Made in England - Daljit Nagra

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Daljit Nagra

Daljit Nagra was born and raised in Yiewsley, a small town near Heathrow. His parents are Sikh Punjabi immigrants who came to Britain in the late 1950s. His first collection of poetry is Look We Have Coming to Dover!

Jhoota Kunda Ballads The Ghosts of Cranford Park!

...well our dope-heads with gora love-styles
put Rubs in a huff
like this Dope with his insides too coconut
to know that the stuff
that divided the castes in the bends
was as tight over here,
well he should've sussed, most said,
that he mucked with fire
when his sweeper's paws he amoured
on a shoemaker's daughter!
Some said that's why Rubs heirarch'd
certain castes that bit lower
because of their gunda behaviours!
So that waif on the next flight
to Punjab got spared from this love

at a selfish first sight!
At a temple then matched with a bendu
alky (who necked
all the dowry dosh in a dash!),
her psyche hell-bent
that she tossed up a rope round a beam,
in a shed some 'tashed men
got to watch how possessed she'd become
for the crack of her neck!
The elders, I've heard, had her coated
in concrete – her statue
was erected to caution those rundies
who'd threaten to abuse
the laws that were cast for their benefit!

Her old man went doolally,
some said, and he blamed it on Dope
(Capri'd with some weed
and a pic of that chick in his palm)
at Cranford Park car park,
her old man with his goondas whose tinder
for fire was our star
so his flesh in the flash of some gas
outer-spaced from where
this sweeper and shoemaker would meet.
Where he'd loosen her bun.
Where he'd dust down her top on the backseat.
Where Ms Ram would get tupped!
Ah, same-caste pairs in the woods
out naming the stars…
Or those way too snug with the bride
and up for a spark,
a charge, at Cranford Park woods
(from the start we've been taught
by the elders it's haunted by 'lovers'),
well if through a waft
of smoke, through crow-hush,
if they hear a mope
well what do you guess freaks them out?
You got it – our Dope!
His chest-whacking howl at the moon
that his dreamboat from stone
might levitate to his manor!

But posses of goondas
whose turf is the park, they all state
that the truth' much more gunda:
cos lovebirds have broke from a kiss
gone their ways in a strop – it's a
curse, they claim, that kills love.
I'd blame Dope with his goosa
ghosts on a branch skinning up,
char-coloured piss-taker
teen heart-gutted caste-breakers
heartbroke for their lovers:
their V-salutes round a joint,
blowing smoke rings
on new couples to muck up their pukka
blood-bound weddings!

gora – white male
Rubs – Gods
gunda – dirty
bends – villagers (bendu is thus a villager)
rundies – randy women!
goonda – a sin-steeped fellow
goosa – angry

The ballad is set in Cranford Park, the one between Heathrow and Hounslow where a large Sikh Punjabi community have lived since the early 1960s. Many members of the community believe that the park, especially the woods, which are to one side of the park, are haunted. All the Indian gangs: The Holy Smokes, the Tuti Nung, for example, strongly believe that the park is haunted too and have offered many explanations for this. I wrote this poem partly in memory of a friend who was a gang member and who went out with a girl from the opposing gang. He was found burned to death in his car in the car park of Cranford Park.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in the copyrighted poems and essays are the views of the author alone, and are not endorsed or otherwise by the BBC or Arts Council in any way whatsoever.