way back when, Jat was an untouchable raider, light on his feet, not built like the lads these days, who made his son roll his eyes as they took off their shirts to oil up. The boy used to be game, would play matches with Jat in the back garden, going blue in the face, out of breath, but now he just went through the motions, humouring his old man, wanting to be elsewhere and giving Jat a look as he took another swig of Jameson’s as if it wasn’t a free country. Jat had been bringing the kid since the tournaments began and each year the crowds got bigger, there were even goreh watching now, imagine, men who were boys throwing stones at Jat and his mates as they played, his breath in those days endless: kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi until white mums picketed the school gates and apneh had to get bussed out the borough, long coach rides to a school which was all goreh, which was fights every break, whites spitting in his lunch, lines in detention – I will not speak Punjabi in class, I will not speak – detention making him miss the safe coach home, long walks down the Broadway doing his best to dodge the paki-bashers, some days not trying that hard, part of him wanting to get jumped, part of him asking for it, wanting to have at them, front jab smashing glasses, uppercut forcing teeth into tongue, turning white red, wanting to hit and be hit, to break up long days with nothing to do, none of his old mates up for kabaddi, either working now at factories and shops, or shut in by parents too scared to let them out, scarred by stories of kids getting carved up with Stanley knives by the National Front, stories of the body found outside the Dominion, 18, only 18, and then the teacher offed in broad daylight by pigs at the protest. Jat had to get inventive to get a game together, ended up joining the Southall Youth Movement on Featherstone to get enough numbers for teams. They’d head down to Southall Park and Jat would hold his breath and run. Once or twice teddy boys tried to start something, and they got back what they gave to put it nice, which surprised Jat, these SYM lads into their politics and all. Whenever he turned up at the house, they’d be reading books or ‘having discussions’, freshie music on in the background. This one time, in 81, he arrived, and they were playing punk not bhangra, having heard that a Nazi band called the 4-Skins had been booked to play the Hambrough, and would be bringing their Nazi fans to Southall. They asked the pub to cancel. Asked the police to intervene. Only option left was to turn up and send a message. The coaches arrived: Nazi salutes, paki-chants, the works, was even a guy who had his trousers down and his pale arse pressed up to the window, these were the people the police had showed up to protect, punks spilling into the pub already pissed off their heads. There was talk in the crowd that they’d already made a pit stop to trash the Maharaja Cash and Carry, clear now, if it wasn’t already, that they weren’t here for music. The police looked on as a couple of skinheads turned on two women passing on the pavement. That, for Jat, was it. He wanted to kill, wanted to beat, stab and strangle – they charged and the police, surprise, surprise, tried to protect the skinheads; for all Jat knew, one of these bastards was the copper that murdered the teacher, one of these bastards stormed People Unite, rode his horse into the peaceful sit-in, one of these pigs hit Harp’s mum with a truncheon, these were the fuckers who turned a blind eye to blood in the streets, who saw the body of the boy on the railings and did nothing, who did everything to defend the National Front on St George’s Day, to defend Nazis today. It ended now, had to end, him and his kabaddi mates breaking down the wall by Ruskin Road and lobbing bricks, Jat praying one of his might hit one of these mohawked freaks; he wanted to see blood, to make blood, threw brick after brick for the spat-on kids, the carved-up backs, for the broken-in houses, the swastikas on doors, for the dog shit in his locker, for every hit he took that day behind the sheds – he wanted to get closer, to throw punches, but what must have been a Molotov hit the Hambrough and set the pub up in flames, a proper fire, the real thing, the burning sending the skinheads off running: men who would be fathers who would be grandfathers, and the police charging: men who would be fathers who would be grandfathers. Jat turned and ran, trying to control his breath as he passed St George’s, taking Greenford and Shackleton onto Lady Margaret, the air running thin and his throat burning kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi