My last-but-one post, which mentioned Gautam Malkani’s forthcoming Londonstani, excited some comment. Not least amongst these was www.irvinewelsh.com, which linked it to this Independent article which (along with Publishing News and others) described Londonstani as reading like a “Muslim Irvine Welsh”, in unattributed quotes.

Now, STML does not claim a grand knowledge of Subcontinental nomenclature, but an STML reader (”Indian myself”) does, and, having read the excerpt, writes: “the author is a Hindu and it [the novel] seems to be set amongst Sikh and Hindu youth in Hounslow mostly. Well, I suppose we are all just a bunch of Paki’s - what’s the difference? It makes me laugh - the extract is about a Sikh kid getting angry because he is mistaken by a white guy for a Pakistani and that’s exactly what the media already seem to have done to the novel and author!”

“Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims have different names. Pakistani names are Arabic in origin. Gautam is a classic Hindu name - I believe the Buddha’s original name was Gautam - so it is thousands of years old. Well, I think the author might be making a point about the sectarianism amongst Asian wannabe gangster youth so it’s probably not something he is bothered about, but it’s still something to think about. Curious, that’s all, given the subject matter of the extract. It might be an interesting question to put to him, considering that it is something his characters are aware of and feel strongly about enough to kick someone’s head in for.”

Anybody care to comment?

[UPDATE 2/5/06: For the last word on Londonstani, see here.]