They’re going to ‘clean up’ Desborough Road… yet another Operation. One of these Operations killed Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah last year (see Justice 4Paps link in my blog roll) This one is called Operation Grom – who decides the names of these opps?
They got their new shiny shopping Centre Eden just close by and they want to move all the winos and homeless who converge in the area.
My novel is set against all of this and documents the stories that these roads have seen.
Ok so this is going a lot slower than I thought it would…
Always knew that writing ‘this thing’ would take time but now ‘this thing’ seems to be drifting. Can’t say that I haven’t been working on it – been researching, reading stuff, thinking about plots & characters. Just that the actual writing has been hard after the first year of frantically piecing together the first few fragments. Have made some time in my packed life/schedule for the odd day to work on it but its not been easy and as ever you prevaricate when you just need to get down and do it.
Need to write something everyday – got a laptop, pda and looking to get a netbook soon so got plenty of ways to get stuff down. The inspiration is always there as well, as there are so many crazy things that go on in this town :
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/4652151.Wycombe_man_jailed_over_New_York_bomb_hoax/
Not sure what kind of draw/spliff/cannabis this guy was on but following on from the ‘transatlantic plot’ involving peeps in HW this was not a clever move…but is exactly the kind of thing that one of the characters in WRS might do but then they do say that life is stranger than fiction…
Anyway as promised a section of the novel just for you:
West Richardson Street: Tales of Danny Raja
Lets get this straight – Danny Raja was a clown. But he was also the most gifted and intelligent bloke that Asif had ever met. He lived around the corner but he was a year or two older so they hadn’t met at school. Truth was he was nothin’ special then – just another Jhelum lowlife with a hoodie. But he changed after his sixteenth birthday. Whatever made him Danny Raja and connected him to the neighbourhood went beyond his partaking off magic mushrooms by Roundabout wood or the week long benders he would go on. He was one of the guys who was probably stranger when he was sober and not charged. Some of the missions that Danny got up to were legendary and were embedded in the folklore of these roads. Only talking about his demise broke the laughter and the tears. They had been blessed to be around him and when he took his fall a lot fell with him or fell right into line. Asif smiled thinking about the time Danny led a one man crusade against all the fast food places in Desborough Road and Green St. The brother had been outside these shops with his placard and leaflets – challenging the staff and punters. He would just tell folks that the food was killin’ them and they needed to eat stuff that was made with love so they in turn would spread love. Danny hated the fact that all these crews were eating out rather than eating their Mum’s roti. It got so bad that Mr Cod took out an banning order against him which meant that he was not allowed on the pavement outside – he just climbed a balcony by the new shiny shopping centre and shouted abuse at them. Crazy thing was Danny always made sense – no one could fault the strength of his arguments in English or in Mirpuri. The guy could drop it hard and even the local imams were in awe of him. But unsurprisingly Danny made enemies – shop and taxi base owners, some of the bigger dealers and the local Asian Councillors. He hated them most of all – those he felt were self righteous and self appointed, their stooges and chumchay. In any other generation he would have been 50% village idiot and 50% shaman. His folks had moved back to Pakistan as some of his antics had driven them up the wall. Some of these very walls he had daubed cryptic messages and crazy graf that the local crews had adopted as their own. Danny had skills – he would chat the same way to local prozzies that he would chat to the Mayor or Police Sector Commander.
But then he fell and one night a group of the Councillors snapped after he had exposed some dodgy planning application for yet another Fried chicken establishment. They had said he had held a girl hostage in the old playground and after the Police helicopters had left the scene he had been led away and taken to Haleacre the local loony bin. Enough of the brothers together with the local youth worker had campaigned for his release but the men in white coats had taken him away. Life was never the same afterwards and even when he came back out for brief periods the fire in his eyes was lost and he wasn’t the same Danny Raja. Pumped full of drugs he was too zonked out to have any perception of where he even was. Asif was sad when he died but he also knew that Danny had died that day the marvey had picked him up. He had never seen so many peeps turn up to a funeral – two sixth forms closed and seven taxi companies shut up for that day (one stayed open to mop up business and was subsequently boycotted and closed down in six months). Women were seen crying in the streets and little snotty kids hugged each other in recognition of what they had lost. Three junkies overdosed and a dozen lads got married in the space of a month.
