion. Again, thinking I was on the ropes, she tried her feminist tactics, "Listen Imran, you're not like them. You're much better than them. I've seen you when you're away from them. You talk, you think. Not like that fucking Riz. He's an uncontrollable animal - I'm telling you now, if you hang out with him, you'll end up destroying yourself. You'll end up dead. Look Imran, I'm saying this through experience. You know about my brother."

I was getting a migraine from all the theory. I know she thought she was doing right. All bitches do. But for a bitch to understand a brother, she got to grow a fuckin' lulla and a shiny pair of tuttay.

"Riz is my brother. I owe him my life. Plain and simple."

"You owe him jack! Go to the World Cup, go to Pakistan, just get some fresh air. You never know, you could get out of all this shit once and for all."

I shook my head. "Maybe I will, one day. But not yet. It's too soon. And there's something I got to do first." We didn't say much more than that. Mina knew the deal with the Bangla's, and she knew I was going to go through with it and I knew it was getting time to leave. I'd overstayed my welcome. Mina even turned frigid on me on the doorstep. All she said was "You can still get out of this."

She closed the door before I could reply. "Next time you're dying, running around with half your fuckin' brains pounded out, don't crawl to my fuckin' doorstep."

I pulled out an Orbit, stuck it in my mouth and left. I could hear the Patels arguing. Prumila home, after working her fingers to the bone, earning for that cunt's retirement, and now he was taking it out on her with his fists. But now I wasn't in the caring mood, I had wasted enough time.

I've never turned my back on my blood, and I wasn't going to start now. It was time to regroup the troops and launch a pre-emptive strike. I blew the biggest bubble of my career.
CHAPTER VII

GENERALS

I grabbed a crew which were conveniently situated at Traveller's Rest, just fifty yards down the road. They looked restless and eager. The day's rest, where no doubt they'd all be up to no good, seemed to have done them good. Atul, balding ugly guggu was there, so was Kash and Jav. They pointed out Gaggy, still waiting for that call, sitting smugly in Berni Inn in the other half of the pub, ordering posh shit for some drooling bitch. Roshni was probably off, sucking his uncle.

He was playing hard to get on account of the bitch being on the better side of Ashwaria. And I really didn't want to spoil it for the homie, but I had a plan, and this bitch was in the way. I sat down and ordered half a pig. He knew that I ain't no swine eater and got the message. Reluctantly he made an excuse, and instead of heading towards the loos, we took the first exit, leading to the hotel and the car park, leaving the bitch to sort out the bill. The other homies were already in Gaggy's uncle's van, having jump-started it. Sometimes my boys do me proud. Now for the last link in the chain, the mad muthafucka himself.

"Man, I've been trying to get hold of Riz all day, and he's been indisposed." Gaggy said.

For a second, I had an image of two frustrated Greenhill bitches burying his exhausted body in Harrow cemetery. Then I remembered. Today was Friday. Cricket night. Riz was at his yard alright, but he weren't answering the phone. Because on cricket night, Riz can be as mean as a puppy with a bone in its mouth. Fuck it, in order for this plan to work, we had to have our share of mad muthafuckas. Before we could pull away, I saw a dark shape jump into the van. It was Salman, sandwich to the masses.

What the fuck was he doing here?

He didn't seem to know himself. Seems he'd spotted me posing in the rear-view mirror, and decided that he wanted to hang with some harder company. But this wasn't like he'd expected. He was sitting in the back surrounded by two hundred bottles of prime Smirnoff and three surprised gangstas. For 'surprised gangstas', read 'about to get very fucked off, and stab the intruder gangstas. Before we could say a damn thing, Gaggy scratched his arse and revved the engine.

"Okay any more cunts wanna free ride?"

He slammed the door and we fucked off to get a dog off a bone. Inside the restaurant, we could see a seriously fit bitch, arguing with a waiter - man I wouldn't have left her for nuttin'.

We screeched and swerved round the streets of Harrow and Sudbury till we got up to Riz's yard. Sure enough, the Honda Accord was parked outside and a warm glow of Friday night cricket emanating from the front room as they were no doubt settling in to an evening of World Cup drama. Not if five homies and a sandwich had their way.

By now, all the homies were seriously trippin' out of their heads - I mean to have bastards with such weak resolve surrounded by prime French imports...well it was like a priest in a whorehouse. Even Gaggy who was shouting at the others all the way to keep their hands off his maal, had a Southern Comfort handily stashed away between his 'nads. Salman was making himself at home, labba mout' fucking off everyone and getting this close to a stabbing. They still didn't know who the fuck he was, each one assuming that he had something to do with the other.

"Oi cherry," Gaggy said, "seeings that you've just got a free ride and all that. Be a acha bacha and get that muthafucka Riz out of his abu's lap."

Now that was asking for a stabbing. I pulled the pussy back into the van and hopped out myself for a bit of fresh air and some relief at the side of the van - it stank like piss from the inside anyway. Riz's little brother Khalid answered. Before he could come out with some bullshit, I was in the living room, getting the remote out of Riz's hand and his cup of cocoa out of the other.

After some gentle persuasion and every muthafucking cuss known to mankind, Riz was in the van, fuming. We drove off, his father hollering down the street, calling us a bunch of mindless cunts. It took us about ten minutes to calm Riz down.

For once, it was Salman who came up trumps and did the right thing. As I turned around, I saw Riz transferring something to his mouth. No doubt some more exotic "maal" - with acid you've got your own personal satellite dish tucked upside your head, with Sky Sport, Red Hot Dutch and Asian TV all rolled into one.

By the time I'd explained my plan to the gangstas, they were looking more enthusiastic. Gaggy pumped some more gas into the fucked 1200cc Ford engine as we headed out towards the A40. Feeling braver, Salman slapped Gaggy on the back and tried to give directions. Gaggy gave Salman a look that would have made a pitbull shit its lower intestine. Salman wasn't as smart.

"Yo, homie, hang a left here. I just want to pick up something from Jack, my cousin who lives up Ealing Road. I can't wait for him to see who I'm fucking hanging out with today."

Two seconds later you were going to see sliced Paki chunks flying out of a fucked up white Ford. That is, if he hadn't mentioned "Jack's in a tagging crew - he's got shit that'll put fireworks into your plan."

Gaggy screeched around Ealing Road and slammed the brakes just outside Jack's yard, waking up the dead. We tried to get hold of Mbela, unsuccessfully for this mission, while we waited. No luck. With Jack's stash safely in the car, we moved towards London. We passed through Baker Street, Euston Square and Portland Street without incident. It was when we entered Kings Cross and went on towards Finsbury that the traffic jam of human scum began to slow us down. The pimps and ho's were having a funfair all the way down Pentonville Road. A half nekkid Somalian looking ho tried to jump into the back of the van, shrieking some mad shit in Martian-voodoo. She ran off as a big pumped up Gladiator-type mad looking muthafucking pimp bounded down the road, holding a dirty grey kitchen knife, trying to carve his name into his property. The homies looked out like tourists in Disneyland. Atul and Gaggy were developing huge smiles, ready to jump out for a day excursion. Except Riz, too busy sniffing his arse experimentally. We pressed on.

About fifteen minutes later, the ominous slums of East London began to show up. It was still early on Friday night, so people were about. We parked up on Shoreditch, and threw out the empties. Two hundred bottles of whiskey didn't seem enough.

Freaks and cunts that you'd only see in the gutters of Wembley came and went with regularity There were Bangla's galore mixed alongside the usual Pak's. But mostly harmless budday and buddis. All the yut was out playing in Leicester Square. Gaggy freshened his breath with some Southern Comfort and peered into his side mirror.

"Bro, check this out," he whispered, "wankers, due south." He'd spotted two or three Bangla yoot coming this way. "Looks like them Shoreditch boys."

I turned to look. They were all wearing the baggy jeans, the baseball caps, gold rings and gangsta cuts. In the back of the van the dogs had begun pulling out weapons while draining Gaggy's stock. From fuck knows where, Riz pulled out a machete. Kash and Jav had serrated army knives, while Atul pulled out a hammer. Salman meanwhile, looked for a hole to crawl into. Suddenly out of nowhere, something happened - the worst thing that a gangsta could possibly imagine.

"Could you step out of the van please sir. You and all the others in there...."

I don't exactly know how the fuck we did it - whether it was all our ammi's prayers or what. But we walked away free that day. The coppers who stopped us - copper one was a bitch, and they don't really count in the world of crime-fighting, was hailed on the radio, some fuckin' riot going on in some pub, half a block away. Arsenal had probably fucked up again. They ran off, leaving us behind, with weapons stuck down our pants. Riz came this close to slicing his pride of Punjab off with his churee.

"Make sure you're not around when we come back," the copper warned us as they sped off.

"Yes, massa!"

We piled back into the van and headed for the West End. We began circling Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden looking for trouble, getting chucked out of BK by a big kala bouncer, who we scheduled in for a slashing some other time. It was getting late, and we still had business in the slums.

Heading back to the van, I spotted Mina with some mates of hers outside the Troc. She was standing there with Kam. I stopped in my tracks as my jaw hit the ground. After all that shit she gave me about sorting my fuckin' life out.

Gaggy saw it too; "Yo, my man is playing hopscotch with your woman again, man. Aww, shame boy."

Without thinking, I jumped in front of the traffic, crossed the road, blind to the Limo's, the tourist buses, the horns blaring, picked the sonuvabitch up from behind, pulled him over the barriers by the scruff of his 555 T-shirt and bounced him on his head. The tarmac had cracks in it as the wanker collapsed, one eye staring at Eros, the other at Ms. Saigon's tits.

"Bitch, it's over!" I said to Mina, and fucked off to the other side, before I listened to her lies. She was screaming at me from across the road as I got back to my homies.

"I can't believe you just did that home boy," Gaggy shrieked, "I can't believe you left the harami breathing!"

Riz weren't looking too amused, "Finished, you pussy whip? Then can we fuck off. I'm missing an evening of World Cup Cricket for this shit. Just get there and fuck them Eastenders." It was time to give Riz some more sedatives. Mina had gone quiet, but I still didn't turn to acknowledge her.

The time we hit Shoreditch again, total desolation. Not surprising considering it was about 3:30. Even the tramps had crawled back into the sewers. So we hadn't found the boys in question, but because of Salman, we now had plan-B. It was just us and Bangla-town - the East End. And it was time to gig.

As we waited quietly in the van, Gaggy grabbed my nuts and squeezed them, "Looks like you're jacking it off on your lonesome tonight, innit bro. No ho' to polish and shine it." I pushed the dirty bastard back, jumped out of the van, readjusting my lulla. Stood in front of Shoreditch Tandoori as the stench of all the unflushed leftovers hit me. I grabbed a quick peek down the menu, not that I'd be ordering here, long time coming.

Now before I go on, you've got to take it from me. I ain't got anything against no one. Not a soul. We are all brothers under the skin. We are all a rhythm nation - and fuckin' Bangla's more than anyone. Shit, we were One Nation about twenty years back, united by God, Jinnah and Country, until the fucking Indian army marched into Chittagong and broke our back in two.

But a homie got street cred to consider. And when you got a crew out there, bragging about getting you whacked, dragging your name through the mutti, you don't sit at home, watching India getting whipped by Pakistan. You get out there, grab their fucking challenge by its balls and rip it out.

"Okay, this will do." I said lining myself up against the front.

"What will do?" Gaggy walked up to the window and looked down at the menu, "Murg Dopiazi, Tandoori Batera, Chapli kebabs." He stared at me. "It's a feast fit for a Guru."

Riz came up and joined us too, looking extremely vexed by now. He looked at the menu with disgust.

"Fuckin' dog food. Will you get a fuckin' move on, you boring fucks. I mean Pakistan could be thrashing India by now, and we're here, wazzing off over a menu."

He grabbed the traffic cone from my hands that I'd picked up, and calmly threw it, javelin-style, through the front window. We strolled over to the next shop, Jansher's cash and carry - prime Bengali food, at rip-off London prices and waved its front door goodbye. A Reebok bounced off its doorframe as the door creaked off its hinges, and crashed back. There was nothing in there worth looting, except Patak's finest. We scanned the street, no movement. Next door, yet another Tandoori restaurant - just how many fuckin' Tandooris did they have? Some survey sometime back says there are more Tandooris in London than there were in fuckin' downtown Juhu - who gives a fuckin' shit, they all taste the fuckin' same!

Five minutes later, alarms from twenty shops or more were sounding and we decided to chip. We jumped into Gaggy's uncle's van, to the chorus of approaching sirens. Salman dived in, having done his artistic thing. We sped off like Batman shooting out of Robin's arse. The Bangla we ran into at the end of Osborn (more like ran over), was a final bonus for a very successful night of Gangstahood. He was crossing the street. Gaggy wasn't looking where he was going and "ping!", another candidate for ER.

Phase one of my plan was complete. Now it was time for phase two. All over Bangla town we'd etched our indelible invitation over the cracked 1920s' slummed out brickwork, under the metal rail pass, on the iron gratings that surrounded the shops, all over the Bangla cruise-mobiles. "The Harlseden Posse is lookin for ya, 92."

The arch over the door to The Bay of Bengal Restaurant, premier Bangladeshi dining spot, endorsed by Time Out three times in three years, we'd scribbled the following invite "Rave of the 90s, DJ Goli and Chakhu. Bring your own shanks!"

Fuck Hallmark, a better invitation we could not have made.

Now to Phase two....Phase two was easy. We just waited for them to come to us. It was the night that Pakistan lost its match against India.

At five in the morning when we'd satisfied all the possibilities of Star-Kebab, Earl's Court, I jumped out at my yard. The other homies screeched off hooting and waking the entire hood up. Who gives a fuck. It was Guggu accountants and Jewish Rabbis anyway. As long as baba weren't stirred from his beauty sleep, otherwise it'd be his joota and my head.

The telly was on, and someone was sitting there. Immediately, I knew it wasn't my father, otherwise the antiquated 1920s' tea-machine and shisha hookah smelted in Azad Kashmir would have been working over time, and it would have been my head. It was Sam. Now will you tell me what the fuck a ten year old - with a cataract - is doing up watching TV at five in the morning.

"They're showing a live match from Australia," she told me, "I want to see if I can see Wasim Akram."

"Baba's not going to be happy."

Sam gave me a look that was pure gangsta. "Let me get this straight bhai-ji. Baba don't tell me what to do. No one do. They only tell you. When Pakistan plays - no-one's going to stop me from watching my team. Not baba, not Bhutto, nuttin' and no-one!".

I was impressed. Not only by that ferocious loyalty (my training), but crossing baba, was aiming the gun and priming the trigger. But Sam knew what was what. Riaz Ali-Khan weren't going to lift a finger on his one and only daughter - she fuckin' knew it as she watched me and Asim, my fuckin' dope-head brother, get our arses thrashed to the fuckin' bone when we was younger. We'd walk out with our colons hanging to the ground. The General was from the old school. Black and white photos showed a proud Pathan, with fierce hawkish eyes and a tribal stance standing outside PNF Sarghoda, a foot deep in snow, back in '65. He was in charge of fifty men when the Indians attacked. And they couldn't push him back a single inch.

We fuckin' knew no one was subjugating this man - not the 1st armoured division of the 11 corps of the Indian army, not the fuckin' goray, not his fuckin' wives. Only Sam came near to taming the Sher-e-Punjab.

"Any word from Asim?"

"No, but Papa's in a bad mood. He's saying, he's going to put your head under a car when he sees you next," she giggled.

Feeling edgy, I looked at my watch. It was early yet, and he weren't waking up until at least 7:00 (another hang-up from military days when he'd get up and torture his troops. As it was these days, he only got up to make breakfast for Sam).

"Any reason why he said that?"

"Mama's been sayin' you a haramzada. A bad influence."

Stella was on the fuckin' warpath again. Happened once every few months when baba went into one of his red-rages and whipped her arse into jelly. In turn she'd jump up and down and point her finger at me, after which things got messy. Who else could she blame, poor bitch, when she was getting thrashed to an inch of her life - Asim my fuckin' dope-head brother? He's the fuckin' super-star of the family. As much as I hate my muthachaud dope-head bhai-jaan, he's the fuckin' Amitabh Bacchan of the Ali-Khan clan, sitting up there in Stratclwyde Uni, with a fuckin' degree in law in his hand and a tonne of coke up his nose - a worthy contender to continue the Ali-Khan legacy. Whereas I had jack to show for my twenty-one years - not even a fuckin' body-count.

