Brothers find home in hardware store
Longtime West Van Home Hardware proprietors retiring
Laura Anderson / North Shore News
July 27, 2014 12:00 AM
Christmas came in June this year with a feast of samosas at the Home Hardware store in West Vancouver.
Azim and Nawaz Virani brought their holiday tradition forward as a gesture of appreciation to customers and friends and to soften the news that, after 30 years in business together, the brothers are retiring.
Their story began a very long time ago in India, in the state of Gujarat, and continued through the generations until the turn of the last century.
Around 1900, in a transfer of population engineered by the British Empire, the Viranis and the Amershis, the maternal branch of the family, (though the families did not know each other at the time) immigrated to East Africa.
The seven Virani brothers and their one sister, were born and raised in the Kenyan town of Kisimu on the shores of Lake Victoria.
"I thank my father for making sure we knew our family came first," says Azim, the eldest brother. "He died very young and our mother became the glue in our family."
By the 1970s, political turbulence generated next door in Uganda by Idi Amin prompted many Kenyans of Indian extraction to seek a more stable home.
Although most of the family had immigrated to Canada, Mrs. Virani, would not leave without her son, Nawaz, and his wife.
"I wanted to stay," recalls Nawaz, "I was having the time of my life in Kenya, recently married, working and active in the community."
Mrs. Virani prevailed.
Nawaz joined his uncle Abdul at the Busy Bee drycleaners in West Vancouver.
When the hardware business a few doors away came available, the family clubbed together to make the investment. Uncle Abdul retained the drycleaners while Nawaz and his elder brother, Azim, joined Home Hardware in 1981, the year the chain went national.
It was a good fit. Family, faith and service come first in the Ismaili branch of Islam. The practice of active support for family and fellow Ismailis extends to the wider community.
The partnership worked for the brothers Virani too. "I'm the office guy. Azim is the inventory guy," says Nawaz. "I'm in the office writing the cheques, dealing with the banks. Azim is out front, looking after the inventory and the customers. And we're brothers."
Five years on, opportunity knocked at 1750 Marine Dr. The owner of the building was ready to retire.
For the past several years, the address was home to Fashionwise, Ambleside's leading women's apparel shop. Originally, it was the Hollyburn Theatre, erected in 1926 by local businessman and reeve, Howard Fletcher.
The Viranis gathered the funds to purchase the building and set about renovating, a process that included replacing the central spiral staircase from Fashionwise days with a flight of stairs more appropriate to a hardware store.
The doors of the new Home Hardware opened in February 1987 and the tradition of serving samosas and kebabs to customers at Christmas time resumed.
In 1993, disaster struck. The brothers watched from across the street as a fire set in the middle of the night gutted the building and destroyed the store's entire inventory. Home Hardware helped with the restoration and the Viranis' customers demonstrated their loyalty.
One customer promised to defer large purchases until the store reopened. Another wrote the brothers a cheque for $500. "We said, 'Save your money and spend it when we reopen,'" recalls Azim, visibly moved by these gestures of support even 20 years later.
One year later, the store reopened and it was business as usual with each of the ensuing 20 years marked by the Christmas tradition.
For customers and friends, for the staff and new proprietor, fellow Ismaili Alnoor Jatha, the final feast was both comfort and celebration.
For Azim and Nawaz, after 30 years of a brotherly partnership, a chapter in their life story has closed and a new one opened.
"We don't know what lies ahead," says Azim. "My prayer is always to make each part of my life useful to people."
Source: http://www.nsnews.com/living/seniors/br ... -1.1264582