Paved with Grey by Mark Jobanputra

When I was younger, I believed money kept on doubling whenever my uncle wore a new suit. Although a skilled and refined businessman in the present day, I quickly discovered such a valiant pursuit toward riches wasn’t paved with gold. Ever since I was born, my uncle always hosted a Diwali party at his house in Stanmore to accommodate the whole of our family without fail. One of my fondest memories was mustering up the courage to ask how he managed to obtain such a vast amount of wealth. With a smirk on his face and a root beer in his hand, he seemed more than happy to impart his wisdom. He started by telling me he was one of a small number of Indian immigrants in Dar es Salaam during the sixties. Before you ask, my uncle isn’t Freddie Mercury, perhaps the most famous Indian immigrant to make a journey from Tanzania to Britain. Anyway, he went on to explain how he and his eight siblings would grow peppers, eggplants and peanuts behind the family home to make money. He sometimes sold cheap fabrics at my grandmother’s stall in the middle of Dar es Salaam. Although he learned about profit and loss from as young as seven years old, he scarcely made anything considerable in part due to racist attitudes toward Indians under the presidency of Julius Nyerere. After Tanzania gained independence from the British in 1961, Julius Nyerere decided to create a Chinese-influenced form of socialism named the Arusha Declaration which led to Tanzanians being forced into living in Ujamaa villages. The main ethos behind Ujamaa villages was that people are naturally interlinked and inherently flawed through personality and race and as such will only become a person through positive contributions to the community, be it economically or through love for your fellow citizen. If a single villager didn’t contribute to the stability of the Ujamaa villages, they would be punished in a variety of ways including prison. This form of socialism is similar to that of modern-day China as it is currently used to achieve ‘The Chinese Dream.’ Although President Xi Jinping relies on collectivism to redevelop China’s economy and create a brand new ‘middle class’ and maintain the current ‘middle class’ via material goods with the ultimate aim of establishing China as a superpower. The Chinese Communist Party uses propaganda online and offline to censor anything which goes against China’s governmental values i.e. Chinese nationalism. Like Nyerere’s Arusha Declaration, anyone promoting anti-government sentiments and not adhering to socialist reform will be imprisoned. I wasn’t sure what the “isms” meant back then. I’m not sure whether he understood them either. Uncle liked to go off on long tangents. Anyway, Indian immigrants took over trade due to the British government sending Indian market traders to live in the British colonies of East Africa. Kenya and Uganda were among the most popular British colonies for Indian migration whereas Tanzania wasn’t before the First World War. Things changed for Tanzania shortly after the war when Britain colonised Tanzania thereby taking away Germany’s preestablished colonial influence on crop trade and politics which was deemed unfair by the British. However, under Nyerere’s presidency, Indians were regarded as parasites through propaganda-filled cartoons which characterised them as manipulative liars, thereby contrasting the image of African citizens as honest. Africans also saw Indians as superior due to Indians being given certain rights which Africans were not allowed to enjoy, in turn, this led to shopkeepers and their assets being stolen frequently. Nyerere argued that Indians were diminishing Tanzania’s economy due to upkeeping capitalist ideals such as privatisation and for being pariahs. Seeking a better life for her children, my grandparents made the joint decision to close their business due to repeated racially motivated attacks on their market stall. This ultimately led to sending off my uncle to Britain upon turning twelve years old.

 

His first four years living in Britain were arduous, to say the least. He talked about his time at boarding school and how they were unpleasant. His experience of racism was so unsettling it constantly left an unpalatable taste in his mouth. He often worried about being caned by his teachers much more frequently than his English brethren simply for being the wrong skin colour. Certain students lurking in the corridors would punch him and hurl the word Paki. However, this was somewhat infrequent since he had quite a few friends thanks to his ability to retain facts and help others with their homework. Often paranoid about the attitudes of both teachers and students, he decided to adhere to a skewed sense of Britishness by drinking many more cups of tea, wearing Pendleton jackets, fedoras and Chelsea boots and speaking in some Cockney rhyming slang despite not being able to understand many of the words to keep caning from his teachers and fighting with his fellow students to a minimum. Although his English had improved in the four years, he spent at boarding school, he would frequently wonder how a brown immigrant English with unkempt black hair and wore glasses similar to John Lennon could survive. At the age of 16, he was sent to live in a dank bedsit in Hackney provided by the council due to become a ward of the state. The unglazed windows and winter winds caused him to have many colds. Damp and mould grew in the crevices of each wall. Anyhow, he had memories of drying an abundance of clothes in the smallest airing cupboard known to man, the misbehaving thermostat and its ability to cause the temperature to go from scalding to freezing and using jumpers to form a blanket while he gazed up at the ceiling. His eyes would look at posters of various bands in his room to provide some comfort: The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Stooges etc. His extensive record collection was scattered all over the floor, it was so big, he would often walk slowly to stop himself from tripping over. It seemed as though the misfortune of being a music aficionado had caught up with him in more ways than one. He regaled me with a story of him falling onto the floor after a night out with Johnny Rotten just before the release of ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols’ in 1977 and chipping both front teeth. He told me he met Johnny Rotten in Finsbury Park drinking a bottle of Heineken. He was enamoured by his style, the combat boots, the leather jacket, the ginger mohawk, The Stooges shirt. It was akin to a spiritual awakening, he didn’t think humans could be like that, it was as though unconformity had slapped him in the face. He wasn’t sure whether the style was indicative of being a dick or whether it was just a brand-new style. They looked at each other from across the park, but there was no malice, Johnny beckoned to him and offered him a Marlboro Red. Uncle decided to walk over to see and accept it:

