The past is stalking me.
Two Sundays ago, at the Concours D’elegance, I saw my former boss, hands held behind his back, strolling around the yard before the gates opened. The boss owns Village Market and built it from nothing. I worked as a writer in the mall’s marketing department, my second job after university, and my second last gig before I went rogue and became freelance.
I walked up to him and removed my cap. “Mr. Hamed, it’s me, Biko.”
He laughed and said, “Of course, it’s you.” He always had a wise, fatherly demeanour that commanded respect and, sometimes, awe.
I introduced him to Lady.
We stood in the morning dew of Ngong Race Course and talked about cars and ageing. He had two vintage cars competing in the show. He, in his 70s, now restores cars as a hobby. He also paints. “You have to keep your mind and hands engaged.” He speaks gently, like in the scene in The Godfather where Don Corleone strokes a fat cat. (This is not a metaphor).
“That man is special to me,” I told Lady later. “He hired me on the spot and he bought me my first car.”
This is how the story of how I bought my first car goes.
One morning Mr. Hamed said, “Biko, I saw you at the bus stage last evening after work, is your car down?”
“No, Mr. Hamed, I don’t drive,” I said.
“Oh no? Where do you live?”
Mountain View Estate, I told him. I would hop in one of those mats from Ruaka into town, and pick a matatu at Odeon Cinema to Mountain View. I lived in a sweet, snugly bedsitter in a quiet cul-de-sac. Trees and things. Lovely neighbourhood. I had a two-seater blue sofa, a raggedy second-hand carpet that a homeless dog would not sleep on, a bed, a television set, a meko, and my clothes. I was 25 years old. And I was very happy. I was very happy because I didn’t have a plan. Plans just spoil the fun.
“Isn’t that up on Waiyaki Way? That’s very far.” Hamed said. “Maybe you should buy a car?”
I was earning something like 55K after tax, I couldn’t afford a car.
“I can’t afford it, Mr. Hamed,” I said.
“You can,” He said sagely. “How much would the kind of car you want cost?”
He was driving a Land Cruiser VX. Back then, circa 2005. Before Nairobi’s unscrupulous community made it the official car of graft.
“350K?” I gulped.
“Go up to Mr. Ghosh tomorrow and ask for a loan.” Mr. Ghosh, now deceased, was the Chief Accountant. “Tell him I sent you.”
So I went up to Mr. Ghosh’s office, which was up in the wooden attic. He spoke little, Mr. Ghosh. His hands were always moving. An accounting genius, Mr. Ghosh hardly made eye contact and he had an Indian accent as thick as the Bible. Mr. Ghosh would later wire me a loan of 350K (Interest-free!) to buy my first Toyota Corolla E100.
You all know how it is to buy your first car. You all know the unreasonable whirlwind love affair that ensues. So yes, the car was special and because he enabled it, Mr. Hamed has always been special.
More happenings.
A week later, at Waterfront Mall, I ran into Ciru, someone I knew from university. Hadn’t seen her in years! She was standing with two other girls, one who looked familiar and who turned out to be a former neighbour. Patricia was one of those very serious neighbours who minded their own business. They all went to high school together and had a reunion lunch.
That evening, guess who texted me, an event that is not related to running into my former boss. Hamed’s former PA, Betty, texted me from the blues. I was having dinner. I haven’t talked to Betty in over seven years. Haven’t seen her in, what, since I left Village Market in 2007. She said she had run into some old writings of mine from the Village Market days. I called them Friday Diary, which I would share with the staff every Friday. A roundup of what had been happening in the mall that week. Tongue in cheek, of course. They were all the rage, those Friday Diaries. She Whatsapped me some of them. We caught up a bit. She said she was now running a restaurant in Spring Valley called Sugar Bowl.
“We had breakfast there once when you just opened,” I told her. “Isn’t it the one at a petrol station?”
“That’s the one.” She said, “Come by for Brunch tomorrow. Let’s catch up.”
So I went and we caught up on old times. Time has been very kind to her; not only does she look sensational she has had a great run in her career. After leaving as Village Market’s General Manager, she went on to help set up malls like Two Rivers, Garden City, and The Hub. Now she was running her swanky restaurant. I couldn’t believe it. “I thought this place was owned by an Indian,” I said. “All this time you had a restaurant in you?”
Everything had changed. When we worked together, I didn’t have children. She had a son who is now 22 years, a grown-ass man, who designs houses, cooks, and even has a girlfriend. Her daughter, who was not born then, is now 17 years old, an apple that didn’t fall too far from the tree. “Where the f*rk did time go, Betty,” I whispered so that time wouldn’t hear. Anyway, brunch was great. I had the avo on toast because I keep shit simple.
Whatever you decide to eat at Sugar Bowl, whatever you do, be sure to have their Fruit Tea. It’s their special weapon, their silver bullet. It’s nothing you have ever drunk before. It will alter you. Alter your vision and allay your fears of the world. It’s what Hot Dawa thought it would do to the world. It’s who Dawa thinks he is. And it’s healthy. You can have it hot or you can have it on the rocks because it knows that we don’t agree on everything. And we shouldn’t. Remember, the Fruit Tea.
My past wasn’t done with me yet because that same evening I went to watch a play at Braeburn called Sanctuary. It’s by Santa Mukabanah and Martin Kigondu starring Martin Kigondu and Joyce Musoke. There, I ran into Marion, who was my desk-mate in university, some twenty years ago. She was with another ex-uni mate called Brian. “People are going through so much,” Brian told me when we discussed how scarce we all are, “and they don’t know how to reach out so everybody sits quietly in their corner.”
The whole point of this post is that time flies and everything changes. People move to other things and other people. Seasons come and go. Trees fall in forests and nobody hears them. Anthills cast longer shadows. Children grow up to become their own persons with their agency. Our worlds become smaller and smaller. We throw out dead weight from our boats so that we can drift further in this journey. We moan less over lost opportunities. We moan less, period. We eventually reach a point where we accept things we have no control over. We walk in forests at dawn and hear the trees breathe. We don’t take calls that will ruin our energy. We cut assholes from our lives; backstabbers, selfish pillocks, and those who think the sun rises from their arses. We love those who love us and we go to war for them. And we bring back the heads of their enemies and place them at their feet. And in our pocket, we have little f*rks left to give.
I’m in this reflective mood because, at the end of this week, I will be turning 47. It’s so surreal, I was telling my brother yesterday. I don’t feel it. I feel like a child myself. I don’t believe I’m raising children and making decisions about their future, let alone mine. I harbour such unseriousness that if they got a glimpse of it, they would request their money back. But it’s such a blessing. To be healthy and strong (OK, when I squat my knees sound like someone breaking groundnut pods) and to be doing what I love daily. To be able to get by. To have a very small community of people I treasure. Such a blessing that my grass grew, literally and figuratively.
As a birthday gift, I would like you to write what lesson you have learnt recently. It could be thought-provoking, funny, deep, simple, or just observational. It could be in the form of a very short story or a quote. You can even send a smiley if that’s a metaphor for your life’s lesson.
And to my birthday twins; Tony Ading, Gavin Ading, Connie Aluoch, Kwame Miyai, Florence Bett, happy birthday. Keep those elbows oiled.
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