Haji Noor Mohamed

A PIONEER WHO MAGE HIS MARK ON THE MAP

From Interview with Late Abdul Mahedi Hajee, Eldoret

My grandfather, Haji Noor Mohammed lived in Veraval where he was a trader dealing in produce, especially onions which were the main export from Veraval to the rest of India.

Sometime around 1890, he went from Veraval to Bombay and thence Aden. I do not know why he went to Aden, but I suppose it was from a sense of adventure. Then, sometime between 1890 and 1895 he came on to Mombasa. He took up a job with Allidina Visram and was sent to manage one of his shops. Allidina had shops all along the Railway line. The shop he sent my grandfather to Simba Station.

The word ‘simba’ is a Swahili word for ‘lion* and the station was called Simba Station for the reason that there were lions there, man-eating lions as my grandfather found out, for he narrowly escaped with his life from the man-eaters. His story was this.

Allidina Visram was a very strict boss. He would visit all his shops along the Railway line to see how things were going. He was so strict that if he saw his shop clerks were idle without enough work to do, he would go in the back store and pull down a pile of blankets or whatever and tell his employees to clean up the mess.

One time he was visiting the shop at Simba Station. He wanted to leave with the train so he told my grandfather to go across to the station master and find what time the train was due in. It was already dark so my grandfather set off with a hurricane lamp. He knocked on the door of the Stationmaster*s office — and to his surprise, the Stationmaster quickly pulled him inside and said. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night? Don’t you know there are lions about? Two people have just been killed outside here!’

The Stationmaster would not allow my grandfather to go out again but kept him in the station where he slept on a bench. It was that experience that made my grandfather stop working for Allidina Visram and decide to go into business on his own.

When my grandfather quit working for Allidina Visram, he went on up to Nairobi. There he met a fellow Ismaili named Wall Hasham who was a wholesaler. He gave my grandfather some goods on credit and my grandfather went off to Eldama Ravine. (near Eldoret- to open a duka. ed.)

Family Scrapbook

Pioneer's Scrapbook.
Haji Noor Mohamed's duka on Eldima Ridge metioned in the Pioneers Scrapbook.
Haji Noor Mohamed's simba story corroborated in a colonial book.
Haji Noor Mohamed's simba story corroborated in another colonial book.