Danny dying woke a lot of them up – but their eyes and minds were not fully open enough for them to pick up his message and run with it. Maybe that would be asking too much and they all had dollars to make. But he lived on fuelling booze and spliff filled nights where all the old stories would come out and cold hard pauses would meet the dawn with the slow realization that they had to get up and face the day without him…
© Saqib Deshmukh 2009
Some Wordles from folks over at http://wordle.net/. Put the chronology of the novel in the first one and the second is a poem I wrote in 1998 bout Steven Lawrence. So where have I been? Writing, fighting, inciting – usual business – novel is coming together but a change of job & home circumstances made a few tings hard. However have been working with muso mate Jaydev Mistry to put down a few chunks as an audiobook which may see light of day up here one time together with some transcripts.
Keep watchin this space
Saqib D , Sept 08
Freur ‘Riders in the night’
Blue Nile ‘Headlights on the Parade’
Klashnekoff ‘It’s Murda’
Opposition ‘Sand and Glue’
Ghost feat Verb T ‘Exactly’
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ‘My Heart My Life’
Johhny Osbourne ‘Truth & Rights’
Eyeless in Gaza ‘Lie Still Sleep Long’
Niraj Chag ‘Khwaab’
Fierce ‘Dayz like that’ (Full Crew remix)
Mark B & Blade ‘The Unknown’ (Azad mix)
Zion I ‘One Chance’
Shara Nelson ‘Down that Road’ (Underdog mix)
A boys gotta have some tunes while he’s working… Some are these are standard trax from my collection of several thousand records, cd’s & cassettes (remember them?) whilst others are just plain off the beaten track. Still researching and digging away – working on character development and the various stories are always alive in my head as I weave plots and people together. One way or another its got to come out as its’ been gestating for so long.
Stay wise
Saqib Dec 07
Been reading Animal’s People by Indra Sinha which has been nominated for a Booker award and was struck by its power & subject matter. The way Indra conjures up the town of Khaufpur and roots the incidents that took place in Bhopal in 1984 as the backdrop for the novel is just amazing and blew me away.
Read some interviews with the author and what struck me was that he said it had taken him some time to find a ‘voice’ for the book – a character that would drive the narrative forward and he found it in the shape of the novels main protaganist – Animal, a lad who had been disabled in the chemical accidents that the ‘Kampani’ from ‘Amrika’ had unleashed and now who walks on all fours. Animal drives the story on and is just a crazy & wonderful creation.
Me? Been researching away and writing loads more of the back story to flesh out the story of the four main characters. Looking at old pictures and maps, reading recollections of the first Asian & Caribbean immigrants who came in the 50’s and 60’s and finding out about life in the slums around Newlands. I think you’ll maybe need to know Wycombe for some of the stuff to resonate but I think I’m capturing that small town vibe that the place has in common with many others.
Way I figure you have to make time to write. Dedicated time. So been spending time in my local library and evenings in front of the PC. Stuff is coming together and may be brave enough soon to put some stuff up to this blog.
Been working on the following:
Some details on the pics:
First pic is from Desborough ‘Castle’ otherwise known as Roundabout Wood where there are remains of an iron-age fort.
Second pic is a sign above a house in Upper Green St.
Third pic is an amazing pic of the factory that used to be in front of Green St School (heard about this but never seen it).
Last two photos from Sharing Wycombe’s Old Photographs (SWOP) project @ http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/swop
Just some tantalising clues about what this piece of fiction is going to be about. Something deep from the Desborough darkness…
Stay tuned
One love
Saqib
Yup I’m writing a novel ’bout High Wycombe. Set myself a target for the end of the year to get a rough draft in place so working on it every day doing research, writing notes and working on the characters and plot lines.
So why a novel?
I’ve written plays, sketches and poetry and even a screenplay over the years. Mainly in a community context and for commissions. Not made loads of cash or fame from it but that wasn’t my intention really. The medium of the novel just came together cos of the complexity of what I’m trying to get across. ‘West Richardson Street’ has a number of historical threads running through it and I really fancied getting into some heavy characterisation and sub plots.
Want to make some money from it ‘cos I know I have got some talent but never really pushed it till now. Watch this space though as I am looking to get it out in all kinds of ways – e books, blogs etc and not just traditional books.
Saqib Deshmukh, Writer, High Veecombe
