Summary

The short story “Paki” by Guaram Malkani starts with a gang of boys who call themselves the Desi Rudeboys. They are beating up a white boy. The leader of the gang, Hardjit, is kicking the boy and reprimanding him for calling them “Pakis”, while the rest of the gang cheers him on. 

Hardjit threatens to beat the white boy up even worse if he dares to call someone a Paki again. Jas, who is the newest member of the gang, watches Hardjit and feels envious of the language and expressions Hardjit uses and how cool he sounds. He explains that while most people are jealous of Hardjit’s designer clothes or muscled physique, Jas is jealous of the way Hardjit is able to express himself in a way that fits his cool gang member persona. 

Jas remembers how the gang first called themselves “rudeboys”, and then found different names for themselves, and now they mostly refer to themselves as Desis. Jas thinks that for him it does not matter what they call themselves, what matters most to him is that he cannot seem to be able to get a hang of the gang’s way of speaking. He remembers how his teachers made him practice his English by watching newsreaders on the BBC and now he is watching MTV and listening to rap music to lea...