This poem, commissioned by DESIblitz, written and performed by Zarah Alam, is inspired by the TV series ‘Back in Time for Birmingham’.
۵۰
Seas swell, Britannia cracks, and its pieces leave a trail
We follow in our hundreds – pick up, put back, build up.
The Crown is slick with our blood – mop it up,
Ignore the stains on our souls that our children still hold.
Across the ocean, family seams fray, though the threads cling and catch.
In this tug of war, you long for home, the before, before
The industrial roar of machines, and clangs and bangs, and soul-crushing pounds –
A pound of rent a week, for tinned slop and time-bound sleep,
The paycheque we blink and barely see, the paycheque that visits home more than we do.
Wake up aching for the life we left behind, the life when the sky wasn’t permanently white,
Or soot smeared like the ceiling corner, like the haze we wipe from our eyes
When walking back in the dead of night, and longing for our wife and child.
One day, we say, one day, and day by day, we stay.
Because these freezing streets fill with promise,
And the tens became the hundreds, and thousands followed.
Night shift turns to day shift, the bed is never empty, our heart is never full.
Don’t worry, we say, hang on a little longer, make their life that bit better.
۶۰
Heard the news? The papers are howling, the ban is swift approaching
Telegram calls tanker across ocean lines, live wires, crackling, sparking, call them all in,
Guess we bring the spark to Sparkbrook and Sparkhill, our community springs to life
From spice-filled suitcases, to the welcome hug years in the making.
Now we can eat, and nothing has ever tasted as good as liver curry
On a cold winter day. Now we can breathe, and so the songs from back home
Find us, fill our lungs, and our new homes grow full of the ones that make us whole –
We stitch the ties back tight, no more loose threads.
With our song, we strengthen our voice, flex our vocal chords,
Making ourselves heard beyond these four walls, we venture to the Bull Ring,
Turning up in our finest at the Rag Market and not afraid
To call out, lungs inflated, ‘Pound, a pound, a pound!’
Another crackle, static, pixels and then – moving pictures!
The birth of TV, wheel in our very own that same week.
But then, we hear that guy Powell spouting rivers of blood, our blood runs still,
‘Stop this flow of coloured immigrants’ he says, God forbid he ever see coloured TV.
Don’t worry, we say, hang on a little longer, make their life that bit better.
۷۰
Another decade stretches over the horizon, and we, against all odds,
Are coming up in this world – our name stares out, proudly painted
On the corner shop, looking people in the eye and asking, ‘do you see us now?’
This is our nai zindagi, naya jeevan. Is there ever a better excuse for some gulab jamun?
What would you like, angel delight with a pack of cake rusks? We’ve got it all.
As trousers flare, and collars stretch to our shoulders, the shillings fade out
Our pounds roll in, soon we’re rolling the streets of Birmingham in our yellow Allegro –
Wind in our hair, life shifting gears, unstoppable.
Who knew that the ole clang of machines would result in these bhangra beats?
And who needs sleep when we’ve got Independence celebrations and Jubilee parades?
Singing ‘we’re here to stay’, British and Asian, and we think we’ll be okay.
As the Spaghetti Junction adds new strands, we become more and more entwined with this land.
Until we wake up to the words ‘NF GO HOME’ and life comes crashing down
From one spray can. Do they want us or not? We steady our shaking hands,
Repaint our dreams, defiant when sinking our roots deeper, pushing through
Cracked pavements – our parents never raised us weak.
Don’t worry, we say, hang on a little longer, make their life that bit better.
۸۰
Roars of the daytimer don’t-tell-your-parents clubs, and echoes
Of protests that almost fractured us, but we held strong.
This decade is loud and tie-dye bright.
Watching our pirated copy of Sholay over a large fish and chips,
And swapping our saris for ripped jeans, we have become
The both and neither, something new, our very own mix.
The corner shop thrives, and the pockets of newfound freedoms taste sweet
And we are just about to put up our feet and watch the telly, when CRASH!
Life stops. A brick through the window snaps us out of the dream.
Don’t worry, we say, hang on a little longer, make their life that bit better.
۹۰
Memories of those early days begin to grow hazy, as our heads fill to the brimful
With Asha on the 45. Hello world, we say, as shaadi.com has us stepping up our game,
And Kabaddi calls, we stop to watch, and head to the Balti Triangle after the match.
With a loud ‘goodness gracious me!’, we creep close to the turn of the century.
Staring out of the corner shop windows, the future looks bright –
Applications are due soon, always hearing you better be a doctor, not some BA bewakoof.
Don’t worry, we say, hang on a little longer, make their life that bit better.
۰۰
All their hopes and prayers live on in us, those of our daadas, daadis, naanas, naanis.
Though some of us have lost our tongues, we look to them and know they hear us
When we say we’re going to be ok, we ignore the wobble in our throat and continue,
Our future is bright and brown and that bit better –
– and we owe it all to you.