Greetings from Bury Park

Last month I saw a feature on the news for a British film. Set in 1980’s Luton to a Bruce Springsteen soundtrack, Blinded by the Light is to be produced by Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges, the team behind global smash, Bend It Like Beckham. Based on the memoir of Sarfraz Manzoor, it tells the story of a Muslim teenager's devotion to all things Springsteen and the subsequent cultural problems this brings.

Now as someone who has taught in Luton, lives in Dunstable, who loves The Boss, my interest was well and truly piqued. The next week I went down to the library and reserved my copy of Manzoor’s memoir, Greetings from Bury Park, a wry homage to Springsteen’s debut album, Greetings from Ashbury Park.

The Springsteen album.

Having secured the book, I’ve spent the last few days voraciously reading it. Manzoor’s life really resonated with my own. Unlike Manzoor, I’m not a Muslim; however, like him, I am a second-generation immigrant. My dad moved to Britain from Sri Lanka in the 70’s where he worked a number of menial jobs, before finding regular work as an engineer. As a Hindu he risked upsetting his family by marrying a white woman, my mum, a nurse from Dorset. Their marriage begot my brother and myself: Anglo-Asian kids at a time when there weren’t many. At our local primary children were either from Pakistan or England. More often than not, the two nationalities didn’t lock horns, but there wasn’t much mixing either. When a new Mosque was proposed white families (some from my school) put banners in their window, blazoned ‘No To Mosque.’

Despite our brown skin, my brother and I had few problems. The fact we had Western names probably helped. Also, we weren’t religious, which meant our lives weren’t so different to the majority English cohort. Our heritage didn’t inform our language – we didn’t speak Tamil, and it didn’t inform our clothing – we wore football strips. From the sound of our names and the sound of our tongues, we appeared English. It was only inside the home that we did anything that could be considered Sri Lankan. At Christmas we would have Sri Lankan relatives over, where my mum, brother and me would sit slack-jawed as Tamil talk went on around us. On Sundays we didn’t sit down for a roast, but gathered for rice and dhal, tempering the spice with natural yoghurt. My dad would eat with his hands, whilst the rest of us would opt for cutlery. In many ways being a Sri Lankan was a spectator sport for us: we would turn out at the weekend to support the team, then go home, take off the colours, and be English again for the working week.

Manzoor though is more embedded in both worlds than I was. His father moved over from Pakistan for a better life. Unable to afford his wife and families passage, he lived without them for many years. It wasn't until 1974, fourteen years after his marriage, that he made the call for them to come over. Living in Bury Park, a predominantly Asian area, Manzoor’s father made the decision for his children to be educated at a predominantly white school. This may have been the defining moment in his children's lives. Occupying a space alongside white Brits meant they were susceptible to influence. For Muslims ritual, religion and family is the thing. These principles aren’t shared by the English. For the English, religion is something to think about on a Sunday and forget about for the rest of the week. For the English, family is about the people who live within your walls, as for the rest of them, well we’ll see them at Christmas. For the English duty and obligation is earmarked with a resigned shrug; it isn’t a guiding philosophy to live by day by day.

I really love this front cover.

With this culture clash it’s unsurprising that Sarfraz’s identity is annexed by British rule. On a trip to Pakistan he unwinds from the exhausting family meet-and-greet merry-go-round by listening to his Steve Wright In The Afternoon tapes. More evidence of his assimilation is his predilection for Western women. Instead of bejewelled Asian girls, he favours ones without decoration, preferably with nothing on. Consequently, he scours the local library perusing Amateur Photographer magazine for nudes. (Writing that, I’ve just remembered my dad used to be a subscriber. Dirty old man!)

However it isn’t until he attends college that he experiences the thing that paradoxically gives and takes his identity. Tied in a turban, a Sikh lad has a pair of headphones on. His eyes are closed; he’s immersed in sound. Sarfraz asks him what he’s listening to. The lad tells him, The Boss. At this point, Sarfraz has only heard of ‘Born in the U.S.A,’ which he thinks is alright. Amolak isn’t satisfied with this ambivalence. You’re either with Springsteen or you’re against him. Agnosticism will not do. Springsteen is The Word; Amolak his Disciple; he will turn this heathen to heaven and him experience the wonder that is Mr New Jersey. Soon Sarfraz is sending off for bootleg copies of Springsteen albums and writing his favourite lyrics down. It’s the start of a fanaticism that would lead to a book, an Edinburgh show and now a movie.

Each chapter of Greetings ... begins with a Springsteen lyric in the same way some books have religious epigraphs to give their work weight and direction. Throughout the course of his life, Springsteen is Sarfraz’s guiding light. Sons of immigrants, born into the working class, the two have something in common. The idea of commonality is what makes Springsteen endure. Where other pop stars find fame in elevated otherness, The Boss achieves popularity in staying true to his roots. He has the restless spirit of the small town: an urge to break out of the straightjacket of conservative values and find freedom on the great American freeway. In the book Sarfraz explains, ‘if religion was about answering the profound questions of how to live, Bruce Springsteen gave me more profound answers than Islam.’ An old text can feel just that: old; whereas pop lyrics often feel contemporary, urgent and relevant. Personally, I know I’ve learnt more about love and life through inlay lyrics than I did through my Catholic school upbringing. It’s this love of Springsteen that takes Sarfraz around the world, watching his hero, even meeting him on three occasions.

Never meet your heroes - unless they're The Boss. (Pic. courtesy of The Guardian)

The trouble Sarfraz has in his life is how to square the circle: How can someone 'born to run' walk with Allah? Is it possible to experience the love felt in pop music through a culture that arranges marriage? How can you be a getaway when social-cultural roadblocks block your way? The chapter ‘Better Days’ is particularly strong at documenting how difficult love is when it comes into contact with the shirt pull of history.

The thing I really loved about this memoir was that it was a profound page-turner. It made me reflect on my own life and how it may have been different. Undoubtedly, I have lost something in the sea-saw of my identity being tilted towards Blighty (there’s relatives I can’t converse with; I know little of my dad’s Hinduism; I don’t truly appreciate the struggle my family endured in conflict), but selfishly I feel less muddled. My devotion to education is Sri Lankan. I believe my work ethic is too. But I haven’t had to face the dilemmas Sarfraz has in balancing two worlds. The victory of the book is no one is truly to blame. It’s easy to stand in judgment and blame his parents for his inner-conflict, but that’s reductive and denies the complex social structures that inform their views.

Given the book was published in 2007 I was keen to find out how Manzoor’s life turned out. Typing his name into Google, I was relieved to read about him finding love and happiness. I really rooted for Manzoor in his memoir and I think you will too. I’m really excited about the forthcoming film because it will shine a spotlight on the immigrant experience and the challenges young people face in being dutiful to their parents and loyal to their hearts; but also in the hope it will turn people towards the original source material. Greetings from Bury Park shares themes with its inspiration - dreams, love and escape. It's a Springsteen album without the guitars. So here's what you should do: take out your headphones, put The Boss' album on, lie back and read these lyrics about a man Born in Pakistan but very much made in England.

Greetings from Bury Park is available now.

Blinded by the Light will be in cinemas next year.