From the Midlands back to Mirpur

_Read part one "From Mirpur to the Midlands" _

People grow roots slowly; it happens unseen, and unknown. Certainly they were hidden from the Mirpuri men who came here 40 years ago, intending to spend some years working and sending money back from the verdant land of Valaid, of England. Afterwards they’d return to build their lives in the new towns of the Mirpur region and New Mirpur City itself. England was just their land of opportunity, and it wanted their help.

On arriving here they packed into cheap rooms and flats, all working throughout the day, some donning western suits and dubious dance moves at night. Photos were sent back from studios in Manchester and Bradford, of newly dapper husbands grooming their moustaches and confirming the fantasy of this new life in England to those back home.

But this temporary period grew longer and longer, and by the time the men’s wives came over to help, it was too late. Their roots had grown too deep. With a few halal butchers, makeshift mosques and community ties, the men had unwittingly started teasing England’s soil into something more habitable. Something new.

With a few halal butchers, makeshift mosques and community ties, the men had unwittingly started teasing England’s soil into something more habitable. Something new

At least, it looked new. In reality the community had just donned a new garb, a patchwork mix of old Mirpuri traits and new British outlets for them. The practical skill of these ex-farmers was channelled into mechanical expertise, an in-depth knowledge of cars and a male duty to ‘parallel park’ better than you can sit in a chair.

Mirpuri knowledge of famous poems like Saif Ul Malook was replaced by a passion for Hollywood action fests like Commando and Predator. The rapid-fire Potahari tongue was remixed with English staples such as Pantry, or Pehntree, whilst the old remedies of Chicken-broth Yukhni and Kichri were supplemented by a Western elixir of life; antibotics. (And of course Vicks, the miracle rub able to cure coughs, seal cuts and fix broken limbs).

But despite these British flavourings, the Pakistani and Mirpuri communities soon formed their own urban niches, bustling roads became cluttered with packed kebab houses and supermarkets that sold mangoes by the box-load and flour by the sack-full. Research by the Office for National Statistics shows that British Pakistanis are more likely to be self-employed than any other ethnic group, and all those old jokes about Asians being the corner shop kings now ring a bit hollow. Corner shops are now just the bookends to whole streets of Pakistani, often Mirpuri businesses.

These shop fronts, all Karachi-this and Kashmir-that, are little windows into the modern British Pakistani community, and its evolution. Girls wearing the latest kameez fill fashion stores next to Islamic bookshops overflowing with prayer beads and books. Travel agents promising cheap flights to the mother land squeeze next to taxi firms promising more local bargains. But it’s in the barber shops that you can spy the young men, the future leaders of the community, and the current lifeblood of the streets.

[The bros] lounge on the chairs in tracksuit-trainer combos that look casual and unfussy to the untrained eye, but are in fact a proud fashion

The bros. They sit in the barber shops waiting for their ‘short-back-and-sides’, with an extra streak of ‘patterns’ for the stylish or a beard trim for the overtly religious. For all of them it is likely their second visit in as many weeks and, judging by the slight blurring of their hair-line edge, they’re already a few days overdue. They lounge on the chairs in tracksuit-trainer combos that look casual and unfussy to the untrained eye, but are in fact a proud fashion. One not influenced by any music band or GQ fashion spread; no one at Nike or Rockport ever made a poster with their products worn like this, and none of these guys ever needed them to. It is just what bros wear. A precise alchemy of trainers and dark sports gear that suggests athleticism, and a manly lack of anything so girly as colour. It is being ready to do all sorts of hard stuff like go to the gym, or fight, or disguise as a shadow or whatever.

It most definitely is not ‘gay’.

Which is funny, because (whisper it) it is only the clichéd stereotype of gay men that can rival young Mirpuris in their desire to get ripped and look big. A diet of their dads’ 80s action films and their community’s stress on physical capability has turned Mirpuris into gym-going Arnie-wannabes. Being huge brings not only respect and admiration, but some protection from guys scared of big hits by big biceps.

These young men do not follow the usual teenage rites of passage expected in the west. For them there are no rebellion years, no punk phase or needy angst. There are no music festivals to go to nor alcohol-soaked house parties. These are all the domain of the British, with just a bit of clubbing and a few British birds pulled as the only (non-‘gay’ you see) deviations made from their social regime.

Their yardsticks of youth are different; cruising in cars, playing snooker and cotching in kebab shops.

Like the recent addition of Sheesha Cafes, these kebab shops are like Pakistani pubs of the urban sprawl, where guys can talk passionately about which takeaway is better than another. After Pakistani men took over fish-and-chip shops and claimed Turkish donner–style meat as their own, it was left to the young to train their palettes on the ingenious mutant dishes that came out of the mash-up. Ask a group of Pakistani youths about the chicken Tikka baguettes you can get in Digbeth, or Caspian’s Tandoori pizza, and you can expect a street-talk ode to meat texture and grease doses.

Or just ask co-author Kahfeel about donner meat and witness his pained expression at being reminded of how much London’s fatty, brown strips of khobez-wrapped meat differs from the dark ribbons of smoother, firmer protein found in the fluffy naan-beads of Derby’s food houses.

And as he will also tell you, it is being so embedded into this lifestyle that makes it so difficult when severed from it; cut from the fold of community and the familiar rituals of this urban existence. Going away to a university with few spicy-food-fixes and even fewer people able to speak the Pakistani patois of the north can be alienating. In fact, in some ways it’s even more alien than travelling the 6,000 miles across the globe back to Mirpur and New Mirpur City.

Because New Mirpur is different, full of strange tourist-traps for a people who once called it home. There is the ‘Megamart’ department store for western-style shopping and ‘Mina Kebabs’ for all one’s donner needs. Wannabe-British politicians campaign there for British votes, strips of barber shops vie for the attention of bros and shops sell British ketchup at British prices.

And there is a population of people there who can afford none of it. This stuff is for the Brits, arriving on packed flights in their Easter and Summer holidays, and leaving a debris of unattainable aspirations in their wake.

In Mirpur City these Brits stay in 5-bedroom Ghotian, luxury houses that can cost around £200,000 to buy, an investment for families who leave them empty for the majority of the year. It’s an investment into a false fantasy; that somehow Mirpur is still home, the final destination.

It isn’t: Now, here is home. But that final destination is still uncertain. Some Mirpuris are making the most of the education system and becoming professionals, but many more carry on in static comfort bubbles, protected from the challenges of meaningful integration and contribution to wider society. There is a renaissance in real Islamic understanding, with all the connotations of peace and productivity that practising the religion carries. No longer is it just the cultural Islamic inheritance of their parents. But there is also confusion, and some anti-Western sentiment in a community that struggles to articulate its concerns. A tight community that is suspicious of change, one that struggles to accept difference in its ranks as if it were a dangerous mutation.

As the well-worn cliché goes, the future lies with the youth. It lies in the acceptance and encouragement of difference and progress, without sacrificing the strong values of the past. Like Mangla Dam, where in summer the water level lowers and the buildings of Old Mirpur are unveiled, Hindu temples next to Muslim mosques, relics of a time of harmony, of a land unchanged.

Unforgotten.