Greetings from Bury Park: Race. Religion. Rock 'n' Roll

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You don’t need to be a fan of America’s blue-collar poet — or a British Asian for that matter — to enjoy this deeply touching memoir. . . . One of the most honest depiction second-generation experience I have come across.”—Chitra Rawaswamy, Scotland on Sunday Bruce Springsteen – Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. – Album Review". AbsolutePunk.net . Retrieved 2014-02-21.

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Perhaps because of the slightly compartmentalised (British/Asian, Muslim/secular) life Manzoor describes, this is a highly segmented account. The Springsteen-song chapter headings, and the repeated references to his work, attempt to bring unity to the whole, yet the book could just as easily have been divided into three discrete slabs - 'Growing Up and the Death of My Dad', 'My Bruce Springsteen Thing', and 'Settling Down and Discovering Who I Really Am'.ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2008 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association . Retrieved April 29, 2022. But I think maybe why the memoir felt short changed for me was because Manzoor felt he had to showcase a specific view of what it meant to be a modern Pakistani Muslim man in Britain. And unfortunately a lot of what that meant was showing how he had assimilated to “western” lifestyle. Manzoor feels like a man still struggling to understand what his place is as a British person. His memoir in many ways is also a letter of reconciliation with Luton, a town he hated growing up in but could see its beauty the older he got. However, in the memoir he hasn’t quite figured it out.

Greetings from Bury Park by Sarfraz Manzoor | Open Library Greetings from Bury Park by Sarfraz Manzoor | Open Library

Two days after they were married my father returned to Karachi where he was working and my mother remained in Paharang to look after her elderly mother. She did not join my father for another eighteen months. Mohammed worked as a senior clerk in the Karachi Development Authority and it was his responsibility to allocate plots of land to incoming migrants from India. His brother worked for Pakistan International Airways and through him Mohammed learned about how many Pakistanis were heading for Britain. Britain had been encouraging Commonwealth immigration from India and Pakistan but by the end of 1962 free entry into Britain would be replaced by immigration controls, and employment vouchers would be needed to be allowed to work in Britain. Mohammed was ambitious and did not want his children - as yet unborn - to have to endure the hardships he had experienced. My father first revealed to my heavily pregnant mother that he was considering leaving for Britain in early 1962; he told her it would be for five years, enough time to earn and save money and return to Pakistan. It would be twelve months before he was finally able to secure the visa which would allow him to leave Pakistan. He left for England in January 1963. My older sister Navela was just one year old and my brother Sohail had been born barely a month before. How could my father have left his young family? He told his wife he must go to England before the children could speak; once they could tell him how much they would miss him, it would be too heartbreaking to leave. My mother claims she did not try to change her husband's mind because for a full year before he left he had kept reminding her that the only way their children were not going to be condemned to poverty was if she allowed him this one chance to carve out a better future elsewhere. And so, keeping any fears and reservations she might have harboured to herself, my mother gave my father her blessing. In chapters titled with Springsteen song titles Manzoor writes about his experiences growing up at once British, Pakistani, and Muslim, and at the same time not fitting into any of those catefories; indeed, the memoir is basically the story of how he is able to reconcile himself to each of those pieces of his history and reassemble them into a whole and healthy personality. While the movie compresses the timescale of events that in real life extended over a decade to fit into a filmable sequence, the screenplay written by Manzoor captures the important central themes and feelings of the memoir. The absence of any photographs of the real life Sarfraz in the book plus the cover photo from this movie tie-in edition of the actor who played him makes it impossible not to conflate the two. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Bruce Springsteen". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5thed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958. The inspiration for the smash Sundance hit, soon to be a major motion picture, "Blinded by the Light": T he acclaimed memoir about the power of Bruce Springsteen's music on a young Pakistani boy growing up in Britain in the 1970s. British album certifications – Bruce Springsteen – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." British Phonographic Industry.Springsteen Tour Of Europe A Triumph Covering 10 Nations" (PDF). Billboard. June 20, 1981. p.73. ISSN 0006-2510 . Retrieved April 29, 2022. With crisp, fresh writing and an appealing voice, Manzoor invites readers along with him on his journey from a dutiful but somewhat rebellious boy to a thoughtful, wise adult.”— Booklist A tender, funny, book, which captures the weirdness of second-generation British lives as well as anything I've read.” How Sarfraz Manzoor's love for Bruce Springsteen's music inspired "Blinded by the Light" ". CBS This Morning. 17 August 2019 . Retrieved 20 August 2019. Yet the comedy is marbled with genuine regret. The youthful Manzoor defines himself in opposition to his father. The possible resolution of this conflict - Sarfraz's success in the mistrusted world of the media - comes just too late; Mohammed Manzoor slipped from coma to death the very day his son's first professional assignment appeared in the Manchester Evening News. The opening chunk of this book thinks it's an exploration of difficult times and a tense relationship; in actuality it's a glowing, almost embarrassed tribute to a loving father who sacrificed everything to try and give his family a life better than that he'd known. It's simultaneously hugely personal and a set of feelings shared by the offspring of generations of such men who came to these shores from Ireland, eastern Europe and the subcontinent. 'His moral framework was underpinned by family, responsibility and pride.'

