Londonstani. Gautam Malkani

swap their fones round all at the same time like unwanted mithai boxes being recycled at Diwali.

      Customers like Davinder were different to our normal family fone swap customers cos there’s more to this business than just switchin fones between different networks. If a fone gets reported missin or stolen or whatever, the fone company blocks it so that it can’t be used no more. They do this by deactivating a 14-17 digit code called the IMEI number. To unblock a fone (stead a just unlocking it) you gotta change the IMEI number. This code also makes it easier for the police to trace the thing, so if you ever find or jack some fones an want to use them you first gotta change the codes or find someone who can change them for you. Davinder an his crew had found us. Every couple a weeks we’d hook up with him an he’d give us this black leather rucksack full a fones. Fuck knows how he got them an how he never got caught gettin them. But he got them. An Amit’d got all the software an hardware for changin the IMEI numbers.

      Don’t get me wrong, we in’t wannabe badass gangstas or someshit. We din’t jack no fones or sell no jacked fones or nothin. We just provided a service. We’re businessmen, innit. Our business dealings with Davinder just meant that he could guarantee to whoever he sold the fones to that they’d work an that they’d never be identified as being jacked. People keep sayin it’s becoming illegal or someshit to tamper with a fone’s codes, but, let’s face it, the cops would only round up all the little dodgy corner shops that offer this service, they’d never get round to little people like us. The feds were such pehndus they thought the little shops were the little people.

       Rudeboy Rule #3:

      My dad always told me to stay outta trouble. However, Hardjit’d told me to stay outta trouble with the police. After all, while the law is for goras, so is Feltham Young Offenders Institute. An while the police may be a bunch a pehndus, so are those who end up in prison.

      Only last week we’d helped Amit swap fones with his dad. We did that job for free a course, even though Amit’s dad wanted to pay us anyway cos he said he admired our business skills.— Give me invoice minus VAT and I pay you boys cash, he’d said.— No use making taxman richer so he can give to bloody Somali asylum seekers. When we told his dad that we din’t have any a that VAT thing going on in the first place he got even more excited. Said he’d send more business our way. So let’s face it, we’d be gimps not to play this game. It’s what our A-level Economics retake teacher calls the informal economy. There was demand for a service out there an we could supply it. An it was all cash, so why not? Amit had the tools, Ravi had the transport, Hardjit had the contacts an I did what I was asked an din’t ask no questions.

      Actually I did bring something to this gig: market information. As our A-level Economics retake teacher always said, markets can’t work proply without information. That’s why, before the Internet, they invented pigeons an newspapers. I got my information from my dad. After all, he’s a businessman too. He’s in the mobile-fone business, though it in’t like I’m tryin to copy him or nothin. He’s got a warehouse an office near the airport that sells handsets an accessories. He only sells stuff to all them small, independent mobilefone shops though, cos all the big high street chains have got their own supply networks. Anyway, thanks to all a Dad’s catalogues an magazines an leaflets an shit that the fone companies keep givin him, I could provide our own business with all kindsa info bout all the different fones that were on the market already or coming onto the market soon. I in’t exactly sure how much a this info we actually needed to do our business dealings, but we figured when you’re chattin to customers it’s best to sound like you know what the fuck you’re chattin bout. All I had to do was ask Dad for all the stuff when he’d finished readin them. Said it was for my Economics coursework. The old man was so happy his son was takin an interest in his shit, thinkin maybe I might even work with him one day. He probly even messed up the bed sheets dreamin bout havin some big family business. Wake the fuck up, I felt like sayin. It might’ve been like that in your generation, but why’d anyone want to work for their dad nowdays? I mean, what the fuck were you s’posed to do with your own plans? An how the fuck would you ever really know if you were really any good? Only fuckin reason I can see for joining my dad’s business is maybe that way I’d get to have a proper converfuckinsation with the man. Matter a fact, stead a gettin me ready to work with my dad, our business was actually competing with him, puttin him outta business. After all, if people round here couldn’t come to us to get their fones unlocked they’d probly end up buyin new ones from shops supplied by my dad. Serve him right.

      I’d never told my dad bout our unblocking operation. Not just cos he was allergic to conversation an so I never told him much bout anything, but also cos he’d know our fone operation weren’t totally, 100 per cent legal. So stead he thought we made all our extra bucks by DJing. The man was probly proud I din’t spend Saturdays being another fast-food or supermarket pleb, I guess. Probly proud a the fact that he bought my first record player. That’s my dad: the man might not talk much or do much when it comes to me, but when it comes to tellin other people how proud he is a the way I turned out, the man’ll open his gob quick time, soakin up the credit like it was fuckin coconut butter.

      We did in fact actually do some DJing one time. We used Hardjit’s Technic turntable an Amit’s Jamo speakers. Ravi was a pretty fly MC, probly cos he talked so much shit all the time anyway. I was crap at all that stuff a course so I just handed out the flyers. We don’t do DJing nowdays cos there in’t as much bucks in it no more. In business-speak it’s called price deflation prompted by oversupply. Too many other desi kids round here set up their own sound systems an there just weren’t enough bhangra, RnB gigs an wedding receptions to go round. Back before the market got too crowded you could get four hundred bucks just doing a big shaadi reception in a hotel ballroom near Heathrow. Also, as Ravi kept pointing out, being a DJ meant it was practically your job to flirt with fit, tipsy ladies. But when the usual Saturday-nite shaadi rate fell to, like, two hundred bucks, we decided unblocking mobiles would be better business an so now it was fones for us.

      Here’s hoping fones don’t give you radiation when they’re switched off cos otherwise there’ll be no grandchildren for my dad to be proud bout. I had to move the rucksack onto my lap when Amit got back inside the Beemer, givin me another silent apology as he did so by tapping his left shoulder with his fist an then givin me a high-five with it. As if that were some kind a signal, Ravi turned the key in the ignition. But before revving, he waited for Hardjit to finish callin out to Davinder an Jaswinder,— Relax, blud, it’s all good. Jus let da traffic-wallah do his shit n we’ll settle da ticket wid’chyu later, a’ight.

       5

      I was secretly lookin forward to our Economics lesson today. I guess I hadn’t openly looked forward to a lesson in years, not since we were back at school an Mr Ashwood showed us Schindler’s List to help us understand the Second World War.

      —I’ma take da short cut back to college, goes Ravi,— othawise we b headed for traffic, innit, Hardj?

      —Nah, man, it gettin late an we gots twenty fuckin fones in da bag. Fuck college, let’s take em straight 2 my yard.

       Rudeboy Rule #4:

      According to Hardjit, it don’t matter if the proper word for something sounds fuckin ridiculous. If it’s the proper word then it’s the proper word.

      Yard is one a them words. If it was me who was the American hiphop G or whoever the fuck it was who invented all this proper speak, no way the proper word for house’d be yard. That’s the garden, for fuck’s sake. I in’t feelin the word crib either cos that’s what American babies sleep in. Also, I wouldn’t decide that the proper word for wikid is heavy. Why they decided that The Shit should mean The Greatest I got no idea, maybe cos bad’s always meant good. But more than all a this, if I was the Proper Word Inventor I’d do two things differently. I wouldn’t decide that the proper word for a deep an dickless poncey sap is a gay