"I beat up a boy at school!" Sam said looking happy with herself.

"Did you get caught?"

"Yes. And detention. He's been calling me Paki since school started so I hit him so hard, he fainted!"

"Good...but next time don't get caught." It was all the advice she needed. This Ali-Khan woman had it all under control. Fuckin' right too. Our women are our pride. No Ali-Khan laundi's gonna walk around defenceless, especially against the gora. Even when we were living in them mountains and valleys of the Himalayas, the women stood up for themselves. A Sialkoti could wrestle a fuckin' Indian BSF to the ground in a matter of seconds and still have chuppatis on your plate for breakfast. It's all a matter of pride. I looked around to see that no one was awake.

"Show me what you did."

She launched a solid two fisted-attack, fists flying from all directions. "Bang", "Zip", "BOOM!" It was the old Ali-Khan three-step combination working in overdrive. Some fuckin' training she was getting from bro. I checked out the tailend of the match with her as she fixed me a cup of chai, and left at 6:30 before anyone else got up. It was weekend, and the old man was guaranteed to be in a fuckin' nasty mood.

As I left, a funny thing happened. There was a motor that had no business in Pinner that turned the corner by the high street. A black beamer, with tinted windows, spoiler and body kit, basically your standard super-fly gangsta-mobile. Probably nothing - a pimp ending his night-shift, a boy racer estate-agent off to rip-off more hapless cunts desperate for their pile of bricks to house their three point five ungrateful shits. But if it was the Bangla's, then it was getting personal. I knew I was getting edgy. An early morning breakfast at Costa's Diner, then a quick nap in the Pinner library behind reference, using the Financial Times as a blanket, and I felt reconstituted. Then it was off to grab some back-up and head for Gaggy's for the latest prime time ghetto-land bulletins - see if our invitation to the gangsta gang bang jamboree had been accepted.

Riz's yard was darker and deadlier than the Queen's gand. It was midday but like all them other cricket-mad families, they were suffering from post-match hang-over. Two billion people stayed up to watch Pakistan get shafted. The battle had been lost, but the war was still on. The conditions were ideal for a comeback. If he could motivate them, could Imran's Tigers leap back into the competition and turn it around? If Pakistan could beat South Africa and Australia and New Zealand in a row (and don't forget that until this point New Zealand were unbeaten, and who knows, unbeatable), we had the slightest of chances of winning WWIII.

Khalid, Riz's little bro, was already plugged into Streetfighter and his baba was out the back, skinning a slaughtered goat in the back shed. He was a big bad fucker named Abu-Razak, with scars all along the side of his hawk face and a dirty henna stained beard. Like baba, this was the original gangsta - fuckin' mean from the word go. A body count even before Riz's dada-gi pushed him into the army at the age of twelve to escape a murder rap, when he defended his sister's honour against Chengis Lal Khan, a vicious, dirty-minded village chieftain who liked them young and defenceless. The chief's body was never found. Like the saying goes, the Sindh meets the Chennab, and asks "how many dead you bringing today?"

Entering Riz's yard was like stepping into the Landi Kotal twilight zone. The imperialistic forces of British law and order ceased to exist at the front door and you could leave your fucking RSPCA bullshit with them foreign gora cunts. The semi was in Wembley, but you might as well have been up a steep mountain incline in Hindu Kush.

Uncle Gi grabbed me for a round of masala chai and a spot of bullshit. I knew he smoked lal-patti (red leaf), while carving up the flesh, but not when some young punk is round his yard. With great difficulty he pulled out his ordinary roll-ups.

"You know that other cunt, Riz," he said crushing the tobacco, "fucking harami got it too easy. You wake up, you fucked in gand by big white lora. You follow law, you pay tax, you die. Sab harami das second mey fot ho-jaingey, meidan-e-jang mey."

Abu Razak and Riz were from opposite ends of the spectrum. You had to look close at this man to see any resemblance. We was pussies to him. Uncle-gi had by the age of twenty-one already become the highest ranking member of his division, and was in line for higher and better things, if he hadn't decided to fuck his life up and come down to England.

"I be sending Riz to army in Pakistan," he told me, "When college finish." He fixed me with an evil stare that had once sent a thousand cadets to their deaths on the battlefield. If only he knew that as far as Riz and me were concerned, college was already finished, it'd be us hanging in his shed. Upstairs, I could hear the ugly bastard in question fall out of his bed, oblivious to the fact that his fate was being decided.

"Too many white pussy, make your mind weak. Your dil, your heart must pump blood, your hand must grasp gun metal, your eye must guide bullet, you must be ready to die on battlefield. Ready to sacrifice your khoon on Sachin Glacier against the Indian haramzada."

Idealistic bullshit perhaps, but Riz's baba had been there in '47 and then '65, when the Indians had sent their army to rape the fatherland. He'd witnessed all the atrocities them peace-loving khem-cho's had done to us in the Ran of Kutch.

All this "hare-krishna" brotherly-love-bullshit's dead and buried in the sub-continent where you from the wrong side of the street, then you better run boy. Sikhs, Hindus, Brahmins, Sadhus, Christians, Muslims stepping over each other's feet, everyone killing everyone - it's a big melting pot of murder and mayhem. Uncle had seen an entire village raped, murdered and burnt to the ground as he lay helpless not more than two-hundred yards down the road, having taken one in the spine.

You can't keep these Punjabi fuckers down though - hard as fuck, skin as thick as a steel pateela, he spent a few weeks in hospital and then bounced back onto the maidan-e-jang, increasing his Indian duck-shoot tally. No fuckin' wonder, we was weak little pussies to him and my father. What's a couple of hundred stabbings to someone who once forced an AOC to cut off his own balls before bayoneting him? "Pakistan army best in world," Uncle-gi had once told me, "No woman, no gandus. Just upna bhai, our brother, defending upna zameen against dunya."

There was a time when Riz was heading for the PAF, the Pakistan Air Force. He'd read all the bullshit, filled out the forms and fuckin' let it be known round school that the next time they'd see him, he'd be bombing their portacabin classrooms in his F16 fighting falcon. But then a fucker's balls drop and he starts thinking with his lulla. I think it was the thought of having his pussy rationed out, that made the idea fuck off to regions of Riz's brain that only revealed themselves in emotional moments, like rucks, riots, police-baiting and cricket matches. But we all knew though, if ever the time came and the Indians ever dared attack upna-zameen, we'd be on the next PIA, armed with fuckin' kitchen knives, ready to defend what was ours.

Before I left Uncle Gi, he gave me some timeless advice. "Be careful of that Hindu and Singh," he said, "those haramzadey kill three million at partition with the sword of Mountbatten, and they not finished yet. That new fellow, LK Advani want to see all sub-continent flowing in blood. We must be strong, waarna yeh kuttay hum saab ko mardega. And tell that bastard beta of mines to get up and brush his teeth."

Word up Imran Khan. I left Uncle-gi to his goat and checked out Riz's pad.

His room was dark, the lazy Pak still under his sheets, listening to MC F on his base machine, sucking on a bumper kutchie, unaware that he was on the next flight out to the Sachin Glacier. He had a tonne of weed already split for distribution along his speaker top. "Paki enterprises is now open for business," he announced proudly without opening his eyes.

I dug my finger into some white powder and dabbed it into my mouth, immediately I felt more awake, my skin felt light. It was Sulph. "Remember the match? Pakistan lost bro, so I don't see why you celebratin'. Besides it's fuckin' two O' in the afternoon, you unemployed kushti!"

Riz dragged his joint so hard, you could see his balls filling up with gange. For a second I could see why his father wanted to bundle the worthless cunt off to Pak. "Imran, fuck off - I'm chilling. The last thing I need is your umma fucking me in the arse."

Riz's forehead bore the scars of some voluntary self-abuse when he, after a particularly bad night, would try and knock some reason against a stone pillar in the hallway. He puffed out a big atomic cloud. Riz always loved the smell of ganga in the morning. It was the one thing that heated his blood up for war. I let Riz enjoy it. I kept quiet about the fact that I thought I'd seen Patel the chachundar, a neighbourhood dope fiend. I'd walked past the bastard in question, or someone who was his spitting image, as he shot up at the far end of the alley behind the house. Riz would've been down them stairs and out of the back door in a fuckin' second. There's nothing like an early morning stabbing to further stimulate a gangsta's circulation.

Patel was a small, dark, ratty wanker, with the kind of smile that invites a fuckin' smack. Before being banged up, he had been the only major rival to Riz's operation this side of Wembley, selling his shit between the High Road and St John's Road, ducking into Eastern Fashions every time he spotted the heat. Even played a few friendlies with his cricket IX, the East Side Wembley boys in the days I could bowl six for six. Fuckin' fun and games for all - like they say, a bit of competition never screwed no cunt, but when Patel got likki and bought in some boys down from Ealing to improve his market share, it got personal.

Lucky for him, the red-eye was incarcerated before Riz was out of Northwick Park A&E so Riz was denied revenge, and Patel kept his lungs perforation free. Respect due to Riz, who as it was got his revenge against Patel's brother instead, a no good boozer ruff-neck named Amit (a mean little wicket keeper), who knew all the first floor shop-flat ho's down Wembley by their first names.

Through a particularly nasty ho named Karishma, HIV positive and unrepentant, Riz laid a trap for Amit. He had her signal him the moment Amit walked in through the front door. As it was it took a week of patiently waiting with blood on his mind. Revenge day came Tuesday - handout day at the DSS. Amit strolled in with his dole cheque in one hand, wood in the other, looking for a Karishma special, a strawberry sunset (go ask a priest what it is).

Riz hid in the next room, and waited till Amit was completely nekkid.

Karishma then ducked out with her batty riders, and Riz floated in armed with an axe, like the angel of death, his black Chromar trenchcoat flowing in the fucking wind. He began to beat Amit fast and hard with the handle and the side of the axe. My man got knocked about the room so bad that half way through the proceedings Karishma had to dash in screaming and yelling, "Stop! I'll never get my fuckin' flat clean again." Riz weren't in the forgiving mood that afternoon. Amit was beaten to within an inch of his life, the walls spattered with blood, bones and pulp. I don't know what stopped the dogheart, but that is the closest he has come to finishing anyone. Even now, Riz wears a bracelet with one of Amit's yellow molars embedded in silica, his lucky war medal, a trend started by another homie, Atul, who'd had his rottweiler, Kajul, immortalised in silica on a ring he wore for luck.

Patel himself was finished now, dibi-dibi - drooping painfully against a shed, as he hunted out a vein that hadn't collapsed through heroin abuse - soon he'd be injecting veins in his feet, then when nothing's left...his lulla. That's what five years in the joint can do to you. You're out, but you've lost your contacts. Who knows, maybe some of them are banged up too, or dead - you've lost your edge, and most vital, you've lost your respect in the street. You just spend your time dismantling your mind. We'd finish him some other day. It was time to see if our invitation had worked.

I kicked Riz's idle jubi into gear, grabbed his Marley T-shirt, stuffed his merchandise (and a few weapons including Riz's favourite screwdriver) into a gym bag, and dragged him down the stairs, past the old general and his skinned goat and down the high street to a waiting Shahi Nan roly-poly breakfast, which massaged Riz's single brain-cell to life. His mouth was dry and he was madly itching at a set of fresh bruises.

"What happened, homes?" I asked him, "them college bitches try to eat you yesterday?"

Riz dunked a kebab with some prime chilli chutney unhappily. "Fuckin' ho's sucked me dry, like I was a damn roly-poly, star. First it was Soraya, then Priti, then Soraya, then Priti and so on in fuckin' rotation. And just when Priti was preparing to sharpen my kebab with her phudd again, the fuckin' priest from the church jumped out from behind his pulpit and chased us down the fuckin' hill, with Priti's tits hanging out."

I thought back to the afternoon that I'd wasted with Mina - the perfect gangsta-bitch if someone could cut her tongue out.

Riz grabbed a complementary chicken tikka as Iqbal the proprietor, grinned at us.

"Never touching them sixth-form bitches never again, unless dey been neutered, de-loused, de-fanged, and de-fucked!" He shook his head, "You ain't heard nuttin' about the homies? My man, John Evans's still a fugitive - them cunts in blue been going ape-shit, turning over gangland for the brother."

The acid could call their fucking mothers for all we cared, but they wasn't going to find him. We all knew my man was out of the picture. A consummate pro. If Shak was the Godfather of crime then John Evans was the Pope, blazing out a trail of crime and havoc that was blessed by God himself. Not even the devil, or his foot-soldiers - the pigs - was going to lay a finger on the Pope until he fuckin' decreed it. I swear, on the lives of the others present, that John Evans had walked on air - in front of me and the ambushing forces of law and order - and ascended up to Zion and Selassie, or at least up to them bitches he had stashed away down some educational rat-hole all the way from Birmingham to Brighton Uni. One of a million of different escape routes.

That was that - two Generals free and operational in the fight against the Bangla - two crucial Generals who were going to round up the troops and order the charge into battle.

As we wrapped up, Riz's pager was trying to get his attention. When he checked it, the message simply said "M.C. F.".

"You know homes, for a fuckin' rapper, he's fuckin' tighter with his fuckin' words than a fuckin' kanvari." Riz stomped off to give the superstar a call. I evened the heavily subsidised bill, tipped the grinning brutha enough to buy him a wife from Darrar, and decided to waste my time chirpsing a black traffic warden who was hovering outside Shahi Nan's, waiting for my dick. Before I could stuff her into an alley and pull out them ample bubbay that were bubbling over the top of her uniform, Riz jumped out of a piss-stained booth like he'd seen an insect (about that later). He came running up to me, told the warden to fuck off, and pulled me aside.

"Guess what bro," he said out of breath, "they just picked up Shak!"

In moments of crisis, you can be guaranteed that London Underground is going to fuck you upside the head. Which is why when we arrived at the tube station, we were hit by a double whammy - repair works to the tracks just between Wembley Park and Willesden, and a ticket raid that had Wembley Park station crawling with inspectors and pigs drafted in to mete out a little third world justice, with their pens and uniforms, slam-dunking another section of the seedha-sadha population into criminalised ignominy, just so Sir Paul Condon could go and stick another pie chart up Jeremy Paxman's gand - touting them falsified statistics on winning the war against crime - pure ugly law-maker's politics and nothing else.

We'd realised immediately that no way was gangsta and the boy wonda getting so much as a butt-cheek on the fuckin' tube without going legit. We swallowed our pride and paid for the fucking tickets - standing outside the station for about ten minutes, rattling our pockets and begging for spare cash, till we had enough bucks to allow us the pleasure of a stuttering half-hour ride down to the ghettos - as it was, some Norman Tebbit type corporate cunt finally came up with the necessary bucks.

The train, when it finally squealed into the station, was moving slower than Jimmy's brain. At one point it jerked to a halt for about half an hour between Dollis Hill and Willesden. It ended up being us and a train full of tourists, including them day-exchange bastards from Germany, with their cameras and guidebooks and bratwurst, staring at two foul-mouthed gangstas, staring right back at them! Guten Tag, muthafuckas.

In truth, that half-hour wasn't totally wasted.

We ducked out at Willesden tube, counting out approximately a thousand in Deutschmarks between us as well as a SLR Pentax zoom camera, ready for re-circulation in the alternative market. Fuckin' petty crime, there ain't nuttin' in the world like it brutha - and don't go running down to your Paul Condons - they ain't listening.

Tonight was "DJ UK", hosted by the Mixmaster and Tommy C. The MC was due to make an appearance at the gig down Crystal Palace in a little over three hours. But down MC Feroz' yard, the lights were out and the curtains down. With his bhai in the slammer and impending doom, the MC had gone back to sleep.

We almost banged down the front of the fucking house, trying to wake the narcoleptic cunt. Eventually, with the entire neighbourhood howling at us, we heard movement in the house. The sound of pure gangsta. Eventually the door swung open and an ugly head peered out of number 22a.

MC F was standing there in his Man-U boxers, tattered white string vest and scratching his arse. He took one look at us and yawned.

"Alright star, now listen up," F said, "I ain't got no tea nor biscuits - so you eatin' dog-food!"