 

‘Sorry, I thought you were a member of The Beatles!’ Johnny mocked.

 

‘I wish. Look at you, you look like a bloody mop with legs.’ uncle retorted.

​

‘Oh please, you know it’s all good brother! Sit down! Tell me about yourself!’

 

‘Well, my name is Arjun and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.’

 

‘Don’t worry mate, none of us do.’

 

‘Man, I love The Stooges, you have really good taste. Iggy’s vocals can cut through diamond! What’s your favourite song by them?’

 

‘I Wanna Be Your Dog. You?’

 

'Real Cool Time. It’s very psychedelic, but it sounds so different…I can’t explain it.'

​

‘Well, come to my band’s concert tonight. We are called The Sex Pistols; we are like The Stooges but better.’

​

‘Better, you say? Well, let’s go partner.’

 

With that, Johnny drunkenly grabbed my uncle’s hand and hoisted him up. He told me that he and Johnny walked and talked until they reached the venue, my uncle somehow managed to waltz backstage and listened to “God Save the Queen” for the very first time. He wasn’t too sure whether distortion from the amps either created some kind of weird, ‘DIY’ aesthetic which strayed acceptability or whether they were just distorted. Johnny dove from the stage right into my uncle’s hands before being passed onto a few others who wanted to pinch untouched parts of his flesh. Johnny looked parched. While the audience went to watch the other band perform, Johnny decided to grab some more drinks. He bought countless amounts for my uncle and liberally gave drinks away to others. Eventually, it was closing time. Johnny once again drunkenly hoisted my uncle by the hand and took him outside. Johnny handed him a Marlboro before they walked off in separate directions. Uncle stumbled toward the bus stop, it was a 12-minute bus journey from Finsbury Park, so it would have been quite easy to get home. However, as he was approaching the bus stop, he somehow tripped over his leg and landed tooth-first on the gravelly pavement. He remembered saying straight after ‘I’ll never drink again,’ but we all know that was a lie.

 

He went off on a tangent and began to tell me about the many concerts he went to between 1965 – 1980. The first story he told me was how he managed to sneak into a show by The Beach Boys before they performed various tracks from Pet Sounds in 1966. While he sang along to “Good Vibrations” emphatically, he turned to see a blonde girl wearing a miniskirt, go-go boots and a leather jacket who gave him good vibrations. With his mouth going from closed to agape quickly, he sought the opportunity to ask her how much she enjoyed the concert when everyone started to leave. Though somewhat anxious about being the wrong skin colour and rejection, the unifying effect of The Beach Boys seemed to bring out every race, class and generation in London. Knowing that his English had improved so much, he eventually decided to talk with her about what makes them unique to any other band in that era, his fascination with the theremin on the track ‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’ was something they had in common. He told her how he felt like he wasn’t made for these times thanks to the overt racism which spread like a plague all over England.

 

‘Look, all I can say is I just wasn’t made for these times. Why? Well, I’m brown, so I’m seen as inferior. I can’t say anything bad about the haircut since John Lennon and Paul McCartney are Gods whose hair should be worshipped.’ Uncle confessed.

 

‘Really? Do you think I’m that stupid? I’m upset now. What’s your name?’

 

‘Arjun, you?’

 

‘Eleanor, but my friends call me Ellie.’

 

‘Friends? You were at the concert on your own…’

 

‘Well, none of my friends like The Beach Boys as much as you and me.’

 

‘Would you like me to walk you home?’

 

‘Let’s go, man.’

 

She laughed at all of my uncle’s jokes and told him she didn’t care whether he was brown, purple or green. She also said she felt like an outsider because she didn’t have any “girly” hobbies and read far too many philosophy books until the ridiculous levels of knowledge seared her brain. They both walked down Caledonian Road hand in hand and talked more about music until she reached her house in Islington. They wrote letters to each other because her parents would have walloped her if they even knew she stood next to a paki. After many months of jumping through windows to see each other and talk about all manner of things, they ended up becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. He told me how she was his first kiss which disgusted me because I thought girls still had the lurgy. Unfortunately, their relationship didn’t last for very long because she ended up cheating on him with various people.

