'I'm interested in how we get on – whether lower or upper caste'

A TEXT comes through from Daljit Nagra: "Wut time u kan meet me madam?" he texts me in jazzy "Punglish", the fractured English spoken by his parents' generation, ahead of our interview in a West Hampstead coffee shop.

A second-generation British Indian who lives in Dollis Hill, Nagra, 40, with his English partner, teaches at the nearby Jewish Free School (JFS) and chronicles the contemporary Asian experience with self-deprecating wit and style. His debut volume of poetry, Look We Have Coming to Dover!, won the 2007 Forward Poetry Prize for the Best First Collection and he was recently shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Poetry Award.

Although he was born in London and went to university there, he thinks his sense of humour is still very Punjabi. His parents were farmers who came to the UK from the Punjab in the 1950s, and Nagra is visibly moved when talking about the obstacles their generation faced when they first arrived here: "They had an incredibly tough time, but I just remember the stoicism of people that don't sit there whining and moaning."

Many of Nagra's poems are clearly autobiographical. His parents moved to Sheffield to open a shop when he was 15. He dropped out of school after his CSEs and studied English literature A-level at an evening class while working in the shop during the day. His parents began doing well, but there was a backlash. An attack on his dad's "champagne-gold Granada" inspired the poem Parade's End. "We were exposed heavily to the full brunt of white working-class anger and frustration about society. We were the only black or Asians in the area, so naturally we were targeted. Our store was robbed so often my parents found it cheaper not to insure it."

Aged 21 he won a place at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (London University) to study for a BA, followed by an MA in English. He explains: "I had a kind of arranged marriage a few days after leaving university at the age of 24. I met my partner at university and then the families got involved and took it to the next stage in a very, very hurried manner… it didn't work out. But I have a 13-year-old daughter from that relationship who lives just down the road so things have worked out amicably."

He argues that many student marriages don't last, but says: "It's insensitive to criticise arranged marriages en masse. To me it's just one system of people getting together. It can work well, when families treat it properly. The ones we tend to hear about – quite rightly – are the destructive ones where people take advantage. But I think there are really positive aspects to arranged marriage. It's exactly the same as internet dating."

He is thrilled to have a daughter, and fascinated that, unlike his younger self, she is very keen to identify herself as Indian, even though she doesn't speak Punjabi. "In a way, my book celebrates all those attempts at identity, and how much fun that is."

After all, there are so many different types of Indians in London: "I'm really interested in how we mix and get on: whether we're lower or upper caste."

He found himself gripped by the Celebrity Big Brother race row. "It captured two worlds: the class and race issues. Obviously it was awful to hear horrible comments aired such as Indians are all poor so that's why the food is so rubbish. It was really embarrassing, like being taken back to 1970s Britain and hearing those racist comedy shows. But talking to Indian friends, we found it quite shocking that people assumed Shilpa was 'better' because she was more sophisticated and that Jade was just a working-class yob. That seemed as offensive as the racism."

For the past four years Nagra has been with his partner, Katherine, a French teacher who is head of languages at JFS. In his poetry he calls her his "English Rose". They are expecting a baby this month.

"I have an English partner, my cousins have relationships with people who aren't from the same caste or even the same country," he says. "All around me I see people working together from different faith groups and different communities."

He has a similar work ethic. Now that he has made a success of his poetry, Nagra has been able to cut his teaching at JFS back to two days a week – but he has no intention of quitting. "I really enjoy teaching; it's partly where you get your energy and think about life. I think ordinariness – a familiar world – is really important to a writer."

A Sikh, Nagra also enjoys the "exchange" of teaching in a Jewish-faith school. "I really believe in the ideals of comprehensive education," he insists. But he's not nave. "One school I worked at years ago, we couldn't even supply the students with exercise books to write in. I thought, 'Oh my God, this feels like South Africa and it's west London.'"

The key, he believes, is for powerful parents – newspaper editors, PRs, writers – to get involved in their local state school. Teachers are not social workers, he insists. "We're not really acknowledging what happens to kids before they come to school, after they leave and at weekends."

Today he finds it liberating to explore his "Indianness" through writing. But growing up in Yiewsley, west London, his solution to racism was to act as white as possible. He would meet his white friends at his front door so he didn't have to invite them into his "Indian" house. He would bin the letters from the teachers so his mother (who wore colourful kameez and ballooned trousers) wouldn't go to parents' evenings. He and his brother were popular because they played sports. "I was always the OK one. They would say, 'We hate Pakis, but you're OK, Dal.'"

After university he did a number of menial jobs and concentrated on writing. The first verses he wrote were song lyrics inspired by Paul Weller and Joe Strummer. "I loved the way they wrote about the urban, and politics and ordinary life." He explains that performing was one of the reasons he became a poet: "The first form of self-expression I found was music. I was in a rock band, so it just seemed a natural step to have music without the guitars. And the closest thing I could find to that was poetry."

In his writing he was keen to express a working-class sensibility, but it wasn't until he reached his thirties that he had the confidence to start publishing. In 2004 he won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for Look We Have Coming to Dover!, a riposte to Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. Where Arnold gazed from the cliffs towards France, in Nagra's poem we see Indian immigrants arriving on the beach, greeted by the "yobbish rain and wind".

"I didn't think anyone else would connect with it. But not only was the content approved of, but also the way languages were mixed up in the poem."

His first collection was published last February by Faber & Faber, home of TS Eliot, and the critics fell over themselves to praise the collection: finally we had a proper contemporary British-Asian poet, and a book people might actually read.

He recently went to India with Katherine to research the colonial journey from Calcutta to the hill stations and, to his delight, his poetry will soon be published in India. "In a way I am celebrating the incredible success of that first generation who came over here and set up the corner shops, the Indian restaurants, and who made a massive contribution to English life," he says.

As for the backlash against multiculturalism, he remains defiant: "Growing up I tried to be as white as possible and hide my Indianness and now I've been able to turn it around. As a Sikh and as an English person working in a Jewish school I have a wonderful relationship with the kids; I don't see any tensions at all. And that's multiculturalism at work."