We shuffled in behind the radical MC. His lounge was scattered with twelve inch house and techno grooves in preparation for the gig, with the likes of Tupac, Bambaata, Easy E, Schooly D and even a bit of Larry Heard, but the fucker weren't going nowhere tonight by the look of things - nowhere further than Carven Park holding pen. Riz was looking hungry again, probably that Pedigree Chum - fuckin' better than that limp European shit your ketchup and vinegar squad push down their throats every day - fuckin' fish and chips! A Pathan would put a hole through his wife if she fed him that undernourished shit! My personal appetite was virtually non-existent by now, with the gangsta nation neatly being dismantled one by one. We were eager to find out what the score was.

The musty smell of dog bollocks hung over the lounge, reflecting our general mood. I spotted four big framed pictures on the wall: Jinnah, X, Afrikah Bambaata, revolutionaries who'd tuned the world to their rhythm, and finally a black and white portrait of Haider Khurram Khan, Feroz's old man \- not as scarred or brutal as Riz's baba, but a man with a rep of his own - now sitting pretty in retirement down the tribal lands of the Indus valley, oblivious to the fact that his boy was now facing time in the pen.

Riz pulled out a fresh pack of smokes and compacted them down before flicking one out and blazing it up. "Ok, what's this bullshit about Shak then?" he said to Feroz urgently, "You tellin' me they plucked him off the streets just like that? For what? For bein' in a whites only hood?" I could see why Riz was panicking. Shak was meant to be untouchable, he was the fuckin' Don. The Godfather of the ghetto. There was nothing he wouldn't do for the neighbourhood. A testament to his drawing power was the long line of people arriving outside the door now to pay their respects. The news was spreading fast.

"It gotta be a lie, homie" Riz sniffed, "and it's giving Ali-Khan the fuckin' constipation just tinkin' about it."

I smiled weakly.

MC F didn't smile back. "Homes, it's the fuckin' truth. Shak got pulled in at ten this morning," he said morosely, "they grabbed him just outside Roasters as he was going in on a mission for that fat Gandhi fucker down A-TV. He down Willesden pen now, awaiting formal charges." The MC checked the time on his pager. "I'm gonna blow down there any second now to check him out."

"It's cool brutha," Riz said, "You go and see him. He your blood and you ain't seen him yet."

"Nah, I checked him out earlier. But he weren't saying much - not with all that heat down on him." F was stressing big time. I could tell by the way he was shuffling the big gold rings on his spindly DJ fingers, "Shak fucked and he knows it, I could see it on his face."

"So what did they bring him in for?" I said.

"10-92, star. Armed robbery."

Riz's head shot up like he'd had been struck by lightning. F continued, "He weren't there that day, but the security van, down the East End - it was all his inspiration. Evans and the others were just the perspiration," he shook his head, and stared at us. "The bottom line is this bruthas. Shak ain't getting out no time soon."

The magnitude of this prime kick in the tuttay was beginning to hit us. The establishment had pulled another skank from the bag. The inspir-asian-al Godfather behind bars, looking down the barrel of a good ten to fifteen stretch for armed robbery. It felt like we was tripping on bad speed.

"Fuck, it ain't fair," Riz said angrily, "Shak should be up there with Bambaata and X and the others, he done more for the hood than any politician muthafuckas and they still out there...that, and the motherfuckin' cricket results." He gave me a stare I knew from anywhere. He began pacing the room like a caged beast. "You know what? The way I feel right now, I'd walk into Fort Apache to spring the brutha - and fuck any cunt who got in my way!"

"No point in doing that, star. We got to be rational here, and figure out something," F said, "like why is it so easy for the pigs to be able to trace our steps. Like we've been lined up on a shop shelf for the punters. Fuck, it's almost as if...." He didn't finish his sentence.

I don't know if Riz was even listening to F, but he hit the nail directly on the head. "What's fuckin' me off is Mbela. You don't do what he did, and still be walking free. Once committed, you don't walk out on your blood, ever. Unless you want to face the consequences," he said menacingly. F's scrawny pet parrot, was picking up Riz's vibes and was getting twitchy at his behaviour. A good indicator that Riz's auto-pilot was now set for self-destruction - by the end of the summer he was either going to be in the slammer or down under.

Feroz stuck a finger up in the air, "Homie. What the fuck does Mbela have to do with this?"

I sat up and stared at the MC. Riz stopped pacing. "You don't know about Mbela?" It was obvious he didn't have a clue. His seethen hovered near his mouth as the hair on the back of my neck began to stand up. He looked directly at me. "So what you saying?" he said blankly.

"Mbela was the fifth man." I told him, keeping an eye on Riz who was breaking out in a cold sweat.

"He was the reason why your blood is inside now, bro," Riz said, barely able to control himself. "The fuckin' designated driver of that little bank job back there, until his phuddi went soft and he backed out leaving the others to get fucked over." Riz explained the whole situation from the top, while Feroz listened silently. The mood in the room was turning sour as we began to face one immutable truth - we'd all been fucked!

The frenetic pulse of the street continued outside F's crib, as thumping beat boxes bounced past mixed in with BMW and VW engines burning up the tarmac. The procession of well wishers continued to arrive. Checking in on the latest condition of the Godfather of Roundwood Park. Two solid open-top Beamers, one a black 2.5se and one a 535 sports auto customised convertible eased up outside the house. From my vantage point I could see some soul boys trying to play a little tic-tac-toe with some foxy ho's. As usual the ho's were playing it dumb, while the gangstas gave it a big one with some tried and tested R&B chat up lines. Inside the ex-council house, the tension was tighter than a virgin's phudd. It ain't easy to point a finger at a blood, a brutha. And that's what we was now looking at. In gangsta terms, this is meant to be a sacred tie, as close as you can get without sticking your lulli inside.

Riz sent a few smoke signals up to the ceiling, while Feroz frantically waited for an answer on the phone, "Fuck man, I've belled his yard, a few of his bitches and no reply. I won't fuckin' believe it until I hear it from the dog's mouth."

Mbela weren't dumb. Nor was Feroz. He had a mind as sharp as a fuckin' diamond stylus. He hadn't forgotten about Mbela's involvement in the job, he just hadn't known. The rest was simplicity in itself. It was becoming clear what Mbela had been hiding from me in Barham park that day, as he walked in with the Ericsson stuck to his head and his 24 carat gold-plated Ali-Baba smile.

"It was a set-up, star! They was fucked from the word go." F clung onto the phone, his seethen had begun to burn long and untouched.

Riz punched a hole in the wall. "I fuckin' knew it. That cunt was hiding it from us. 'I back my blood up,' he says, let's see how he backs this upside his head, mothafucka." Riz pulled out the Singh Talwar which he had no intention of ever handing back. "Get me a fuckin' bus, I got a 3:30 appointment with Mbela's head."

"Easy superstar," F reminded the twitchy bastard, "We ain't got nuttin' for certain yet. It's all circumstantial evidence so far. Can't condemn no one without a fair fuckin' trial."

He was right - we wanted proof. Even with his brother inside and looking down the barrel of a ten to fifteen rap, the MC was still keeping his eye on the news, whereas we'd already written the obituary for Mbela. In truth, no matter what our personal feelings were at this moment, this was a blood who'd backed us up one hundred and ten percent in any and all situations. If it was Atul, I'd understand. We was just busting for an excuse to pop his sorry arse.

But it's no secret that Mbela and Shak had bad blood from the year fuck. As Riz reminded us, they'd been beefing since the time Shak had acquired connections back to the golden triangle down Afghanistan way, and hadn't given Mbela a look in. Then there was Mbela and John Evans who been illin' it over the same bitch for the past ten years.

"But it still ain't no reason to fuck a brother over." I reminded him.

"It ain't NO muthafuckin' reason." Riz howled. "But it happen."

"No reply!" F hung up and headed for the kitchen. "It's true, and quashie's head's gonna be spinning from my fuckin' turntable." He went to fix himself up with a glass of cold lassi. A regular chuppati-champion, he was. MF Feroz Khan, AKA the M40 Maniac - a name carved out in the blood of a former incident on the Granada services near Oxford - stabbed a bunda for knocking over a glass of Sprite at age thirteen. And now here he was in his sadhu chappals, sticking some home-made yoghurt, ice, milk and sugar in the blender, a walking talking contradiction, like every other fuckin' gangsta I ever met. Tough muthafuckas who'd sob like babies when watching 'Ghost' or who like Riz would jump a mile if a spider crawled into a room.

If I was feeling whacked, Riz looked like he was going to cry. Ratting was the buzz word for the lowest form of treachery known to the gangstahood. It was the lowest of the low. Rated alongside batty fucking, whoring and cannibalism. And losing to India. Any homie down any crib the world over know the iniversal rule - rat and you die, muthafucka!

The implications were nasty. Cranking up my migraine just thinking about it. The pigs could have had the boys under surveillance from the word go. Every step of the way, as they planned and executed the job. The whole thing could have been a set-up - the hold up, a simple sting operation. They weren't picked up immediately, so the pigs must have thought that there were more co-conspirators. As it was, they got jack...except for Shak. And all the while we was thinking it was Jimmy's sister.

Riz tried a few moves on the talwar, and stared at me coldly. "I'm takin' this down to Ministry with me. Mbela got some homies down on security. I'm gonna hook up with them and conduct some independent enquiries of my own." His eyes were deader than black-ice. The knives were out.

You see, this is how quickly it happens in gangland. It moves quick. You get a rumour, two-three words are said and the whole fuckin' machine grinds into motion. You're lucky and the sources get checked, the story is validated - like Riz was planning to do - who knows the bruthas might go back to sisters, mothers, brothers even squeezes and skanks to check out your guilt. But most of the time, all it takes is the rumour to authorise a gangland execution - we ain't as sophisticated as the Mafia.

If the brother was going down, it wasn't going to be me who'd be pulling the blade on him. I still weren't ready to get no premeditated murder on my criminal rap sheet just yet - I was still fucking Harrow Tech pretender. I could see what it was coming down to. If there was any execution, it was going to be one of the cold-blooded fish. It was going to be Riz or John Evans.

This was the worst thing that could have happened to us. It was the worst crisis the gangstahood faced since I hooked up with them - worse than the Notting Hill stabbings, worse than the raid on Chalkhill Estates or killing on North Bridge. Our situation was complicated at it was - homies picked up, left, right and centre, Scotland Yard still holding cards close to its tits, our chances of walking away from the rumble diminishing by the second, everyone pointing fingers...and Pakistan almost out of the cup. This was a critical moment - and the gangstahood was in danger of falling apart.

Two things were going to happen from here - we were going to end up slashing and stabbing - watch the gang die, as happened to the Massive a few years back - or we were going to pull together, adopt a siege mentality. We had to focus our energies on a common goal, something positive and something quick, which was why we were lucky when at that moment, the phone rang.

"Yo bitches, you seen the fuckin' news? We're fuckin' celebrities!" It was Gaggy, fighting to be heard above the din of Thames News Tonight, as he waited for his call to come. The bitch rounding up the news headlines, led with:

"...and the East London Asian community is recoiling from what police think is a gang related attack in Mile End. Community leaders are counting the cost of this mindless attack."

"Did you hear that?" Gaggy screamed with joy, "We made it! We're in the big times." It don't hurt a criminal's rep to make it to prime time, but now you could be assured that the pigs were as eager to find us as the Bangla boys.

It couldn't have come at a better time for them. Relations with the tullas and the community were at an all-time low ever since the fascist bastards had committed another fundamental race relations fuck up of the magnitude of Stephen Lawrence. The Newham Seven. They'd waded into a race riot and arrested the Asians who were actually defending themselves against a bunch of mindless racist thugs who'd set upon some upnis in a Macdonald's restaurant in Newham. Shit was flying around and the community was demanding heads to roll. Condon wanted something high profile to get his arse off the hook, and this was the perfect escape route. Add to that the bonus of helping a bunch of Paki's to put away another bunch of Paki's - enough to make your perverted mouth water.

"Check this out..."Gaggy turned up the volume:

"...Sir Paul Condon has vowed to hunt down every last member of what is believed to be a gang from West London...."

"Say what!" Gaggy went silent for a second, "What that bitch just say? West London? Nah, my blood put themselves out and some other gandu gets the credit. I'm calling up the fuckin' station and jammin' their lines. Laters boys." CLICK! The phone went dead.

Riz looked ready to explode. He was taking this to heart. "That fuckin' Singh's gonna blow his cover and get banged up with the rest of the crew! Then what? We're on our jacks for real!" His head was dripping with sweat as he began to pace the room again, leaving a trail of smoke like a steam train.

"Chill, homie. We still got Evans," I reminded him, "My man gets a single Yardie down from Kingston Jamdung, and they'll have a healthy fear of us."

But Riz had finally lost it. He weren't listening to me or F. He took out a fresh seethen, but couldn't get a lighter to it. First Jimmy, Mike and John Evans, then Shak, then Mbela. It was too much for his overheated brain cell. Any time now bodies were going to start popping up in rubbish bags and skips if we didn't talk some sense into him. But in a way, he was right. We just couldn't afford to lose another prime time boy.

Gaggy - Garginder Singh, as he was known in DSS circles, was the biggest harami we knew; the slyest, wiliest and wittiest of the Willesden boys - pimp, a player, a hustler and a fuckin' poet, but like Shak, Mbela and other old-timers he had tuttas that hung to the ground that ensured that when he fucked up, it was always in spectacular fashion. Regularly he'd been banged up since he was eleven - the first time had been for rape - he'd got a bit excited in high school over a new supply teacher. Since then he'd been hot-stepping it for selling stolen goods, narcotics, countless traffic offences, harbouring illegal aliens (one of his alternative 'business ventures') and public nudity when he'd walked down Belsize Road to get some Pepsi Cola, high on PCP, barbiturates and a few other things, dragging a pair of Nike air-pumps and nothing else.

As we began to leave, F pulled me to one side and whispered quietly in my ear, "Listen up, spar. You keep your shit together tonight and keep an eye on them boys. Especially that dog Gaggy. I know him and Shak got something on the burn. Can you do that?"

Outside we were met by a big black mama by the name of Josephina Nrere from downtown Selebi Phikwe who was waddling up the street with a freshly baked apple pie. "Me heard dem has got your brother in the cooler," she said wheezing up the path. "Me go and crack der damn skulls open. That Shak is a good boy, always helpful. More'n once me and Reginald be in his debt." She shook her head sadly, "No-one don't deserve that kind of treatment, when so many criminals out dere, 'specially not Shak. Now you be sure to tell me if there is anything your auntie Josephina can do."

There was nuttin' old auntie Josephina could do as we left to save a dog from the pound.

DGS Foodstore was buzzing with activity. Behind the counter, knee deep in cockroaches and discarded seekh kebab wrappers by the durjan, the two Lankan lads (fresh off a lorry themselves) were piling the shelves with illegal European imports while two vans were being unloaded by Bal and Jaz, cousins of Gaggy's, fresh from a run through Calais, backed up with sona black market booze courtesy of the Algerian brotherhood. As it was, Gaggy hadn't made no call to Thames News and was sitting on his phone as he picked and sniffed his arse into another deal on some colour lasers taxed from under the noses of a certain High-Street chain. Feroz had disappeared down to Carven Park aiming to hook up with us later with the very first live-from-the-state-pen broadcast from Shak.

Riz dodged round the back and started rifling through the imports greedily, while I dashed upstairs for a quick slash and fag in the first floor flat above the shop and ended up running into Roshni coming out of the bath, half dripping. At least that's who I assumed it was. I'd seen her old man before, short greasy dark fucker with panda rings round his half smacked up eyes, cruising down Kilburn High Street in his 500SEC with some gori kutti stuffed in the back. This was my first encounter with Roshni 'in the flesh' but them crude descriptions Gaggy had given us fitted the bitch standing in front of me down to a tee, I guessed in a flash who she was. And as a bonus Roshni was nekkid from the waist down. What a fuckin' intro.

Roshni seemed more shocked to see me than I was. Grabbing her T-shirt she yanked it over her 'billie'. I took a quick rundown of the merchandise on display. Rated - good enough for a willy wetting. Not ugly, clean and shaven. Tall and slightly dark with prominent rounded bubbas, big black nipples and hot BJ lips - it was Kilburn's very own Rekha - smarting for a struggle. My hand grabbed her 'boy-toy' shirt as she tried to yell but I was on auto-pilot - and slapped my other hand over her mouth. Now no one was coming up the stairs - still totting up that profit-loss bullshit, so we had time. I began to pull that T-shirt up again, as she struggled even harder, but her libby flaps were showing. I could feel the thermometer in my head rising as the bitch struggled against my rape mode. She bit my hand, so I slapped her insolent fuckin' face, before reasserting control. "Fight back \- it's just what I want ho", I said. I backed her into a corner and took out the lulla for some fresh air. I know that once she had a preview of what was on offer, she might reconsider. I was right. She took just one look at the prime Punjabi and stopped struggling \- to my sincere regret.