 

He went off on a second tangent and told me about the time he took LSD when he was a 20-year-old, he didn’t call it LSD when he recounted this story, he called it ‘the magical stamp’ as a euphemism to ensure I wouldn’t try it. He began by telling me how two hours into his trip, he thought he could deadlift the universe and feeling like a unique instrument that reached into the ears and opened up the brain of music listeners everywhere when he listened to The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. He said that the album changed his life for the better thanks to its themes of death, insanity and the passage of time.

 

He barely ever tidied the bedsit unless girls were coming over. Joints of various sizes sat in the ashtray. He told me how much he enjoyed these things called joints, but he never told me what they were, perhaps he didn’t want my 11-year-old self to know about such things. He spent most nights staring up at the cracks of the ceiling wondering if he’ll make it as a musician and change the face of rock ‘n roll. However, this was merely a fantasy for he replaced spliffs with cigarettes and the stoner life for self-employment. Starting as a toy salesman, he sold everything from abacuses to Barbie Dolls. He told me he was still living in the hovel-like bedsit between 18-21 but did a little bit of tidying every day to declutter his actual room and the clutter in his brain. The transition from stoner life to self-employment wasn’t an easy one, a daily joint didn’t provide him with the drive to earn money (or anything else for that matter), yet his craving for fifty cigarettes a week certainly did. He told me he became jaded by the dwindling sales of toys when MS-DOS and IBM computers were released in 1981. Eventually, he decided to take the initiative and began a career in property development.

​

Seeking properties, approval, improvement and as much money he could squeeze from those he worked with, everything seemed to be clear cut until he remembered one incident which sometimes appears in his dreams. He explained that racial tensions were still high in part due to the presiding influence of Enoch Powell’s infamous Rivers of Blood speech in 1968. He made the mistake of leaving his office in Camden with a lot more money than anticipated. Half a mile away from his office in Camden Town, he saw a group of skinheads in his peripheral vision wearing Skrewdriver T-Shirts who needed their fix of ‘Paki-bashing.’ They began by throwing beer bottles in his direction, with shards of glasses nearly tearing the leather of his shoes, he carried on walking in the hope they would go away. The group soon started to chase him like Tom would chase Jerry, as soon as they caught up to my uncle, they threw punches intending to kill him. Luckily for my uncle, he managed to avoid being beaten up thanks to a group of burly West Indian men who chased the group of skinheads in the other direction. They generously picked my uncle off the ground and wiped away his blood before chaperoning him to work.

 

I only half-listened to his origin story because I was in awe of his prosperity.

Although slippery, the marble floors were perfect for gliding upon. Each room had a piece of artwork by Salvador Dali including the five bathrooms. Although they weren’t the original pieces he desired, they still gave the rooms a psychedelic feel. Each bathroom had a shower and bath alongside a self-heating towel rack, I always wiped my index finger and thumb on its edges to see how warm they were. The brown leather sofa in the living room stretched for miles, its unparalleled comfort made me feel like I was truly living in the room. The grey walls emblazoned with silhouettes of birds weren’t cheap, but its beauty made me feel like the birds were cheeping at me. I also wiped the granite kitchen surfaces to see whether I could find a single speck of dust. This futile endeavour resulted in nothing but several subtle fingerprints which can only be seen if you put your face very close to one of the worktops. With each visit to his house, I noticed each plant grew taller. My favourite was the lavender plant which my uncle allowed me to put however many seeds I wanted into the soil. The lavender plants were gargantuan to say the least, so gargantuan in fact, a bee would be able to see it from two houses away.

Each of the seven bedrooms had different coloured carpets ranging from blue to magenta. I remembered sliding on both knees just to see how much carpet burn my kneecaps could handle when I was seven years old. The king-size bed in each bedroom were a joy to behold, its enveloping comfort felt like a ten-hour hug from God. Luckily my uncle would always wake me up at 9 a.m. so its comfort wouldn’t absorb me into the linen. I spent many hours jumping on whichever unlucky bed I found and running away to absolve myself of any wrongdoing and making it the cleaner’s problem. I always treaded carefully into my uncle’s walk-in wardrobe in case I tripped over any loose clothing. However, owing to its size, it seemed as though nobody would be able to find anything. I regarded the gym at the very top of the room as the meeting place for my cousins and me to talk about anything and everything. It seemed like another world, a world away from any adult interference in which we could play monopoly for hours, laugh at silly cartoons, try to bench press 10kg for as many reps as possible and swear incessantly.

 

Though the change from grey to gold occurred slowly beneath his feet, it showed me that wealth cannot be accrued straight away, it requires time, effort and patience. I wasn’t exactly sure how one developed a property but I knew for a fact he managed to develop his mansion alongside his health and mental wellbeing. To think a man could go from extreme poverty to a £10,000,000 house is a ludicrous idea to many, but not him. To think a man who used to be a stoner could become a shrewd businessman is an idea many would laugh at, but not him.