English Literature KS3 / GCSE: 'Singh Song' by Daljit Nagra (analysis)

In Britain, there seems to be a stereotype that all Indians are shopkeepers or doctors or lawyers. For me, my parents were shopkeepers and I wanted to write "Singh Song" to celebrate that rather than be embarrassed. You can either pretend that's not really happening and write about Indians being astronauts or whatever, or actually go via the stereotype. I just want to capture a very ordinary situation.

I run just one of my daddy's shops from 9 o'clock to 9 o'clock and he wants me not to have a break, but when nobody is in, I do the lock - because up the stairs is my newly bride. We share in chapatti, we share in the chutney after we have made love like we are rowing through Putney…

When I think of first-generation Indians that came to Britain, people like my family, my parents got vouchers to come over for free to work here in the 24-hour factories and Underground. It's not a job you imagine doing to 65 and retiring. You probably wouldn't survive. So the aspiration, the ambition for a lot of my parents' generation was to become independent and the best way was to buy your own shop.

The shoppers always point and cry: "Hey Singh, where you been? Your lemons are limes, your bananas are plantain, this dirty little floor needs a little bit of mop in the worst Indian shop on the whole Indian road."

My writing about an Indian who's a shopkeeper in an Indian accent could imply that I'm making fun of my character, but hopefully people can see through that and see through their own prejudices. Above my head, high heels tap the ground as my wife on the web is playing with the mouse…

The issue for me was it's always racialized, the Indian accent, it's always made fun of on telly. To me, there's nothing wrong with the Indian voice. I'm quite excited by the idea of making the reader have to read the poem in the Indian accent and have to deal with it. And, hopefully, the reader feels there's nothing wrong with the accent. It's another type of English. Hopefully, they enjoy putting their mouth through those words and feel they're experiencing a slightly different type of music to when they normally read a poem.

My bride, she effing at my mum in all the colors of Punjabi, then stumbles like a drunk making fun at my daddy. My bride, tiny eyes of a gun and the tummy of a teddy. My bride, she has a red crew cut and she wears a Tartan sari…

I think when I was writing this poem I was trying to offer an affectionate portrayal of the characters, in that I liked Mr. Singh, I liked what he was about. I liked that he didn't care about his shop and put love before business. Shall we run back to Daddy?

Also, I was very aware that you don't get happy love poems in English poetry. They're quite moody or grim because someone's died. And you suddenly realize, like Thomas Hardy, that you're in love with that person. So I decided to write a love poem in the end, but in a shop context.

We come down whispering stairs and sit on my silver stool, from behind the chocolate bars we stare past the half-price window signs at the beaches of the UK in the bright moon - from the stool each night she says, "How much do you charge for that moon baby?" From the stool each night I say, "It's half the cost of you baby," from the stool each night she says, "How much does that come to baby?" From the stool each night I say, "It's priceless baby -"