As I took my hand off her mouth, she didn't scream - and I knew I was in. Without thinking, I pushed it between her legs, her eyes popped out, like a jackpot machine. We scrambled into the pakhana, and slammed the door as she jumped on me. Mek wi dweet man, she must have fed her phudd lal-chillies because it was hot enough to give me third degree burns. Before we knew it, we were building up a funky rhythm, and we hadn't even been introduced. Roshni had just beaten Mina's record.

When Roshni attempted to bring her mouth near me, you know, to get all kissy-kissy, I wasn't having none of it and backed off. She knew immediately that this was pure dirty business, pleasure didn't even enter into the equation - so she closed her mouth like a good puppy and we continued. Smart gal! You know I weren't going to stick my mouth anywhere near where that dirty bastard Gaggy had previously been, so I chewed on a dark, hot bubba and fingered her arse while she slapped my shami-kebab with her geela guggu pum-pum, slurping so loudly I swear Kumar could hear it in his sleep three doors down in VK Video Mart. For a change the phuddi was tight and wetter than a fuckin' monsoon. "Oh Mina, teri baap ki chut!" I was whispering.

We both knew that at any moment Gaggy was going to be off the phone - and boy, was we going at it fast - sparks were flying out of her chut. Without thinking I grabbed the first thing that came to my hand. My trusty blade. I spun it round with the leather handle pointing at her arsehole and stuffed it in. She twisted her face in pain before sinking down on the hilt. The bitch was agony - ready for anything and everything bad boy had on the agenda - must have been the feeling of ribbed leather rubbing on her colon while my lulla massaged her preggie cervix that gave her that desperate orgasm. It was Mina, and you know the blade would be pointing the other way.

Suddenly there were footsteps outside.

Not thinking, I jerked the live blanket off and leapt up violently as I banged my head against a shaving cabinet whilst grabbing my chaddi and jeans. I chucked the blade in the bin.

"You don't tell Gaggy about this," she mumbled in voodoo.

Like I was going to! I kicked her out of the fuckin' loo and grabbed my shit.

Roshni was already in a towel halfway down the corridor, racing for the bedroom when Riz caught up with her with my lassi running down her leg. I jumped out trying to get my lulla behind the zip as homie quietly lit a Marlboro acquired from the shop below, and shook his head.

"When you've quite finished brutha, Gaggy's waiting downstairs to make your fuckin' acquaintance." he said, less than impressed, puffing out a disapproving plume of smoke. Who's he to moralise.

I ran past him and headed down the stairway, recoiling from my record breaking jhuk, but Gaggy and his cousin Bal were engrossed in a pile of Taiwanese 486 maal, wrapped up in all that bubble shit. Gaggy was waiting for his call.

"Listen bro, my kuri chillin' out upstairs with my baccha. Hope you didn't fuck wi' her." Gaggy said, without looking at me. I swear, if the brother was joking it was a fuckin' bulls-eye. He was a sharp fucker, but no brother was ever going to imagine his kuri bouncing on someone else's jhunda. No matter what his own opinions on the affair, Riz was keeping his mouth firmly shut.

With my dick itching of her masala, I leant over Gaggy to lend him a hand. "Don't talk bollocks bro. You know I ain't into no vegetarian shit!" I said, glad that she weren't ovulating.

Gaggy stopped and stared at me. "So you on talking terms with your ho yet? Oh Asian babe, come here." All present, including Bal, found this fuckin' amusing, the pictures were widely thumbed by now. After spotting Mina down the Troc, I wasn't sure about nuttin'. What if it was a momentary lapse of common sense?

"C'mon Gag, don't bring the bitch into this. I've decided, it's all in the past. She can go and fuck herself up the phuddi with a fuckin' AK47 for all I care. You know I catch Kam this time, and I'll fuckin' skewer the Paki right on the streets." I said without any pity or feelings for the two-timing whore. In reality, she was on the bottom of my list of priorities - I wasn't investing my future in the bitch and the rumble was occupying all my priorities anyway.

"You know the deal with bitches," Gag said cheerily, "You gotta treat 'em like queens and fuck em like ho's. Make 'em squeal like Pirellis. That's when you get true loyalty, blood."

If only he knew - his set of Pirellis had just been taken for a spin.

I moved in closer and helped Gaggy scratch off some serial numbers and other 'identifying marks' from the computers before shifting them to a store room round the back. The windows were covered with Ram Teri Ganga film posters where Gaggy and his uncle had built up a warehouse of illegal shit - a Marks and Sparks of crime - from bundles of British passports to Indian porn, up to and including a pile of freshly pressed 'Bombay Roll' on VHS. Add to that the SLR camera from the German bastard on the train - minus his eye, which Riz had expertly extracted with his favourite screwdriver when he'd tried to fight back - and you've got our very own Al Fayed. Gaggy decided to big it up with his latest haul with a bottle of Jack Daniel's, which he cracked open with his mouth.

"This morning my cos' Govi, who works down Dover Docks, a security guard with immigration, gives me a bell. He says there are three crates of unclaimed shit from the continent. It is Govi's turn on the roster for a cut, so he sticks it on Bal's van as it passes through Dover and the paperwork conveniently disappears from the Customs and Excise office. I open up the crates and I'm sitting with these babies," he said triumphantly, "the easiest profit I ever made. We're gonna split it fifty-fifty. I've already sold one to Roshni's baba."

Gaggy pulled out a wad of notes and began counting it out in our faces, while Riz and I looked at each other uneasily, like a pair of store front tramps, with nothing to our names but a pocketful of German corn. While the other homies were taking full advantage of their position as suburban outlaws, we were just riding the waves of lawlessness without a single thought about tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, enjoying every second of it, but when even the fuckin' moths in your pockets are going hungry, and you livin' on hand-outs, perhaps it's time for a career rethink. Not the 'opportunities' in involuntary subjugation that Harrow Tech offered you, but something a bit more creative. Something that we'd enjoy and would put the fatherland back on the map simultaneously - like a white slave-trade - get a thousand years of history turned on its head, all into the bargain and get these cunts working out there in our plantations.

I mean, there was half the crew out there, busy supplying North-west London and surrounding areas (up to and including St Albans) with halwa. If you've been to school, frequented a club, pub or a doner kebab caff in the region, chances are that one of the boys has buzzed you with an offer in bargain basement narcotics you'd find hard to refuse. And then there was Gaggy greedily pouncing on anything that pulled in the rupees. Okay, drug-supply weren't ever my scene - call it superstition or what - but I knew that if I got involved, badness would ensure my days on the streets were numbered. But I knew I had to think of something else quick.

Riz jumped in as his personal mission objectives reappeared in his overheated little brain, "I'm off to bait me a fuckin' rat, you joinin' me?"

"Where you going to? Ministry?"

Gaggy glanced up from sniffing his wad of cash. "You still think Mbela squealed?"

"Think - by the end of tonight I'll have all the muthafuckin' proof I need, and it'll be written all over the fucker's face. All I need, is to look into his eyes once, and I'll know. Then he dead!"

Gaggy was chilled as ever, "Listen home boy. You can do your stabbing when you got times."

"Nah Gaggy, you got it wrong. You go and see Shak in the face, or Mike or Jimmy. And then say what you're saying. Man, they'd do exactly the same if it were you or me."

Gaggy shook his head, planning out what to say next. "Okay, I ain't seen them, or spoken to them. But they'll be the first to tell you the same thing. You got to get your priorities right, bro. Settle that beef with the Bangla's once and for all, and then go after Mbela. But if he's the guilty man, I guarantee it'll take more than one night to track him down."

Riz was quiet and it looked as if he was finally listening. He'd had some time to think about it and even now he was reluctant to confront a brutha who'd backed us up two hundred percent, until today.

The phone rang and Gaggy put the argument on hold. It gave Riz some time to stare me down. He'd calmed down and was pissed off for another reason now. I'd just squeezed a blood's ho. It ain't no done thing, no matter 'how nasty the skank'. I ain't got no excuse for what I did.

Gaggy was off the phone again, opportunity written all over his face. He looked at us and gave us a bad boy grin. It was the call that he'd always been waiting for, and if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have let the gangsta open his smart-arse mouth - "I've got a score, very low risk, maximum profit. I need to carry it out urgently. And I know of a way that'll solve all your problems once and for all... you'se want in?"

So much for priorities.
CHAPTER VIII

BIRMINGHAM

And so it happened - the most ill-conceived, badly planned, most fucked up road trip in the history of road trips. Gaggy could have done better with fuckin' Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto as his roadies. As it was he got us: Riz, a Pak as twitchy as a dacoit's trigger finger, Bal, his cousin who'd fuck his own gand for a profit, and finally a cocky, superfly sonuvabitch who'd just played hide the lulla with the mother of Gaggy's soon to be buccha. We again tried to rope in Mbela, for a bit of surveillance, but just as Gaggy had predicted, he was elsewhere - he'd disappeared off the face of the planet. We didn't get a chance to move the grass and shit Riz had packed in his gym bag, so we took it with us.

From the moment we left, we were off to a bad fucking start. The fuckin' bull stopped us on the M40, just outside London, twenty minutes into our trip. They opened up the back of the van and four dodgy gangstas fell out. Scratching their arses and stuttering through a half-hour interrogation. On the positive side, there were no breathalyser tests, no searches - it was Saturday night and Gaggy was so tanked up that you could see his eyes floating in JDs. We had enough metal on us to melt a fuckin' metal detector and apart from Riz's shit, there was so much contraband in that van (including a few pounds of heroin Gaggy had arranged to drop off on the way) that its wheels weren't touching the ground.

The tullas asked us to tell them a few nursery rhymes, skip a lickle and then told us to fuck off like nice little boys. One even picked up a packet of Rizla that had fallen out of Balwinder's arse and handed it back to him with a this-looks-a-bit-dodgy jibe. We scrambled back in the van and drove under the speed limit for at least the next ten minutes as the pigs tailed us. Beyond High Wycombe, we was on our own again, and Gaggy floored the accelerator and pulled out his hidden bottle of Jack Daniels.

We cruised the rest of the way on the hard shoulder - occasionally testing to see if the crash barriers were working - the driving conditions were not helped by the fact that my man was wearing his extra-gangsta tinted shades, which always came out the more fucked up the driving condition. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except for once when Gaggy fell completely asleep at the wheel and caused a puncture just outside Birmingham, which he had to change on his own while cursing our mothers, as we lay strewn in the comfort of a lay-by, buzzing out of our heads. Half way through the process he realised that he hadn't bought any spares with him, dumb cunt! It took a call to the AA on a forged user account to get us moving again.

I guess Gaggy thought that the trip would do us some good. Refresh us for the rumble. Get away from the ghetto, sample a bit of foreign culture in a foreign land, time to laugh at them people with the funny foreign accents. What the shifty banda really had going on in Birmingham we hadn't a fuckin' clue, but he'd promised to grease us in on a share of the profits if we did as he said and that was good enough. Riz didn't know how he'd been talked into going when the fight was less than twenty hours away now, confirmed. Gaggy's motto was, "night-time's Yardie time."

The rumble was finally on. With all our sneaking around and trashing half the "Time Out" Bangla listings in the East End, we'd come up with a blank and the police tailing some hapless bastards down Hounslow. Gaggy's solution was a lot simpler. Two phone calls is all it took - one to Lahori, Commercial Street, to talk to the waiter who was plugged in with the East London gangster scene, and then one to the brother of the guy whose brains we'd recently turned to nihari. Initially Gaggy was setting up a one-on-one until we put him straight. He didn't seem happy. But the rumble was on. tomorrow, Sunday at 12:00 noon, down Wealdstone, just behind the iron bridge. He'd even given the Bangla directions and train times. No wonder Gaggy was in charge. There were about thirty hardcore gang bangers ready for the rumble and another fifteen to twenty from the local colleges organised by Moni T. All we needed was a bit of armed assistance, John Evans and his foot soldiers (more than enough compensation for Shak's sudden absence), and tomorrow was bound to be a satisfying blood-bath. Gaggy had his mobile on and was making arrangements - still no John Evans.

We entered Birmingham and headed for Borsal Heath where we checked out some restaurant called Sampura's Tandoori, and found the only place in the world that does Sheer Maal outside Karachi - I've known brothers who've emigrated for less. Sheer maal's the food of Genghis Khan. A round sweet naan bread, cooked on Bandar road amongst the rats, bullets and pollution of Karachi, but a taste you can trip on. Add to it korma, the chicken korma that they serve in Pak weddings, as it is the one that Sampura's do weren't bad, and you is in Zion boy. Gaggy, in particular enjoyed the Kashmiri chai they served us for laters. What's more, they accepted foreign currency, so we tipped them with all the Deutsche-marks we had - no idea how much we'd given them, but the looks on their faces said that it was enough to fuck their daughters with.

As Gaggy made a few enquiries, one or two phone calls and we chipped to the Dome in the city centre, our next destination. This is where Gaggy had arranged to meet his contact, a notch by the name of Walid, Wally, who Gaggy told us was related to some minister in with the Baluchistan Public Services Committee posse - whatever the fuck that was. Fuck, most people you meet these days claim to have big-time connections, and they is all fuckin' liars. And when we got into the club w'happen? Fuck all. No Wally, no Baluchis, not a fuckin' fart in sight.

"Don't worry gangstas," Gaggy said, "they're going to be late. What - do you expect these big time fuckers to be on time?"

Gaggy didn't seem to be concerned about the fact that he was possibly being played. He went to a corner, ordered a kingfisher substitute and sank down near a payphone, with his finger up his arse to wait the signal. Riz and me nursed our alcohol-free cokes and decided to mingle and shift some of the grass Riz had bought down. The club was thriving, with more ho's than we had time. We all knew these foreign Birmingham bitches squealed all the same, we'd met enough down the West End, but now we was the tourists and eager to see if they was as easy here as when they was on holiday in London.

Riz went for two ready ho's in black who looked like sisters, and I joined him. Hershna and Sonia were cousins who went to Birmingham Uni and were studying History and Politics, smart feisty bitches too - even smarter when we presented them with two complimentary joints. This got the friendship off to a flying start. They explained that this was study week on her course, when all the young skif was out there trying to get banged. They'd decided to spend their time cruising the clubs of the city, getting acquainted with the natives. They told us about all the smart places to check out - the Pulse, Miss Moneypenny's, Bobby Rounds. They told us about their two subjugated boyfriends who'd bought them here but had fucked off the moment some other mates had turned up, leaving them to fend for themselves, which is why we suddenly offered to bodyguard for them.

Before long Riz was struggling with Sonia's bra strap, while Hershna was playing a little you-can't-get-me game. The bitch was too pissed to be of any use anyway, so she continued with her tale about Uni and her course and her future options, making me happier that I'd done everything in my power to avoid the educational institutionalisation. As my fingers got closer to her phudd, I heard a commotion. I turned and I found my man, Riz, sitting on the floor, his head dripping wet as if someone had spilt something over him. Eleven fuckin' fairy boys were standing around him. Doing that primitive boy racer thing, trying to act hard - the ugliest, no doubt Sonia's lap dog standing right over Riz's head, threatening to do him over. If the series of amateur school boy cusses was anything to go by, he was one of them loudmouth dandya boys, uglier than Jackson, who tend to hang around like a fuckin' semen stain once they hooked up with you and 'tink dey hard' after one or two high school rumbles - fuckin' pretenders. Pounded enough pretenders to pulp in my time.

Riz looked at me and smiled. A bad fucking sign. BOOYAKA! It had arrived - STRESS RELIEF - GANGSTA-STYLE! He'd been aching for some R&R and it had waltzed into our lives like Chunky Pandet in his leather trousers in 'Aankhen'. The sap had just volunteered his arse for a bit of target practice. As Riz got up, the pussy pretended to lunge for him, and was held back dramatically by two other sandwiches - let's just call them sandwich number 1 and sandwich number 2.

