Men of every desh and stan
are lolling round and chewing paan
or swigging frothy Lal Toofan
down Southall way.
Gusts of curry tempt like decoys,
wooden gurus guard like sepoys
round a pub where bumfluffed tea-boys
spill Earl Grey,
a pub where brittle bread is dipped
in chutney under Hindi script
that Saxon eyes cannot decrypt,
while sitars wheeze.
One table’s ‘Amritsar’. Another’s
‘Chandigarh’. The landlord-brothers
(half Pathan, one-eighth Caruthers)
fold rupees
as mounted maharajahs pose
with twirled moustaches under nose,
in tasselled turbans, silky hose
and disco light,
their hips all flanked by curling scabbards
in case of scraps with fiends and blaggards,
above some drunks, their faces haggard,
who dream of flight.
“Ere, mate, did Tottenham beat the Irons?”
asks a brown man with three lions
on his chest, as my environs
flood and flow.
My eyebrows arch. A cloudy moment.
My mouth and brain remain unopened.
He asks me if I come from Poland.
I fumble, “...no...”
and watch the frothy red storm rise
and quench a dozen homesick sighs
as my imagination flies
towards Bombay
and musicals whose every coda
lasts five minutes boom all over
a dragon-gargoyled mock-pagoda
down Southall way.
