Dairy owner’s resolve
I have come to appreciate that expression first coined by the Americans, the ‘‘convenience store’’.
In the past six months, Hamilton has suffered its share of dairy robberies. In September a hammer-wielding assailant was chased out of the superette on the corner of Edinburgh Rd and Brocas Ave. In October a pistol was pointed at the head of Usha Patel, co-owner of Mitcham Avenue Dairy in Forest Lake; she was invited to choose between being shot and opening the till. In November the Emm Jay Dairy, corner of Grey and Brookfield streets, was ram raided, and Ajit Farrar lost an eye fighting off the hoodlums who attacked him at midday in his Frankton shop.
This is not the country most of us grew up in. Are crime rates attributable to the ever widening gap between haves and have-nots? Is the high price of cigarettes relevant? Does the racial aspect of the offending mean that our Indian citizens have been marked as soft or easy targets? When coupled with a police response that is, at best, inconsistent, and clearly falls well short of deterrence, it’s a recipe for disaster.
In my corner of Hamilton, at the north end of Victoria St, a dairy opened in May of 2016. I have come to appreciate that expression first coined by the Americans, the ‘‘convenience store’’. It has proven convenient whenever there has been desperate need to replenish supplies of milk, tea and coffee, still more so when you fancy a samosa for lunch or a light bulb has blown for the fifth time that week. Just as important has been the social aspect: the addition of a new personality and new voice to our little strip of the inner city, a friendly face from another culture who offers warmth, humour and a different perspective, lightening the daily grind. As Jitendra Hirani and his wife have built their business and client base, they have enriched the community.
Indian by ethnicity, Kenyan by birth and Hindu by religion, Jitendra was educated at Canterbury University. He endured the Christchurch earthquakes and a period of unemployment when an accountancy degree could not deliver a job commensurate with his abilities and ambition.
Outside of the necessary time off taken when their first child was born in the middle of last year, the Hiranis have opened six days a week and work the seventh, too.
Jitendra’s views on the hazards of his occupation are a model of constraint and common sense. Neither blind to the real dangers involved nor overly paranoid, his caution could never be confused with a lack of courage. He praises the security that Hamilton’s City Safe staff afford him, pointing out the quickness of the response whenever an issue arises with the homeless or beggars. He references an incident back in mid-September when a brawl outside the nearby ANZ bank threatened to get ugly. One of those involved was in possession of an axe. A member of the public – an office worker and frequent customer, mindful of the threat to Jitendra and his family – called the police, who arrived in force and inside five minutes.
The comparative closeness of the police station, together with traffic density and the support of the wider community are positives in Jitendra’s book. Moreover, he has taken the initiative in establishing an informal arrangement with other businesses nearby. If he pushes his panic button there’s a high probability that a neighbour armed with the tools of the cobbling trade will soon be on the scene, able and willing to fight the good fight.
Jitendra himself alludes to a couple of secret weapons, one ‘‘lethal’’, the other less so, that could be utilised in an emergency. It’s hard to imagine such a gentle man, one whose commitment to his faith extends to a store prohibition on meat pies, being moved to violence.
When pressed on the possibility that attacks on dairies have a racial component, Jitendra answers slowly and with due consideration. Perhaps Indians are thought of as being more vulnerable or weak, he concedes, but it’s just as likely that statistics read as they do because a disproportionate number of dairies are owned and managed by those of the ethnic group.
An international perspective is offered on the New Zealand situation. Crime rates might be up but things are not as bad as Kenya. In the country of Jitendra’s birth, the preferred weapon of the criminal class is the AK-47. Mrs Hirani had the automatic gun thrust in her face. From such experience comes resolve.
The dairy will not be closing any time soon.