"You better get owt brutha, you hear? You best be leaving, or I'm moon-walking all over your ass, muthafucka!" he said with his dark guggu eyes bulging out of their socket, Eddie Murphy style. He'd no doubt been watching RAW.

Riz straightened his hair with his hand, adjusting that brylcreem sheen, savouring every minute of it. One of lemon's mates jumped in, acting referee, giving Riz the dramatic "I'm sorry my mates a bit pissed and when he gets pissed he gets a bit out of control where his woman's involved, so you best leave" routine.

Riz was quiet, no quips, no cussing, no flex. He was just turning up his rage. I could see that Riz already had his hand in his jacket. Any piss-head with an ounce of street smart could have seen it coming and would have made the necessary arrangements to duck. Not these home boys. These were nice college pussies (aiming for a third in Business Studies and a life in import/export), way out of their league here.

Sonia intervened and begged Riz to go - Virju had an uncontrollable temper. She didn't know Riz.

Virju, feeling bolder, pushed Sonia out of the way then suddenly clutted Riz hard on the face, "Look, I ain't warning you again boy."

Big mistake.

Without warning Riz swings out, missing the lemon completely and bopped sandwich 1 in the face so hard you could hear him swallow his front teeth. He went down quicker than Michael Spinks. When Riz recoiled, I spotted a knuckle duster with half the banda's face imprinted on it. Time to lickspect.

Another vicious upper-cut, and BOP! Down goes sandwich 2 and Virju's on his own now, exposed with no one to hold him back. His other friends have sobered up, gand phatti and they've scurried off like rats to watch the rest of the crucifixion from relative safety. Riz's face was spattered with drops of student yolk already as he finally replies:

"C'mon bring it on, muthafucka!!" He screamed over the din, "It's just you and me!" The dumb shit still didn't move. I was beginning to feel sorry for his dumb arse \- dark red guggu-vampire eye-balls sat there staring at us through a mist of Budweiser. But a sure yellow stain had begun to appear in his nice Michael Jackson trousers. There was a pleasant pause.

Then at the count of three we jumped Virju's moon-walking arse and began beating his tiny brains out of his ugly skull. Riz was pounding his face like Captain Caveman while Bal repeatedly used Virju's tuttay for penalty practice. About a minute or two later of uninterrupted violence, Virju weren't looking too happy - even his umma wasn't going to kiss him goodnight, tonight.

The ungrateful bitches was grievin' for the fallen cunt. But the large crowd now gathered were more appreciative of our skilful demonstration of the art of bad boy kabbadi, cheering us on. And best of all, still no bouncers. We used the lapse of authority to our full advantage and pulled the Uni boy over to one side while continuously pounding his arse with his mates watching, and stabbed him. A few fuckin' times for dissing us, and a few for luck.

"You gonna punk me now, muthafucka!" Virju finally went off for a quick meeting with one of his Gods; we turned around ready for fight-night.

Gaggy ran towards us and grabbed us. "I've got the address, let's go."

"I ain't goin' nowhere till you tell us where you takin' us." Riz said, determined to end this mystery.

"I'll tell you when we get there. We ain't got time for chit-chat muthafucka. We're running late as it is. Besides the acid gonna be down soon to check that omelette you just made."

Reluctantly at first, we left the area to the sound of police cars, and headed North towards Lozells. Riz was buzzin' all the way; as a finale to the evening's entertainment, he'd picked up one of them big arty bar-stools - solid brass metal - and bought it down on Virju's head, instantly turning meat into vegetable! But the ruck had bought out something else in him, something vicious I couldn't put a label on.

Gaggy was busy pointing out all the tourist attractions which still looked like a pile of shite to us. Birmingham ain't exactly Bermuda, no matter what the cunts from the tourist industry say. Still, we were all buzzing and looking forward to the job in hand, whatever it was.

We drove past circuit with the boy racers lined up to break a few land speed records. An audience of close to five hundred straggling around the streets patiently crossed Fazeley and headed up New John Street West.

"Now you wait here for me," Gaggy said with a smile as he stalled the motor a few hundred yards from a small run-down office above a bakery. "Only come in if and when I signal it, and be ready for anything, ladies - I mean anything!"

With that he jumped out, went up to the door and began sniffing round the front. Gag nudged the door and suddenly it was open. It was about 11-11:30, a light was still on somewhere inside - serious fuckin' overtime. The bandulu pushed the door open and crept in. We was left behind in the dark, twiddling our lullies. So that was it! That bizness that Gaggy had dragged us all this way for. Waiting for him, while he broke and entered his way into a rundown flat. By this stage I was alone in my disappointment, the others simply didn't give a fuck. "All fruits ripe, Riz?"

Rude boy was picking meat off the dusters, jammin' up some Rum with Bal - he'd had tossed a coin to decide, once and for all, whether he was a boozer or not. It was tails and he was pissed out of his head. He was now looking at ways of squeezing Gaggy's stock into his veins. I just sat there rolling joints like a fuckin' factory-line worker, waiting for the signal. Twenty minutes go by and the signal never came. To my regret, I found myself trying Mina's number. As usual, no answer from the ho. We continued waiting. Finally, when we was getting edgy and debating whether we should go launch a rescue mission, the door opened and mad Singh shuffled out. He seemed to be strolling at first, but then it became obvious that he was staggering.

I remembered F's warning, but it came too late. Gaggy stopped for a second and appeared to go back into the flat. By this time, the boys were armed with more artillery than an urban ED-209 and ready to mobilise, but Gaggy reappeared, bounding out of the flat like Linford, carrying his overweight torso towards the van and shouting muthafuck-knows-what instructions at us. "Challu, challu, challu." His backup was too pissed, stoned and out of it to move a fuckin' muscle and we sat there staring at the lazy body running at us, weighed down by all that gold cargo and Jack Daniels, ninety-five percent proof.

As he flew into the van he hollered, "Paki's, don't you hear nuttin'. Me's tellin' ya, get the fuck, and you'se watching me!" He jammed on gas, twisted the wheel and screeched out of Hunter's at light speed.

His shoes were swimming in blood, and his knuckles were puffy, making it difficult to steer. We bombed it out of the borough and headed to yet another pre-arranged destination. I still had no idea who the fuck had been inside, what had happened in those twenty minutes, or even where we was headed to now. But by the look on Gaggy's face, pay day had just arrived.

It's moments like these that you wish that you'd never got out of bed in the morning. I should have kept on sleeping in the reference section of Pinner library, remaining that small-town gangsta I was comfortable with. Here I was, 'a good old boy', in some West-Midlands' piss-pot, fleeing a political beating, with a mad off-license proprietor who'd just crossed the line. Organised crime. And so had we, just by lending ourselves to his scheme.

If this was a hit, and all fingers were pointing to it, it was meant to be clean - get in there, a big clut round the head and get out - no noise, no witnesses, no nuttin'. As it was, the next day the incident wasn't reported in the press or anywhere. But Gaggy must have left enough of himself for the fuckin' pigs to build an exact replica of himself - fingerprints, blood, DNA, hair, footprints - it was obvious from the state of him. And then there must have been witnesses - the old bitch and her dibbi poodle staring down at us from the top of an adjacent flat, the old drunk staggering past, the delivery boy on his BMX - easily describable suspects - a long haired drunken Indian yob bouncing down the road yelling obscenities, the van, the license plates, us. I was amazed that Gaggy hadn't dropped a business card at the crime scene with contact information and hours of business. We all knew without Gaggy having to say anything, that there had been a fuck up of monumental proportions back at the flat.

About twenty-five minutes later we was out on the front-line again, waiting in the white Ford again, this time outside a terrace of run-down pre-war houses in Alan Rock, the arse end of Birmingham, tripping to the revolutionary sounds of Fun^da^mental. By this time the others consisted of about ninety-five percent pure alcohol. I was permanently attached to my lal-patti which I'd taxed from Riz's baba, trying to calculate how many days it was since I'd slept and shat.

This was the location where Gaggy had been promised payment for the job - five grand in total, all in unsequential, unmarked bills, for a twenty minute beating. We was getting one hundred and fifty quid each, just for the pleasure of accompanying him. If the drop ever showed up. I calculated that it would have taken Shak, John Evans and the others six such low-risk hits to have made up what they stole from the van. Plus they wouldn't be inside.

Gaggy looked around and checked his watch. 2:00 am, Birmingham time. You could tell he was nervous, he kept scratching his head and looking down at his watch.

"You ain't going to make that thing go faster by staring at it, muthafucka." Riz said helpfully.

"I know, homes. I just want the cash and I want out." Gaggy said as he briefly glanced at a map of Birmingham before checking his watch again.

He'd blown his supersonic cool, and was edgy and shifty and at a knife's edge. This was someone else to the gangsta we knew. Someone who'd bitten off a muthafuckin' more.

"So, who was in there?" Riz said, finally blurting out the question that had been bugging us all.

Gaggy cupped a shaking hand and blew into it. "Look, all I know is that Wally wanted a favour. It was some political asylum case who'd blown the crib with some paisa that Wally and his associates need back."

Gaggy was still on about Wally. No fuckin' show and he's talking about a hit. Someone's tuttas were being pulled. "So who the fuck was it, you fuckin' lying piece of shit?" Riz asked.

"Does the BPSC mean anything do you?"

Riz was blank. Gaggy swallowed some JD and stared at his watch again. "Well, do some research and get back to me, muthafucka."

"So where's this contact of yours, brutha?" Riz said sarcastically, "fuckin' lookin at his A to Z?"

"Don't worry, you dumb cunt - he'll show with the paisa."

Riz slumped back. Things were fundamentally wrong with Gaggy's story, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I mean, my man had carried out the hit, and here he was, shaking all over. What had gone wrong in there? And where was that supposed shit? It could have been us - the situation could have tampered with our perspective. I mean, we ain't ever sat in on a hit, and I was finding it hard to believe that Gaggy was a dogheart - seeing Riz at the end of an assassin's piece was almost expected - but Gaggy, boxer, maybe with his 6 ft 4 of no nonsense attitude bustin', gravity defying hooks. He'd even sparred a few rounds with Evans down some gyms in Roundwood and got some mention, but somehow never pursued it. The man had a respectable enough battlefield kill ratio, but I never figured him the cold-blooded exterminator type - be honest, would you expect your mate to be a contract killer?

But, you know, just like any fuckin' opportunistic Indian business man with all his peers behind bars or on the run and the market wide open, Gaggy had decided that this was an ideal opportunity to expand his market share. This was his way of introducing himself to a more sophisticated client base. But with the market come new rules - I hoped he had the instinct to catch all the fuckin' angles from the start.

Why was we here? Gaggy was still hoping for a deal to be made, where we couldn't see fuck all. I gazed out at the slum housing. Line after line of blackened, gutted skeletons of fucked-up-the arse-by-the-system housing. If you thought Highgate cemetery was dead, you haven't seen Hansworth district or Lozells, Birmingham. Even the fucking corpses are applying to move down to London.

This is the West at its worst. A pseudo-third world created by the smart ruling classes at the top, who've bred a race that actually live and multiply in this fuckin' depravation. No light at the end of this particular tunnel. The funny thing is that everyone down here thinks there is, with your fuckin' TV, your fuckin' drugs and dirty-pimping sex, but it's all a fucking mirage.

But this is what could have been - kismat having dealt us a different hand - and baba decided twenty-five fateful years ago, one dank and nasty day at Liverpool docks, to go with his bhai jaan to check out an old village friend by the name of Shafiq-ur-Rahman, who'd immigrated about eight months earlier, hired by British Coal.

Jamshed bhai got a job too, and worked his lungs into a premature grave for the British coal mine association - the only place in the sixties where skin colour didn't matter - they couldn't tell the damn difference without a three day scrub. Bhai set himself up in a hovel with a white working-class ho named Nora Hanratty down Hansworth ghetto and sprang loose three of the dimmest, most fuckin' useless human beings alive in the world today (two taxi drivers, Max and Dave and a daughter, Amtul, who's married back in Dera-Ismail Khan, North West Frontier Province, with a husband three times her age - a wife-beating, horse pimping wadera bastard).

Nora stayed with him, but the kutti opened her legs for anything stiffer than a wet sausage, and now that the poor fucker's six foot under with lung-cancer - she's turned a hobby into a full-time profession. You want a bargain basement jhuk, just follow the moans down Bradfield Estate (I'm guessing, never kept in touch), if you can stand the smell of hundred year old phudd.

I couldn't feel nothing for bhai, except what a fuckin' fool he'd been, shoulda come out to London when the blood in his veins hadn't turned to dust, and sorted out a real life.

Now in the arsehole of civilisation, I found myself in a very familiar position, waiting in a van for some dodgy contact to turn up. If it's not powder, pills or herbs, it's information of one kind or another. The number of times I've done this, you'd be amazed. Being a gangsta, it goes with the territory. Repeating itself like some nasty b-flick.

Then your salt eventually do turn up, three days late because you were meant to connect somewhere completely different - you wanna go from point A to point B where your maal is waiting for you, and the ruff-neck takes you on a roller-coaster ride from C to Z exclusively. And you finally end up where you started in the first place - the maal's finished, gone missing, been swallowed by a wild chut, all the standard excuses under the sun - but here, you can try snorting some Johnson's baby powder instead and that's when extreme measures are called for.

Now I ain't a proponent for torture, but we all remember Harry - Harish Patel, brainy college coconut - twelve A-Levels and a PhD from Imperial College to his name, all in Maths, who, through some fucked up deficiency in his genes, had decided to become a part-time criminal, involved exclusively in credit card fraud. Here was another prime example of a 'tourist' trying to play with the beasts in the ghetto after dark, a 'samfi' \- and worse still, someone who thought he could play them gangstas at their own game.

He roped in Jimmy and some of the other bruthas and had some hardware flown in from Hong Kong, that could recreate beautiful fake cards with - get this - a fuckin' cereal box and a length of video tape. Wicked! Except for one fine detail - it didn't work. It was set to Hong Kong settings, and was never going to work here in the UK. The rocket scientist whose favourite phrases included "take a pew" and "second order partial differential equations", couldn't get a simple counterfeiting machine to work.

For three days the investors - Jimmy, Shak, Gaggy and others pursued Harry for a fuckin' refund after Jimmy almost got his arse fried, trying out a card at a NatWest, Ealing Broadway. THREE FUCKIN' DAYS my man disses them! We put entire colleges into infirmary for less. Now he's playing hide and seek with us, calling up from his mobile in his Merc 500SEC, and hanging up. Not showing up after agreeing to meet Jimmy, putting his mobile on voicemail the moment he knew it was any of us, and duckin' out of do's the moment we turn up.

Eventually, we ended up paying a visit to the Patel homestead - knocked right on his front door, got invited in for a cup of chai by his mama, while we waited for him to get home. Looked at the family album, checked out his graduation pictures and the Ashiwad ceremony they had afterwards. Then we took Harry out to for a ride in Jimmy's uncle's van, drove him to Amersham woods and spent a whole day breaking his fucking bones with a workman's hammer. The sock we'd stuck in his mouth almost drowned the bhen-chaud with his own spit and blood and that noise and smell it makes when you pound one hundred pounds of prime Gujarati credit card counterfeiting business man flesh in a confined space. But the worst moment was when Jim hit him in the skull and we all heard it crack like a friggin' coconut - I thought any minute his brown tilda-basmati brain was going to jump out of his head.

Gaggy jumped out of the van and took a quick piss. We'd been waiting for about an hour, and Riz and Bal were almost paralytic, rolling around the back like a bunch of stuttering fucks. According to Gaggy this muthafucka was always out on night missions and headed home regularly to check his ansaphone for messages. I grabbed a pill that I'd acquired a few days back from Atul's smartie box to fight off a headache that was threatening to take hold. I still had no idea of the chemical constituents of the box, but whatever it took to make Birmingham unreal. And it worked, but not as I'd expected.

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA or ecstasy is one of a family of drugs from the MDA family which fall between hallucinogens (like LSD) and the amphetamine family. It causes an increase in heart rate and blood pressure in most people, a fucking feeling of happiness and energy. Mixed with LSD, 'candyflipping', you go to the next level, and the buzz is even keener. But you dumb and you mix it even further, with Amphetamines and Sensimillia and shit, you've ended up with a cocktail that squeezes the accelerator to the floor and releases a tidal wave of chaos to fuck your system over, ensuring that meanwhile your nervous system is fried like a phudd in a microwave.

