We were just kids. The first time I met Amolak was in autumn 1987. I was 16 and starting my first week at Luton sixth form college. My father worked on the production line at the Vauxhall car factory, my mother was a seamstress working from home and I was expected to get a stable, sensible job, have an arranged marriage and lead a quietly respectful life in obscurity. That isn’t how life turned out.
When I first ran into Amolak he had his headphones on, and when I asked what he was listening to he told me it was Bruce Springsteen. When I queried his music taste he told me Bruce was a direct line to all that was true in this world. He then handed me some cassettes and instructed me to educate myself. The music I heard changed my life. It first turned me into a confirmed Springsteen fan and it then inspired me to follow my dreams and become a writer – a journey I described in my 2007 memoir Greetings from Bury Park – and now I am a screenwriter of a film adaptation of the book.
Blinded by the Light is a rites of passage comedy drama directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also directed Bend It Like Beckham. Set in 1987, it revisits my teenage years and much of it is directly based on real events. One unlikely consequence of this is that my teenage friendship with Amolak has now been immortalised – not something either of us could have imagined in our wildest dreams.
It was deeply weird the first time I saw Viveik Kalra, who plays my character, Javed, and Aaron Phagura who plays the Amolak character, Roops. It was in April last year and I was in west London to watch Gurinder film the scenes recreating my first meeting with Amolak. It was especially strange to see Aaron because he looked exactly like the teenage Amolak – the same double denim and the same Springsteen badges and T-shirt underneath his jacket. A London school had been transformed into Luton sixth form college – there was even a banner saying “Welcome to the Class of ’87”.
Much of the rest of the film was shot in Luton, sometimes using locations that featured in our real lives. There is a cafe called Greenfields located upstairs in what used to be known as the Arndale Centre. Amolak and I have frequented it since we were teenagers. I had written a scene in Greenfields, and when Gurinder was scouting locations I suggested she see the real place. One look and she was sold, which was how I came to be at her side in Greenfields watching Viveik and Aaron in the seats where Amolak and I sat as teenagers, saying dialogue I had written, based on things we used to say.
Two weeks ago, I sat with Amolak in a Soho screening room to show him the final cut of Blinded by the Light. When the film ended he was lost for words, and that is not a common occurrence. We repaired to a nearby bar, and once he had time to process it he told me that seeing the film had been one of the strangest experiences of his life. I had been telling him about my dream of turning the book into a film and he had read a draft of the screenplay, but to see it all on the big screen, with actors playing us, was overwhelming. He told me he was shocked by how much truth and authenticity I had been able to bring.
Having been a journalist and broadcaster who often writes first-person pieces, I am not much fazed when strangers approach me and assume they know me. Amolak does not work in the media but he has already become a minor celebrity at work. He told me that one colleague came up to him and, when Amolak mentioned their meeting was not until later, the man said he had just come over to meet “the film star”.
The film is not released until 9 August, but I have spent the past few weeks at preview screenings across Britain and the United States. One of the most common reactions is that people say they were touched by the depiction of the friendship of Javed and Roops, to the extent that people now tweet me to tell of the friend who was “their Roops” – the one who introduced them to a life-changing musician or band. My mate has become a noun.
At the very end of Blinded by the Light there are a set of stills. Among the ones that prompt the biggest cheers at previews are those of Amolak and me. There is one of us taken in 1990 in New Jersey on the Asbury Park boardwalk and another one, taken last, on set in Luton.
The two constants in my life since I was 16 are Springsteen and Amolak, and it is a source of great pride and pleasure to me that our friendship has endured for more than 30 years. These days, we are both middle-aged husbands and fathers but tomorrow night we will both attend the gala screening of Blinded by the Light with our wives.
When the lights dim and the film starts we will be transported back to that fateful autumn of 1987 when we were just kids.
Blinded by the Light is in cinemas from 9 August. Greetings from Bury Park, the memoir by Sarfraz Manzoor which inspired the film, has now been reissued with a new afterword.
@sarfrazmanzoor