Greetings from Bury Park : Manzoor, Sarfraz, 1971- : Free Greetings from Bury Park : Manzoor, Sarfraz, 1971- : Free

When my mother was fourteen her father passed away, a year later her brother's wife and her twenty-two-year-old sister died within months of each other. Without a father, responsible for both her elderly mother and the seven-year-old daughter of her brother, Rasool Bibi would earn money for food by helping her neighbours with their cooking and cleaning. a b Christgau, Robert (April 1973). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". Creem: 70 . Retrieved 28 October 2011. Manzoor has written on a variety of subjects, from class and race to music and film. His most recent book, They: What Muslims and Non-Muslims Get Wrong About Each Other , explored British identity and religious tolerance.

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His experience at the University of Manchester, despite initially being about “trying to get away from my parents and my home town”, was formative. “It expanded my vision of the world. One of the things I would like to do [as chancellor] is expand not only the vision of students but also of people living in Luton.” In some ways, I think it can be argued the memoir is also a work about growing up. However, the growing that the protagonist has to work through is the death of his patriarchal father. Interestingly, though, given Manzoor's obsession with music, we are left wondering what sort of effect university life - and in particular the hedonistic 1990s "Madchester" scene - had on shaping his outlook on the world (perhaps, because he doesn't drink, very little). Also, a passing reference to his passion for the Qawwali Sufi music of the Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is left frustratingly unexplored. I don't know,' I replied, `but it's not about the money. This is my first chance to be published in a newspaper. It's the local paper here in Manchester. The Evening News.' urn:oclc:861957370 Scandate 20111123131927 Scanner scribe2.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Source

Greetings from Bury Park by Sarfraz Manzoor: 9780307388025

And this TV business, is it secure?' he asked. `Is there any future in it?' His voice was not filled with scepticism as I had expected but concern; when I answered that it depended on how good I was he nodded. My father was not a man given to extravagant flourishes of enthusiasm. `So you might be a journalist?' my father continued. `That's a good profession. Respectable.' Summary: Tender, touching and clear-sighted, Greetings From Bury Park is an illuminating perspective on what it means to be British, Muslim and of Pakistani heritage, but perhaps even more it's the story of the pleasures and pains in father-son relationships, whatever the nationality, religion or cultural identity. A lovely read. Javed is a reserved and quiet boy who from the outside who seems like a shell. On the inside however, he’s in turmoil. He’s depressed and his only outlet is his writing. Discouraged by his family, he at first places no value on his writing. But through the magic of Springsteen he begins to see how his life does have meaning and more importantly how he can create meaning for himself. Perhaps what makes this film incredibly moving is- Javed learns that being free does not necessarily have to mean a complete rejection of his Pakistani roots. He learns to accept his identity as a British boy is also inherently tied to being Pakistani. This felt particularly revolutionary considering the film is set 1987 Thatcherite Britain.

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Bruce Springsteen– lead vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, piano, keyboards, handclaps, bass guitar on “Blinded by the Light” and “Spirit in the Night”