And that's exactly what the crimson pill did to me that night. We hadn't been formally introduced, but I'm experienced enough to know the minute it touched my tongue I was fucked.

I lay back and waved bye-bye to the rest of the evening, floating off on one drop, as the world turned into a peep-show, sidelining me into the darker edges, the fuckin' pervert trying to feed enough pennies to keep my eyes open. Suddenly, everything came into sharper focus, obeah style: the lights, the cars, the slum-dwellings, the dodgy cunt walkin' towards us in his Peter Sellers birdie num-num suit. My heart was pounding, licking out dem grooves at a thousand bpm as my senses lit up like fucking radars.

He was Jimmy Mulbari. He was from the old country, Bhakkar, a small village outside Peshawar where recent sectarian in-fighting has reduced the male population down to a dog and a chicken. He climbed in and introduced himself. The moment he opened his labba mouth, we knew we were dealing with a player.

"Gaggy! Kee ora hai, sala bhen-chaud?"

My first impressions were that we'd be getting out the workman's hammer again.

On the surface, Jimmy looked like your average John Q Patel, that is, if it weren't for his seventies superfly, blaxploited street-pimp suit, dark goggles, cargo, fifties Dobbs hat and an unmistakable aroma of cheap vice brewed in a fuckin' toilet.

He pulled us by the tuttay and took us for a ride, chasing duppys around the arse-rim of Birmingham. Slum dwellings and desecration. Pile upon pile of horse shit piled so high, you'd think your head was way up a horse's arse.

Jimmy spread himself out evenly between us and sparked up one of them King sized Havanas which he used to flavour his Southern Comfort, stinking up the van, while Riz and Bal drunkenly scratched round the back of the van for weapons. I was in no condition to do anything since I was floating thirty thousand feet upside my head. But even buzzing, I knew that from the moment Jimmy had stepped foot in the van, he was sizing us up for something special. The questions he was asking, the way he kept staring in the side mirror at the other two round the back, the ease with which he got Gaggy to run circles round the same block three times. Behind his comic book storefront, this muthafucka was a politician to the bone, just like Wally back in the club. And he could see right through us - the small-time gangstas out swimming with the sharks tonight.

"You know when we arrive here, in sixties," Jimmy was saying, "No one have see brown skin. But now even fuckin' prossies speak in three fuckin' languages. Like fuckin' UN. This is where it all begin. Birmingham. Where the Asian race first make impact in the UK. First time they see us in numbers, turning western night into Asian day."

"You must have seen some real shit back then, eh Jimmy." Gaggy said.

"Oh it wasn't that bad, once we got into groups," he kin teet, "But before that, you could be walking down street and have ten-year-old white runndi slap your arse, and you can say nothing. But now Jimmy have ten-year-old working in sweat shop. Ah yes. Birmingham is where it begin, and Birmingham is where is end."

"When what's going to end?"

"Indian domination of UK. These goras only have us here as long as we oil economy. When that over, chuutia push us into English Channel. Like Bosnia."

If Riz wasn't so fucked, this was one brutha he could have jumped into bed with. As it was, with our ongoing history lesson, we delved deeper and deeper into the dark side of Jimmy's Birmingham and ended up outside a disused warehouse, outside Nechells, a little after 3:00. This was to be the designated pickup point - a burnt out bus-stop, outside a run-down clothings firm, A & K Fashions, Birmingham 1963 Ltd, which sat looking onto an open sewer, flowing past us with the sights and sounds of the real Birmingham.

The warehouse wasn't totally uninhabited, as we found out when Jimmy pointed a few lights high up in an accompanying tower. That's where him and a few spars had ages ago started up an exclusive enterprise, servicing the dreams and needs of the subjugated Asian masses of Birmingham. A whorehouse - with a twist - and it was a fucking legend in its own way.

Jimmy blew some smoke in my face and grinned like a harami, "Madhuri Dixit in there. Waiting for all of you all," he checked his watch, "It all on the house, if you want it. You help Jimmy and Jimmy friends in Bordesley, now Jimmy scratch your back."

Now one thing is for sure, if Jimmy was who he claimed he was, I've never kept company so well connected, but I know for sure that you keep these associations as brief and as business-like as possible. Get your stash and fuck right off before you end up a permanent landmark. Besides that, the state the bruthas were in, we could have been whacked by a ho wielding a dildo and we wouldn't have known any better. But here we were, with less than twelve hours to the rumble of the century, falling out of the van and stumbling, or in my case, being dragged by collar towards a disease-ridden skank nest by Riz. I was going through a chemical induced nervous breakdown and my mind had started unravelling, like them VHS video recorders on fast forward. We stopped by a series of buzzers just outside a boarded up store front, pointing to some flat conversions inside. The brothel, Namastes, seemed to offer it all. Amongst the names I spotted were Juhi, Madhuri, Karishma, Rani, Urmila - fuck, it seemed like all of Bollywood was in there, poised to service some Gangsta meat.

Even now given the signal, Riz would be ready to split fuckers head open, melon-style with an axe and leave their sorry arses in a ditch, but it was still Gaggy's call, and our lullies were firmly in the driver's seat.

"Customer want Bollywood superstar on their lund, so we give them their fantasy," Jimmy sniggered "This girls do song and dance from that fillum, you know, 'Jhollee Kay Peechey', and then she do khatak on your lulla."

We headed up a flight of stairs through the bombed-out building up to Bollywood heaven, while Gaggy fell back to talk shop with Jimmy.

Outside the flat, Riz pulled me aside for a second, "Oi Imran, that fucker toying with us. We was never in Bordesley. What the fuck is he playin' at?" Either that or Gaggy had pulled us in on a little double-deal of his own. Either way we was dead. No matter. We was backing our homeboy to the hilt until we was out of the frying pan and within farting distance of London. Then if we had to, we'd even our grievances. Besides, something the old man always said to me was, "live one day a lion, not thousand a mouse." We'd been in tighter situations, and we were ready to hack and slash our way out if we had to. There was something else I noticed in Riz's face, but something I couldn't place. Ever since the ruck, he'd accelerated his free-fall to self-destruction.

We wasn't expecting Madhuri to answer the door, and it weren't. The skettle who opened the door couldn't have been less than fifty. Leathery face, leathery tits, a cheap banarsi sari and them huge red bindis you wear to a wedding. And to your average Pakistani fried-out dope-fiend, totally irresistible.

The bitch opened her mouth, issuing a prime south of Bombay accent, "Yes, yes, me Madhuri; Madhuri Dick-shit. Come in. Vat you vant - Suki, suki or fucki, fucki?"

Now I don't know what the others have to say about the matter, but to me every bitch is a potential ho. If it's not money, it's something else. Before joining you for a drink a bitch has already weighed you out, seen what you can offer her. Whether it be bucks, security, qualifications, or your Indiana Jones lora, she's already put a price on her phudd. At least a trick is more honest - who knows, perhaps it's the most honest interaction between a blood and a ho. I mean, it's the only time a lie ain't involved in male-female interactions. You give up twenty-five quid and you stretch some phudd.

We were back in the van with Jimmy Mulbari some ten minutes later, waiting for Gaggy to wind-up his trick. My turn with the dirtiest skank this side of Birmingham had pushed me over the edge and I was literally in danger of blacking out. Jimmy had something to say, but his words meant sweet FA to me.

All I could see before my eyes - Madhuri's bush crawling with lice, hair stinkin' of rank shit, and the shower she hadn't seen in years. I'd come back with a fuckin' disease for certain this time. Madhuri had sucked off the boys one by one in a row, swallowed the gansta-juice without even coming up for air. Felt like my dick was melting. In gratitude, I'd left my guts peeled outside her front door.

And still no sign of the drop. Jimmy didn't look too concerned.

"They half an hour away, between here and Leicester," I could hear him say. "Then you boys get your reward." Gaggy was floating out of the brothel with a dirty smile on his face, singing "I'll push wood, light my fire, can't satisfy my heart's desire" loud. I was hoping he hadn't tried any mouth-on-mouth action or we'd be related.

As soon as Gaggy climbed into the van a few things happened at once, too quick for my irie mind to comprehend. All I remember is Jimmy's mobile ringing and Riz illin', blowing his top, like a trigger tripping off on a gun, "It's a fuckin' joke, the fuckin' punks playin' us." Riz grabbed onto an axe while Bal went for some copper wiring and Gaggy laid it on the line to Jimmy as my fucking synapses finally decided to take me for a ride round the fucking darker recesses of my arse. BANG!

And that was it! Coming to, first thing I saw - Gaggy's dog-molar ring swinging on the gear stick as he shifted the piece of junk into fourth. We was two miles outside the city and heading back for London. Riz was sitting in the back, toking some kaya locked in a vicious world of his own, while Bal was on his back, asleep amongst the empties.

Riz's axe was lying unused, but something had happened. Gaggy grimly downed some JD from his second bottle that night.

"Wassup Paki?" I said, straightening up to a mutha-fucka of a migrane.

"Plain and simple....We got shafted, up the gand." Gaggy said morosely, before downing some more ninety-five percent proof. "No pay-off money."

At the next junction, we had to take a quick diversion down an A road and found ourselves heading for a small village called Shilton, because Gaggy suspected some activity further down the M6.

It turned out that while we was doing our wild thing inside Madhuri, Jimmy had received a call. Based on what was said, the deal was dead. And he'd shopped our arses to the pigs. He was just getting ready to bail out, when Riz had finally cracked him. We'd done him in badly, but the damage was done - the trip had been the cream at the peak of all fuck-ups.

We'd spent the rest of the morning on the little A-roads outside Birmingham and Leicester avoiding the acid, driving past fucked-up-the arse shit-holes - Claybrooke and Sharnford, avoiding imaginary checkpoints and roadblocks. By the time the fuckin' sun was showing signs of coming up, Gaggy was wearing the thickest pair of shades on him, permanently attached to his JD as we swung past Leicester, our arses rattling like jumping beans in a cold tin can. A few hours left to the rumble, and the fight was gone from us.

6:00 am and there was nuttin' left to do except pull the bat mobile into the Granada Services shit-hole down the M1 for a bit of r&r - restock and retoke - no point in losing that keen high just yet. We rolled in, each buzzing on our own poison - Riz and Bal tanked out of their heads, my lethal cocktail of crap leaking all over my arse by now, and Gaggy buzzing on his own profound fuck-up.

We sunk into the live cricket results, playing out on a set high above the floor, checking out Pakistan-South Africa and West Indies-New Zealand. Sam was up by now, hiding behind the sofa and the gao-takyey from Baba and Stella, keeping a lone vigil from her hideout in Pinner along with an expectant nation of one hundred and twenty-seven million, while we scraped our pennies together for a last meal. Only one question remained unanswered as Riz finally gave Gag the dissing of his life and it weren't pretty.

"Why you mashing it up, bro? Still on our jacks," he said, "What the fuck happened back there?"

Gaggy first ignored Riz's line of questioning, preferring to wipe Birmingham from his face with a wet towel, then changed his mind. "Really some trip, wasn't it brother. The Dome, the Pavilions, Centenary Square. You know they say it's all in London." Riz was glaring at him, with murda in his eyes. "Homie, you really want to know. Thirty Gs, is what."

"For real!"

"What the fuck do you think - I'd lie to you now?" he said trying to sound sincere, "Of course for real. Chaudu's name was Amer Seth."

Gaggy explained it was a name you wouldn't see in the pages of Dawn or Jang, but a name high up there with the Baluch ministers and Walid Latif's adventures (aided by the corps commanders of Baluchistan) - tricks dealt in to grease the wheels of their business ventures while they played politician. Except that the crooks got played. Seth was in England, holed up with thirty lakh of Wally's kulfi, unannounced and unwarranted.

That simple.

Call it money, call it politics - in Pakistan you don't separate one from the other - Seth had played the players. This was happening all the time. In this case it was Gaggy's contract to go out and collect a big debt, but what had gone wrong? Truth be told, it wasn't even rightfully theirs - Seth's dosh, Walid's dosh was in reality, upna paseena; these corporate cunts were just lining their pockets with the peoples heritage like every other third-world "democracy", stealing from under the beds of farmers, villagers, peasants. Turning the valleys and hills of the fatherland from gold into dust. Fuck, I didn't need no reward to finish that job - time came, I'd do it for free.

Gaggy was in danger of looking righteous, sitting there in the halo of his Tacchini track suit, Reeboks and wet perm. "Listen - only today, Shak was telling me to widen the scope of my operations. Get the political connections. Get on the muthafuckin' fast track to the stars. Then my man even sniffs out Walid for me. Enough respect goes to my man."

"Less respect to you muthafucka. You almost got our arse fried," Riz said angrily, "give me a reason why I shouldn't rape your fuckin' mama."

Gaggy was calm. He knew that it had come to a head and Riz was ready to turn on all of us. "Listen bro," he said, "This was all for our good."

"This was for your own fuckin' good - it had nothing to do with us! Draggin' us to Brummie for your fuckeries. You was going to fuckin' fry us all. You turn your back on me today and you're dead, muthafucka."

Gaggy remained level, "Riz, just listen the fuck up. It was my fault - granted - I didn't finish the job thoroughly enough. But give it time, and it's gonna turn sona."

"Sona! The only thing sona, was slamming that hoochie stamina mama. You almost got us smoked."

"While you got all the Willesden youngblood lined up for the firing squad! No different, homie." Gaggy pulled an ugly expression as he finished his swine. "Who you trus'?" So that was what was tuggin' at Gag. An overbearing sense of honour amongst thieves.

Unexpectedly, Riz fell quiet. Whatever he was thinking, whether he understood Gaggy's hint, or more likely, he'd had enough by now (you could almost see it in his face), he finally sat back, closed his eyes and just shut the fuck up. I knew in no uncertain terms that after the fight, Riz was going to fuck off for good, and getting there was a formality. I sat there in my place as the lightening bolt of recognition raced up my arse. Gaggy had just confessed all his sins to us without even knowing it. The double-crossing, desperate lying muthafucka had just pulled his finest trick. And suckered us all in the process. I knew there wasn't more than three fuckers alive who knew what was inside Gaggy's head - yours truly, Gaggy and Shak - the architect and the Godfather of the ghetto. Shak had pressed a button that had reached out all the way to Birmingham from his thrashed-in one bunk throne down Carven.

As we sat around, toking away our last few hours on earth, I took a good look around. It must have been a busy night in fuckin' dodge - the caf was buzzing with outlaws. Three tables down from us sat three ugly muthafuckas, staring at the results silently, wearing the colours of Imran's boys - bruthas by default.

I checked out my own crew - run-down, dragged and squeezed through the lowest skank-ridden gutters this side of western hell. Riz, with his psychotic nervous twitch silenced for now as he surrounded himself with a plume of lethal white ganga. Give the muthafucka half a dime and he's on the next fuckin' Quantas heading for the cup. Gaggy, Bal, John Evans and the Yardies and me. The core crew, the only muthafuckas on the confirmed list for Wealdstone marching blindly into possibly the mother of all East End reprisals - a tidal wave of hate rolling in from Aldgate East, Stepney, Upton Park and all the other badlands dotted along the Central and District lines. We didn't give a fuck. We just wanted it over with. You see it ain't like the movies - your mouth-watering wank-fests - mobilisations for war, them weapons, their team-tactics, the hard-talk. We just sat there scratching our recently drained tuttas, discussing cricket.

The greasy unshaven bastard three tables down asked for a light. He was from a place called Highfield in Leicester, heading back from a night mission out in London with his homies. Dodgy fuckers, who'd look out of place even in Willesden - faces that only emerge under a full moon, looking for blood. His mates were Tariq and Izzy, Pathans from the old country. Izzy was still wearing khursay in a lime-green Shalwar. The only thing missing was his AK47 and stinger missile launcher. "Paki's are out of the cup, innit!" The blood didn't give me his name.

"Not while they got a single breath left. I'm Imran," I told him, "that's Riz, Gaggy, and Bal, we're heading back from Birmingham."

"Safe. We heading the other way. Just checked out a gig down the Palace. But me don't give no fuck about no beats - if it ain't Aziz Mian or Fateh. Me just there for business." This fucker was a kunjar through and through. A purist, uncontaminated by westernised bullshit. "Me fuckin' hate them bhangra batty boys. Mixing East with West. You keep it pure, like religion."

I didn't ask him if he was junglist. "So what kind of business you in, bro?" I asked.

"Me check out some connections for two-three types of maal. It's going to be very hot summer."

