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Bruce Springsteen changed my life… and so did my best friend Amolak

Sarfraz Manzoor was a teenager in Luton when he met a friend for life and discovered his musical hero. Now that fateful encounter is the subject of a major film

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.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SNwqPh
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