Londonstani: by Gautam Malkani.

One suffers stoically through the pain of the language and the pages which merely - repeatedly - establish that the protagonist is trying to be cool by giving up his A level grades, joining the local gang of second generation immigrants from India (and other parts of India that was before it was divided due to religious fundamentalists requiring to rule a "pure" nation that was washed out of any sign of those that did not confirm), speaking their language rather than a good English, watching them beat up - but seriously, injuries and all - various youths for little or no reason, and hiding his desire to get a girlfriend his gang friends don't approve of. All this could be done effectively in a page or two, three at most - this writer makes a third of this verbose book hiding clued behind the chaff of the verbosity of little content.

One is shocked a little at the needless death and wonders if they have all gone bonkers - marriages across various divisions of society have always happened in the world and especially in India, and this is a story set in UK, with a young couple that does not exactly depend on parents for providing a home, since they both earn well.

But the last page or two take the whole point of reading the book and throw it in a trash bin - the whole point of going through the book so painfully for a literate reader having been to get to understand the immigrants, and tolerating excuciatingly bad writing for the purpose. One feels the author is enjoying this cheating, this in-your-face reversal revealation. It may happen, for all that, in real life. But in real life the protagonist is not suddenly revealed to be someone or something else. One knows who he or she is.

This tale of majority vs minority switching and reverse colonial existence belongs really elsewhere, but putting it where it belongs would get the author a tag of "right wing, non secular" and mucho brickbats. So he plays it safe by placing it where those labels have not been used quite to fit his tale. Clever trick, not much. Low blow, definitely.

How else does one expect a Bartholomew - Cliveden going through so much subjugation and taking beatings and deciding not to report to his own homeland authorities? Not in London, not in England!
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This reverse scenario of a minority turning into majority locally and a majority local youth being or feeling colonised or behaving to conform with his surroundings rather than with his own majority people may, and does, happen - only, it is usually in another part of the world, where it is taken as righteous behaviour according to the pseudo secular code unwritten but dominant in public discourse while logic, facts, history, truth all go for a toss, since the factor that is important is that the minority or two happen to be vestiges of an ex colonial ruling power or two or more.

In UK on the other hand the minority of immigrants may at most be called economically successful by now, but they by no means are so dominant anywhere as to rule out a police complaint and investigation by authorities into a beating up of an English boy by sons of immigrants.

The only sign of any behaviour remotely similar in spirit to this is fairly innoccous, however pervasive - the immigrant culture from India has taken over in terms of dominant cuisine more than anything else except perhaps Yoga and a bit of spread of vegetarian culture, at least to the extent of eateries and supermarkets distinctly labeling food as vegetarian or otherwise and most restaurants sporting a vegetarian section of menu. Some people are fascinated by the immigrant culture enough to wish to watch films from India or learn Indian classical music or dance, and some would like to attend or watch a wedding conducted Indian style. And yes, a celebrity beauty might wed an Indian immigrant in Indian style in full show (but not in spirit - his family and relatives were invited and although very much present but not allowed on the stage where the wedding took place, and this alone goes majorly and horribly against any possibility of calling it a true Indian wedding in any way) - but thereabouts ends the reverse and entirely unintended colonisation.

Most immigrants keep their own culture to the extent they can or wish for sake of their own integrity of spirit rather than any thought of spreading it, although they do not grudge anyone around learning about it or making it their own, unless it is a mockery (such as the German young woman who wore a saree over her trousers and took it off in public during an Indian classical concert in Stuttgart). And if there happen to be physical fights amongst high school youth, it is hard to believe that authorities are not informed about an English boy being beaten up by sons of immigrants of the "wrong" colour.