I guessed what the first two were - habshi halwa and asla. I had several good leads to what the third item could have been - don't forget, this was the spring of '92. After that summer, and then winter and what did you have?

Riz stirred in his sleep like a fuckin' vampire as the sun hit his eyes. Gaggy was picking off a swine breakfast while keeping his eyes peeled to the cricket scores \- praying to whatever forces he believed in for India to lose overall - he was still pissed about Kalistan.

"So you all 'stanis?" purist asked me.

"Nah, only me and Riz. The others are bit of this, bit of dat."

Purist burst out laughing, "Brutha, we is ALL bruthas, don't matter which way we pray." I glanced at Gaggy who was lost in a sleazy world of his own. "It's the gora who never going to be your brutha. Never going to accept you as equal. So remember, save your anger for the white trash. Don't fight upna." Purist was the spitting image of Riz's uncle, Hanif Afzal, a bandit tied into Waderas in Gulshan-I-Ravi, who'd just recently (Feb 13th) been knocked off in a shootout with the pigs as they tried to free four accomplices in police custody - law and order Paki style - and yet one more thing on Riz's list to chew at his cunt.

I checked the time again. It was 7:00. Pakistan had just lost to RSA by 20 runs and were out of the cup and on their way home to a lynch mob. And we was on our way to our doom at the hands of the upna - only the formality remained. The walking dead began to stir from their nightmares and focus in on the game plan. Gaggy was already on his mobile, making arrangements.

I stood up and said goodbye to my newfound compatriots who were wrapping up their meal too, obviously disgusted by the cricket. The big-time Leicester prick just grinned at me.

"Listen, what do I call you? Khan? Imran? Listen, anytime you'se need backup, call us, the Highfields boys."

"Level vibes bro. So what do you do down Leicester, anyways?"

His smile was a line of headstones in a 24 carat gold graveyard. "I'm a taxi driver like me bhai-jaan. Had a chance to go into the fuckin' coal mines like the old man, but fuck that. Only one dark hole I go down and that don't give you fuckin' cancer. By the way, name's Max...."

The fuckin' sun was up from behind the huge transmission towers, taking a front seat for the rumble. The call that Gaggy had taken on his mobile as we exited the Granada services shit hole bought us the final piece of bad news that we hadn't needed. It was F, calling from Crystal Palace. As of 2:30 last night, John Evans had been picked up outside EQ for popping a bouncer. Of all the crimes in the world, the pope had finally been arrested on a simple murder rap on a rent-a-pig. It was that seven years bud-kismaty again.

Scratching our eyes in the growing sunlight, we fired up the van. Max was leaving with the Leicester posse too, and he grinned. "Watch di ride bruthas. Upna bhai, upna jeevan. Innit." We climbed in and swung out onto the M5 and London as Gaggy pumped up the base with the Safri boys, and we rode into battle wheeling on Tumbi. There was only one item on our agenda for today.
CHAPTER IX

RUMBLE

You ever made it back from Birmingham to the East End in one hour ten? That's what we're talking about on our last night on earth. Gaggy screamed down the M1 then the M25 like it was covered in frozen piss. It was time to turn defence into offence, and we'd entered the layer of the rat. The slums appeared before we'd had a chance to shit the high from the Granada services out of our dysfunctional systems. Gaggy was busy screaming out Dhol Nagara, the finale to Safri's debut without even havin' to come again, while the twisted jungle of the high-rise slums swallowed us whole. It was at Upton Park that we realised that we had a virgin's chance in Heera Mundi to find what we was looking for. It is an open secret that you can make Upton Park to Aldgate East in five, give or take the twenty seconds it takes to play dodgem with the dozy Sunday muthafuckas you see coming up the one-ways in Bow and Bromley. We squeezed the brakes only once, outside a darkened Lahori, as Gaggy ducked out in a cloud of burnt rubber and hammered on the doors and windows of the sacred establishment. We hadn't seen nothing up Stepney or Mile End, but we was working on instincts. You gotta understand, under pressure, Gangsta part-Rottweiler. We was working on fumes, homing in on hints like a heat seeking chuut. Remembering rumours, bullshit we'd sniffed in passing. Gaggy piled back in, with a flyer and a mobile number. He tried it and got through to a fuckin' voicemail. It was Sunday - which muthafucka listens to their voicemail at 9:00 in the morning. When you desperate you leave a message.

"This is Garginder Singh, plugged in with the North West posse, where you got some scene going on at 12:00. Call me when you'se hear this."

There was nothing to do, waiting outside like a bunch of gandus. Riz remembered where Jimmy had said his uncle lived and through guess work and sheer bullshit hit it at about 9:30. There was no car in the eight bedroom mansion at the right side of the tracks in Barking. The old woman who answered the door, presumably his missus, said he'd left on his regular early morning hikes round the abattoirs of the East End getting fresh meat for the business. Auntie-gi said he checked home regularly and checked his mobile on and off. If we'd like she'd pass on a message. As for Amar, the head waiter, well, he lived three miles off on the North Street Estates in East Ham. Fuck, that was the only clue we needed. Again, just another ten minutes away. We almost banged the door down outside the fucker's house, and got his neighbour, a fifty-three-year-old Indian pensioner by the name of Arnie, fucking talking in circles, but when pressed with a fist three inches out from his temple, he came up with a big fat cocni blank.

But we weren't through. Like I said, it takes a Gangsta with keen senses and half a working brain cell half a day to sniff out any damn chuut they try. With an hour and a half an hour to go to our deadline of 12:00, we finally ran in on Jimmy's uncle in the same place he always was, pulling up the shutters for another day of home-away-from-home Lahori style with a vanload of bloated red sheep flesh in his back seat. He seemed happy to see us, but puzzled.

"Yaar, aren't you meant to be somewhere?"

"That's what we came to talk to you about," Gaggy explained, "have you seen Amar, or Mahmud or any of the boys?"

"No, but last night there was a lot of activity here. Lot of activity. All of Aldgate East was buzzing to the sirens of the East End youth. They seemed heated up about something. I am no mind reader, but I think it was the appointment they were keeping with you."

Of course he fuckin' knew. For the proprietor of Lahori, Aldgate East not to know gangland happenings was like fuckin' CNN not knowing what was happening down Clinton's pants, for fuck's sake. Fuckers talk, when they're stuffing their mouths. It was good though, he'd know where they was holed up, there was still a chance.

"Yeh, that's what we want to discuss." Gaggy told him. "There's still a chance to change fuckin' history man. It ain't happening, to be dragging all the young blood into our score. This is between me and Anwar. He want to see me, I'm here. Man I am ready to face him one-on-one, face-to-face, blade to blade."

"Well, I'm ready to help you boys, but like I said, I really don't know where they are. I asked Billo and he said that they'd left for somewhere in Amar's van."

"Did he say who left or where they were going?"

"Us nay kuch nahey kaha, but he said he thought that there was only Amar on his own, and that he would be back in half an hour. Listen, you boys want to talk to him, then wait and I'll try him at his home address at East Ham, or his kuri where he mostly stay in Beckton. But at this time, he definitely out."

In the back, Riz whispered, "Fuckin' jokers trying to play peacemakers, tsssk." He looked grimmer than a week old murda in the early morning light. The night had made his mind up in more ways than one. Gaggy stared at his watch. It was 11:05. Countdown. For whatever fucked up conscience we'd developed in Birmingham, we'd tried to stop the rumble, but God wanted us to pay for our sins. Past mistakes were going to be rectified not one-to-one, streetfighter-style, but out on a small judgement ground east side of Wealdstone. Gaggy thanked the Godfather of cuisine and stepped back into the van with the rest of us. He looked at his mobile like it was the instrument of betrayal, fucked him over, put it down to one side and hit first as we headed off for our appointment.

Choose gangstahood, choose GBH, choose gang warfare. Fuck it, we're all gangs, anyway. From the biggest imperialistic armies with their F16s and 'collateral-damage' to your football-mobs. From your board room meetings to them lemons mincing round the bowling alleys pretending they all got size sixteen balls. Every classroom to every corporation is an organised gang. We're more honest. We don't hide behind a cockpit, thirty thousand feet up, and we don't hide behind a telephone, playing numbers with the third world. Fuck, these goras have fallen off their evolutionary tree - nature's taking a piss in the bushes. Knives, fists, eating, toking, fucking and bleeding - that's real human endeavour for you - that's gangsta.

We stepped into Wealdstone, knowing there was a job to be done. It was the old killing grounds again and it felt like history revisited. Dirty, unclaimed wasteland between the disused tracks and the gas tower, brimming with human filth and brothers on welfare, making a stand. Homies were arriving from everywhere - F, Moni T and his apprentice boys, Izzy, Kash, Safe, Takky, Justin and James Evans, Willesden massive, the Hounslow posse, Edgware boys, Southall, Ealing, Jimmy Singh and his midnight taash gamers, all the old article rude boys here to serve, protect, seek and destroy, tanked up on Hooch and speed and ganga.

We'd tried making our peace, and now we was doing what we knew best. "You remember Stanburn?" I said, recalling the bricks, bats, stones, wickets, turning each other to phuddi-ki-nihari, thinking we was hard. "Special memories man."

"Fuckin' want this over with, homie." Riz looked over to Gaggy, eyes detached from it all, like glazed cherries. I didn't even have a name for his high. I couldn't feel the crowbar in my hands, with all the poppers and chasers I'd shared with Gaggy, courtesy of Jimmy-the-politician. "Not his way. I'm gonna end this my way." he said. Two weeks of grief and a lifetime of rage.

"Once and for all!"

"BANG!" Sher Singh, a prime Wembley-bound crew, took a firework to the face and went down as the bloodbath took over. Paki's high on wack-backi and adrenaline ran amuck amongst the council flats of Harrow. Felt good to be sweating blood on this patch again. We grabbed a few punks and got them flat-lined - still outnumbered five to three. There was less than thirty of us, split into two dozen rumbles.

Real violence, there ain't nuttin' pretty about it. Unlike them fuckin' films. There ain't no slo-mo to soften the blow. Arsh, Nad's brother stumbled past us, swimming in his own blood, seventeen inch blade impaled in his back. A road accident coming to near me, spun into orbit with a well placed Nike to the head. But I felt myself stumbling, the effects of chronic narcotic self-abuse. Around us, black-eyes, broken teeth, swollen lips, bleeding faces. Fists were flying, heads bouncing off walls, knives clashing with bone. Here and there were bruthas out for the count, as battles raged all around them. We cornered a waiter still wearing his Pride of Bengal Tandoori colours. Riz bought him to rest on the ground, arranged him under his knee, then bought Gaggy's talwar of Kalistan down and split the fucker's head open. The hardcore Jack the ripper had officially entered the 1992 rumble of the year. For insurance I bought the crowbar down, and slam-dunked the Bengal's arse to infirmary. Justin Evans and Bal sprinted past, down the tracks, axes raised like a bunch of Apaches.

Fuck! This was better than Pakistan-India 1990, Crystal Palace, when we'd chased them flag-burning khem chos to the back of their stand, and then set the stand on fire, all the while Imran Khan rapping about the pride of the fatherland. What the fuck does that mean? 'Pride', is your enemy, sliding off the end of your blade.

Riz stumbled into view, face shredded into shrapnel by a razor wire crop. As I attempted to mount a rescue bid, I felt a whallop to the stomach. Seconds later I felt my legs wobble.

I knew I'd been stabbed.

A serrated twelve incher opened me up, like a molten hot stake - the adrenaline swallowed the pain but blew my high right away. The hypovolaemic weakness hit me seconds later. The bastard at the other end of the blade - Amar, the waiter from Commercial Road, smiled at me like the angel of death - just as I evened his happiness. Without thinking, I twisted the sucker punk's arm, grabbed my blade and slashed his wrist open - involuntary suicide.

"Watch it, more chaudus from behind!" Gaggy yelled, but it was too late.

The scalp party caught up with us, surrounding us, taking out hammers, blades, pipes and a chainsaw. This was the last I was gonna look so damn pretty. We fell under a forest of weapons as I started hacking again.

There was none of your collateral damage thirty thousand feet upside your arse. This was bravery South Central LA style in the shadow of the British Gas tower, Wealdstone, chosen by the architect central - out of sight and our of mind - down to last man standing. Salvation came in the flames of a petrol bomb. As half the population of Chittagong threatened to wipe the ground with our arses, reinforcements arrived in the shape of the bastard son of Nora and Jamshed, leading the Leicester cavalry bounding down the 13-tagged iron bridge, accompanied by the stench of human barbecue they'd released in their sudden petrol bomb attack. Boom fuckin' boom! Dogs went up in flames, Max caught up with us, ready to wreck the set. "Oi kiddan Imran, you bhen chaud, couldn't refuse your fuckin' invite, innit. What're you doin' in Wealdstone? Riaz bhai's gonna trash ya, bro. Gotta check him when this is over." We remobilised, stood shoulder to shoulder, ready for the charge as, without warning, our plans came undone.

White muthafuckas were shouting through megaphones some five hundred metres away on the College Road bridge, "Desist and Disengage." The acid was down on the scene, gate-crashing our do. We looked up and saw the bridge swarming with pigs, drawn in from all directions from behind the Civic Centre, Wealdstone High and Harrow. The bastards had finally tracked us down.

We wasn't that eager to let them spoil the fun just yet, subjugating cunts, as they began releasing their blood-hounds as a few riot vans floated in and began mobilising. They couldn't bring their vans down to the killing fields, so they prepared to come down after us on foot. We just had a few minutes to get away - plenty of time, with pigs on your back. A Police Stop! Surveillance 'copter rattled past with a loudhailer instructing us to lay down our arms, like good boys.

Like fuck, motherfuckas. They had their tear-gas, stun-guns and stun-grenades. No way was we disarming first. Besides, who invited you?

We picked up the pieces and left the scene of the slaughter, scattered to all corners of the fucking wasteland. Riz ran up to me, face in ribbons, and dragged me and Max towards the gas tower, beyond which lay the council flats. The others were making similar arrangements. By the time the advance party of the SPG riot boys were breathing down our gands, we'd already reached first base, Victoria Court estate. And that was when the fun started. One or two homies, who knows, it could have been Moni T, fortified behind his Raiders balaclava, threw a bottle of lit paraffin onto an officer who'd hadn't been paying close attention. Adios, you dumb fuck.

I winked at Riz and Max, "Well Pak, you wanted to fuck wi' the system, here's your chance. You gotta do it rough and hard, homie."

Riz didn't reply, contesting with his grim outlook as he wiped his blood all over his Marley t-shirt. He was lucky if he was getting out of here alive. Me, I was just slangin' and bangin' for the thrill to fuck the police, as blood trickled down my legs.

It took a few minutes for the situation to get completely out of control. In riot psychology, you need a spark, but we was already on fire. You had alcohol, adrenaline and deprivation - a lethal combination. We attacked them with everything we had that day - knives, stones, petrol bombs. Everyone came out for the ensuing uprising - the Pak's the Bangla's, the bastards bricked up behind their council flat front doors. In minutes, there was at least two hundred of us on the terraces, fighting the subjugating forces of Tebbit's race machine. It was class riot - purest of the expressions of the ghetto.

From this point onwards, the Bangla's thoroughly outclassed us in this and every department, ran circles round the pigs, having grown up with this drill, time and again down East End. Wave upon wave of young punks rushed the pigs to slice 'em, dice 'em, then disappear into surrounding flats, leading the forces in wild chases down warrens, leading out to Christchurch and Cullington, into ambushes only half of them walked away from. I caught a fallen dog-handler getting pounded to pulp by a fuckin' hammer mob, before a forty year old skin ended the argument by slamming a wheelie bin over his head. You could tell the pigs weren't prepared for violence so early in the day.

A few cars got totalled, as simmering council-trash vendettas were settled. Property was targeted as a high wall collapsed on a few onlookers while flames roared up the side of a boarded up store. The crowd was going ape-shit. Youth were shouting "ruck, ruck, ruck," from the balconies.

The pigs rushed in, but too soon. They were overwhelmed by people-power (if only for ten minutes). Riz and I settled a few personal scores that we'd built up in the last few weeks, while from a building above, the residents pelted the pigs with all bottles, trash and household objects they could find. I mean so what if 'they got the authority, to kill the minority', they was getting it from all flanks. It was a free-for-all, Custer's last stand, Charge of the Light Brigade, and they was gonna get totalled. But they kept coming for us. Damn, what a brutha got to do. And then they released the damn CS gas. Instantly the mood of the riot shifted gear and the insurrection began to die.

We'd known all along the fun wasn't going to last, and with the chemical fumes disappearing up our gands, it was difficult to stay motivated. We'd made our point, so before the reinforcements came in, we fucked off from there. Without any guidance, the gangstas dispersed round the back of Harrow and melted into the general population again. It was crew member carrying crew member, Bangla carrying Paki, gangsta helping gangsta, united in their universal loathing for the forces of Law and institutionalised racism. I carried out the remains of Riz from the scene of the slaughter. It was time to bleed.

The ensuing riot had lasted five, maybe ten minutes max, but its effects were going to last a generation - if you were lucky enough to have been there. Hundreds of thousands in damage, and the best thing is, miracle of miracles, they never got a single fuckin' Paki into their log books, never touched us. Me, Gaggy, Bal, Freddy Singh, Moni T, Max and his squad, Justin Evans and even Riz - all of us got out with our bunds intact. We even dragged the fucking dead and dying out of there so they wouldn't have any leads to follow.

As it was, the incident was unrecorded in their records and the media stayed hushed. The Victoria Estates uprising was buried to stop any other suburban outlaws seizing on. The next racist hit-or-miss thing. But we was happy enough simply to have whupped the establishment's arse. Next time though, you can be guaranteed, it won't be that easy.

In reality homie - and let's be honest about it - it was just another rumble. It wasn't Watts '65, LA '92 or even the borderland '47, but it was also the most fun we've ever had – gang banging for free. My only regret - there weren't no lootin'. When the dust cleared, we was looking across a new landscape - the ill-feeling between us and the East London posse was dead and buried - neither had turned pussy, we'd proven big-time gangstas who'd fought when we had to and unified when the situation called for it. Not quite homies just yet, but on the approved list to trespass on the other's turf. Life continued. I went to get sewn up and refuelled on a gallon of someone else's blood at Northwick Park A&E, where I bumped into Max and some of his bad boys, also taking stitching lessons. Max was in for a rupture in his stomach and while they put him under observation, we had a chance to finally cut through twenty years of rumour and hundred miles of geography. Finally, I had a blood brutha who spoke my language and wasn't ready to fuck me over.

"Bhai tujjay mil kai bhot khushee hai." He said.

"Same here. Fuckin' blood I never knew existed."

"I could tell you was an Ali-khan from the moment I met you'se, with that fuckin' ugly smile. Last time we met, when was is? Ah yes, you was smacking Asim, your fuckin' bro all over the shot with a fuckin' cricket bat on your third. Then me and Asim climbed over dat broken bit in the fence when your crazy buddi neighbour called the pigs on us. Your buddi still there?"

"One hundred and eighty years old, and counting."

"And Asim, what happened to him?"

I thought about this carefully, before delicately phrasing my answer. "He died in a car crash." I lied. "Fuckin' devastated the family. But you know, fuckin' wasn't in his kismet to survive."

Max nodded seriously, looking a little upset.

"Don't worry, fuckin' family pulled through. Papa's happy with me and Sam. So what's happening down Leicester way - you moved?"

"Yeh. After the old man copped it, the fuckin' bitch kicked us out, so we checked out Leicester where my auntie lives."

"Auntie Gulbano?"

"You know her?"

"She fuckin' tried it on with baba long time back, when we was living in Willesden. She was always a fuckin' ho on legs. Before baba got serious, Stella came into the picture."

"Yeh and she ain't stopped since. Three husbands and now she's shacked up with a gora called Stanley. Guy ain't got no balls man. Gulbano sleeps all day, beats him with her broom handle all night, chases him down the street in her Shalwar-kameez. The poor fucker's resorted to sitting it out in a garage, if the weather's not too bad. But me, I'm fuckin' out of all that shit now. Making good money with cabbying round Highfield, and a bit of moonlighting."

"Well bro - next time I'm up Leicester way, I'll look you up." I said with little conviction.

"Guaranteed. Aw, fuck that homes, I'm bringing the fuckin' family down to meet up. We got some serious reunioning to do."

"I'll warn baba."

"Don't fuckin' forget and listen, take it a little slower brutha, lay low on the fuckin' upna on upna violence. It ain't right - it's the white trash that need equalising or have I already told you that?"

Max went off a little earlier than us, he had some business to conclude in Birmingham the next day. His wounds were superficial, while we was r&r'ing for real. Riz occupied the bed next to me as they tried to sew his ugly brown face back together again, while he spent the rest of his time lighting up some Marlboro's he'd sneaked in. It was the first time he seemed in control of his situation - from the bed of a hospital ward. "Listen spar," he said late on Monday night, "I been thinkin'. If that ruck was all that...how come I ain't feeling satisfied?"

"Because you walked away from it."

"No man, I'm fuckin' serious. It's like all that shit we just did, didn't have no fucking meaning...that fuckin' ruck, following Gaggy's trail for two day and I still feel like I'm stuck in Stanburn," He puffed away silently. "There's got to be a reason to all this gang banging. All I'm doin' is chewin' up the same scenery day after day - fuckin' Wembley, Willesden, fuckin' Shahi, again and again."

I tried turning my back on him and getting a bit of sleep. "Riz, it's the fuckin' medicine talking. Go to sleep and tomorrow, you'll be the mean muthafucka you always was."

Riz yawned loudly. "Easy for you to say Imran, you got your shit sorted out. You gonna be educated and employed and fuckin' decent in no time, no matter what fuckin' moves you make. I can count my choices at the end of one finger. Man, I don't want to end up like me old baba, waiting for his time to come. I gotta do something while I can."

For a second I thought the stress of the past few weeks had turned him pussy, but then I know Riz and knew what he was thinking.

"Bro, do you know it's only three hundred economy to NWFP? Man, I'm getting the fuck out of this shit the moment I can walk again. Time to join my true blood out in the highlands."

It was D-day as far as Riz was concerned. The rumble was a turning point. I'd find out the next morning what was what.

Come the next morning, I found out it was the medicine talking. Riz was the cunt he'd always been. He still had the homeland imprinted all over his arse (he always will) but it was a distant wish - something that kept his anger stoked. We'd checked out of Northwick Park the moment the nurses turned their backs - it weren't gonna be too long before some smart-arse bobby decided to check out the local hospitals. We strolled out of Northwick Park Accidents and Emergency with a new improved and impatient outlook in life, and walked straight into another dilemma. The rumble was history, but we was now staring down the barrel of an epic problem that couldn't be sorted out in the flames of a petrol bomb.

Pakistan, instead of having bowed out with a shameful footnote in World Cup history, had just pulled their greatest trick ever. Having gone down to RSA by 20 runs, they'd put themselves in the fucking impossible position of having to beat Australia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand all in a row (and don't forget, New Zealand were still totally unbeaten at this time), plus the agonising wait to see if Australia could beat the Windies. And they'd done it, answering the prayers of a one hundred and twenty million desperate patriots! Imran Khan and his cornered tigers had come through in style and placed themselves in the fucking quarter finals of the 1992 Cricket World Cup out in Australia - looking more a unified, stronger and better force than ever before. Our problem - how the fuck was the brutha gonna get down unda?
CHAPTER X

WEDNESDAY 18TH MARCH 1992

I'll tell you the fuckin' truth, bro. We ain't fighting for our lives no more. There ain't no fuckin' race war out there. The slave trade's dead, if not going the other way. Sure there're tiny pockets of resistance out in the shit-holes of the East End or Possil Park, but once they actually take their heads out of their arses, they'll realise the world's changed colours to a more tanned shade of life.

The genocide's out there in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kashmir. The only genocide out here, in the designer ghettos, is in your mind, brother. Bruthas getting fucked up by their own fuckin' greed and paranoias. Ain't no one starving no more. The true driving force behind the designer ghetto is bucks, style and cool.

Now I ain't sayin' we haven't got no problems. Disrespecting youth, gun-control laws, outdated lawmakers \- but in reality we are now operating on a much higher plane to those fighting for survival at the start of the century in Hell's Kitchen or against Moseley's blackshirts in the fifties and sixties.

I'll tell you what it means to be a gangsta in the late twentieth century - it means twisting the law to the maximum profit of the gangstahood. It means taking the fast track to the peak of your ambitions, and having a fuckin' ball on the way, while the straight-laced law-abiding tax-paying goody-good lemons take a more painful, and ultimately pointless route to the same destination.

You don't let no one tell you what the fuck you can and cannot do, 'cause the fucker coming at you with that advice has sold his soul to the fucking mortgage lenders, or they is gangstas themselves, and don't want to see you taking a share of the fuckin' pie. Take a look around - who's ruling the world? Is it the tax-payer or is it the fuckin' gangsta? Believe me, whoever it is - they didn't take no degree at Strathclywde University to get there. And you better get with the programme. An estimated one hundred and fifty thousand gangstas in Los Angeles county alone. They ain't got no fuckin' figures for the UK, but that number's easily going to be surpassed early next century.

I can't imagine life no other way. I can't imagine life not gangsta, banged up in the straightjacket of gentile society. Picking up the correct fork, paying the fuckin' bills, working my subjugated arse to the bone like my fuckin' baba; twenty-five years loyal service to Singapore Airlines terminated with a severance that would make a Bombay whore cry with shame. Riz's baba, who's twenty-five years service as a train driver earned him a free bus pass and a heart attack-ridden decline into obscurity, cooking bakras for the boys, taking the begging bowl to the DSS every Monday - box shit outta hog mout' - and skinning his goats. And Jamshed Bhai, whose everlasting impression on the landscape of this society is a coal-dusted corpse and three prematurely ejaculated bacchas.

If I ever saw myself going that way, I would take the honourable way out - a fuckin' police bullet to the head. You look into the future and you don't see Gaggy down no fuckin' coal-mine. You see Gaggy in political office out in Delhi with an Indian intern suckin' off his lora. You see Riz wandering the hills of Dera Ismail Khan in his four-by-four, a Wadera with acres of poppy fields, high on wacky-backy and a thousand lives in his hand. You see my man Shak, bigging it up from Bollywood, playing twister with one starlet after another. And you see me, Imran Ali-Khan sitting in Dubai with a million bucks of BCCI loot.

But for now the story ends well. While apna bhais up North are "choosing drugs", and not choosing life and choosing to jhukk each other up the batty, I get up in my two-piece double breasted suit and join all those other corporate cunts on the Met line, off to the city to rape and pillage the UK economy - but on my own terms - got my thievin' little fingers into stocks and shares, and believe me, I am makin'. It would be a crime not to – sitting calculating my profit and loss, draggin' on that kutchie! Riz and Max's kunjar spirit's wearing off on me and the fatherland's beckoning. Gotta go back to my roots, homie. Upna bhai, unpa jeevan. Gaggy, the debt collector began by drinking his uncle's off-licence under the table, now got three of his own, two in Wembley, one in Willesden, where he indulges in his other hobbies - laundering, re-circulation, CC fraud.

And you remember that A-TV camera he taxed – well, after a brief flirtation with hard-core pimping, he used his head and made a few dirty flicks exclusively with Asian kuttis, and he's made a good profit on them. But now he's going to America to sell one of them and learn more about their industry, you might have heard of it, Bombay Roll 2! His wife Roshni's staying here with Gaggy's daughter (though she is looking more and more like uncle Imran every day). My piece, Mina's in Canada (Toronto), living with her brother (they've made up ever since her baba croaked in '95) and with my boy, Wasim. I'm going out there to see them next month. My doped out half-brutha is now a solicitor, working out of an office in Glasgow, married to a Dutch ho called Zilda.

Shak and John Evans were way too big for prison. It couldn't hold them long enough and they're out and notching it again. It was all bullshit of course, the whole thing from the start. The cops had their faces plastered in every station from here to Kings Cross from way before Mile End. The bank job had just been a fuckin' handle for the pigs to hold onto them. So they came down on the boys hard. The judge, Wilkinson-Smith, the end-of-empire public school muthafucka to the Tory masses, gave them fifteen years each. They beat the rap on a technicality - tainted evidence - and was out in five. Mr Mention's back in action.

And Riz, well, after he came back from two years military service in the Pakistani Air Force, just as his old man had promised, he jumped straight into dodgy computer dealerships and is now a fuckin' IT contractor, working for a big Airline company out of Hounslow, with fuckin' tuttay twice as big as a 747. He don't take no shit from no one. Now he's making a killing from inside the 'isms.

As for the cricket - that's easy. Gaggy's political contacts came through the very next day - seems like there'd been a mix up - but not from his end. Somehow, the debt collector had convinced them it wasn't his fault and they wanted his services over again. All's fair in business and there were no hard feelings. An envelope for two grand landed on his front door as a goodwill gesture and a hope to develop to the ongoing relationship, but Gaggy never quite got into that game - wasn't as cold-blooded as he first figured. Knocked up a few other favours instead. Add that to another ten Gs that mysteriously appeared in Gaggy's lap from nowhere and the picture became increasingly clear.

I know that the mix-up that night had been Gaggy's doing all along. He is and has always been the sharpest of the Willesden muthafuckas. There was a hit that night. Someone had to have bled over his shoes. And if my hunch is correct, the blood came from someone very near and dear to us. It's safe to say we never saw Mbela again, though for my money, the brutha's still innocent - he didn't have enough to rat out a blood. Some say he's living out in Glasgow, running with the Trent Posse and is due a posthumous pardon any time now. There was another homie with a more solid case for betrayal. Someone whose political and show-biz connections go as far back as Shak's, and who had a good reason to see him out of the way. Now no one's saying nuttin', and to tell you the truth, I don't really want to know - but I'll stick out my neck and say this much - the second batch of cash that Gaggy received had Pentonville, N7 stamped all over it.

The cash arrived at roughly the same time that we had another find. Like I said, I had several good leads to what the third item of maal could have been that night - don't forget, we're talking spring of '92. After that summer then winter and what did you have? The finest year on cricketing record ever. Max's maal was, as I'd suspected, tickets to the safest competition the world has ever seen. 'Picture perfect' forgeries of all the World Cup matches - tickets for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the big day itself. The ten grand paid for the rest of the trip upfront.

So me, Riz, the debt-collector, F and a fuckload other chimpanzees spent the rest of the summer knifing, beating, eating, toking, fucking and bleeding our way through the World cup in Australia as we watched Sher-e-Pakistan reach, seek and destroy all opposition, including Ian Botham and his goray subjugated friends in the finals to stamp themselves in World Cup history as the fucking World Cup Cricket Champions of the World, 1992.

Like I said, spar, that's what it's all about. Gangstahood is as good as it gets.

Live and love.
COMING SOON

Muthaland

Also by Raza Amin

Imran and Riz take a leisurely ganga fuelled mystery tour through the mystical twilight world of Landi Kotl, Shardi and the other legendary villages in the mythical foothills of Azad Kashmir, back to their ancestral homes for the very first time, and come face to face with a reality, vastly different from the romanticised hinterlands, espoused by the goat-skinning generals from their Wembley garden-sheds.

Join North London's most unlikely tourists, tripping through their baddest adventure yet in the Pakistan hinterland where the law and order is there to be bought and sold, like a tu-penny ho' and tribes are locked into an eternal battle with the 21st century and each other. What will two good-old boys make of an offer of a life-time – an offer that will return them in style or bring them back as two body-bagged wannabe bastards.

Bangla Boy: Life in the East End

By Zia Chowdhury

The East End – At the crossroads, where London meets Bangladesh, there is a problem. 15 year old Abdul Rahman wakes up in his room, choking and blinded by a police arc-light. Through shattered glass and crumbling stone, he looks down onto a vision of hell. Petrol Bombs and Tandoori Naans scent the summer air, as a community explodes. And to think it all began so innocuously; the publication of a blasphemous book, a botched police enquiry and a community leader blackmailed by a woman of ill-repute

Enter Abdul's world, a Byzantine decaying twilight hinterworld of East London's tenements, the crack and smack dealers and the alienated Bengali youth running wild in the streets against a system that has buried it's head in the sand. Homies, turf wars, drug wars and an older generation out of touch.

Bangla Boy shines a torch into the darkness and illuminates disparate lives woven together in an intricate patchwork of concrete and squalor, which boil over in a seething tidal wave of insurrection that resounds across the capital in a summer of discontent. And Abdul holds the key to it all.

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